West campaign could put ballot access questions to rest
Nader 2008 national ballot access coordinator ready and willing to contract with campaign
For the first time in my lifetime, ballot access for independent candidates is being held up as an insurmountable obstacle to challenging an imperial corporate oligarchy at its most vulnerable and dangerous point.
In the past, it was sufficient for the two-party state to appeal to pragmatism as the two parties lined up on opposite sides on divisive issues like abortion and gun control, while limiting debate on foreign policy to which side is more reckless and aggressive in confronting the appointed enemy of the day, selected by the willing agents of the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us of upon his departure from office.
The difficulty of ballot access was a dirty little secret, though one which could be overcome by the likes of perennial presidential candidate Harold Stassen. My first presidential vote was for my home state Communist Party candidate Gus Hall and his running mate Angela Davis.
Dr. Cornel West and, it must be said, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., entered the presidential race ready to risk their lives to chart a new course away from an unsustainable empire abroad and an intolerably authoritarian state at home. It is more than ironic that the independent voices of the new online media that poses such a direct threat to a dying empire are so confused about the ballot access process and cynical about the ongoing Bernie Sanders betrayal that they continue to postulate that West’s withdrawal from the dysfunctional US Green Party was a de-facto withdrawal from the race.
West could silence his critics and build a winning campaign that could truly empower the “wretched of the earth” by hiring Christina Tobin of the Fair and Equal Vote Foundation to head his ballot access drive. Campaigning for Nader in the year of Obama in 2008, Tobin achieved ballot access in 45 states, with write-in status in four of the remaining five.
In response to a query from this writer, Tobin said, “I would absolutely love to help Mr. Cornel West.”