{news} It's Not Easy Being Green--Drug Policy is The Main Issue

[clifford thornton]

      OPED 

It's Not Easy Being Green
October 3, 2006 
CLIFFORD W. THORNTON 

      Being green is like being black.

      As both the first Green Party candidate for governor and the first African American to run for this office in state history, I have learned that discrimination is alive and well in Connecticut.

           

           
      My grandmother and great-grandmother raised me in Hartford, and I remember landlords telling my guardians that they were not welcome in certain buildings because of their skin color.

      We must acknowledge that color plays a role today, because if it didn't, there would be more non-white candidates running for statewide office. But I am not so naive as to believe that being black or Green was the sole determining factor in my exclusion from the upcoming Oct. 9 and Oct. 18 televised debates between Republican incumbent Gov. M. Jodi Rell and Democratic contender New Haven Mayor John DeStefano.

      The main culprit is the fear of ideas. The Republicans and Democrats want to maintain control of our representative democracy, and to do so, they must monopolize the marketplace of ideas.

      For example, neither party has a real response to my proposal to make public colleges and universities in Connecticut tuition-free, an idea embraced in most of the Western industrialized world. To avoid thoughts like this, the two parties colluded to prevent me from speaking to the state's largest possible audience of voters.

      Rell and DeStefano conveniently blamed each other for keeping me out the debates. DeStefano's campaign negotiators told my staff that this wasn't our time. Someday, they implied, Greens can sit at the front of the bus, but not this year. 

      Friday, the League of Women Voters determined that I met its standards to join the gubernatorial debates. But DeStefano's campaign threatened to withdraw from the Oct. 9 televised debate, which is sponsored by the League and the New London Day, if I was allowed to speak. The Day said I didn't raise enough money, in disagreement with the League. They dissolved their partnership and I was uninvited. My opinion that ballot access equals debate access was overruled by private interests.

      Gov. Rell's people misled us. On Sept. 1, her campaign manager, Kevin Deneen, issued a letter stating that Gov. Rell "believes strongly that Mr. Thornton deserves a place in any debates." Come Sept. 22, Deneen flip-flopped with no explanation except that DeStefano made him do it.

      I find it funny that Connecticut Democrats have not backed this African American's right to represent the disenfranchised, whatever race, creed or political affiliation they may be.

      On the campaign trail, I hear uncensored voices, including those of hundreds of students. When I speak at middle schools, high schools and colleges, I ask, "If you think we have democracy in this country, please raise your hand." No students ever raise their hands! Perhaps young people understand better than adults do what the two parties aim for when they blackball candidates.

      Some would argue that being in the televised debates doesn't matter. U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd and his competitor Jack Orchulli welcomed the Libertarian and Concerned Citizens candidates into the 2004 Senate debates. Yet both minor-party candidates received less than 1 percent of the vote.

      If minor-party ideas are so unappealing to voters, why do the major parties seek to silence my voice? What is the harm? Is it because I raise issues they do not want to face?

      The policies the two parties have created threaten to destroy our culture from within. The D's and R's cannot save us from their nasty monsters, so they either repeat the same tired rhetoric like incantations at exorcisms or ignore them altogether, shushing those who dare to discuss Frankenstein on the sofa.

      My campaign offers reasonable ideas to address violence on city streets, overcrowding of prisons, skyrocketing public health costs, declining educational progress, homelessness, job creation and poverty elimination.

      The Connecticut Green Party collected more than enough signatures to place my name on the ballot, yet that does not merit my inclusion into the greater electoral process?

      This is wrong, and I firmly believe that candidates who earn ballot access belong in the debates. How else are voters supposed to learn about new party platforms?

      The Democrats and Republicans answer by discriminating against new party candidates. The two parties bar my black and Green self from speaking to the Connecticut electorate because they view my ideas as unacceptable. Coincidentally, these ideas mostly impact the well-being of poor black, brown and white people.

      Clifford W. Thornton of Hartford is the Green Party candidate for governor.  



Thornton for Governor
PO Box 1971
Manchester, CT 06045
votethornton at yahoogroups.com<mailto:votethornton at yahoogroups.com>
www.votethornton.com<http://www.votethornton.com/>
860 657 8438-H
860 268 1294-C
860 778 1304-Tim Mckee-Campaign Manager
860 293 0222-Ken Krayeske-field Manager
Paid for by Thornton For Governor
Max H. Wentworth, Treasurer
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