{news} Third Party Candidates Debate At Storrs

Mon Oct 30 12:48:05 EST 2006

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Third Party Candidates Debate At Storrs
By Steven Durel
Issue date: 10/30/06 Section: News<http://www.dailycampus.com/news/2006/10/30/News/>
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            Cliff Thornton announces Nancy Burton as the Green Party Candidate for Attorney General.

            Joseph Zdonczyk presents platform at debate held at East Ridge Middle School.

UConn hosted a small gubernatorial debate on Friday evening sponsored by Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). Several people gathered into College of Liberal Arts and Sciences room 105 shortly before 6 p.m. to hear a spirited exchange between Cliff Thornton of the Green Party and Joe Zdonczyk of the Concerned Citizens Party. Incumbent Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and Democratic nominee John DeStefano were both also invited to participate in the debate, but neither was able to attend.

The two minor-party candidates spoke for one full hour on a variety of topics, ranging from marijuana legalization to the influence of money on politics. Stephanie Molden of the SSDP asked most of the evening's questions, though one excited member of the audience also made some inquiries.

"The Green Party is a party of social and environmental justice," Thornton said during his opening statement. "We are a party that is looking to make great change in the state of Connecticut for our educational, environmental and social programs."

Thornton also made note of his plan to provide free college tuition to Connecticut students.

"Over the years I've seen the state of Connecticut deteriorate in so many areas," Zdonczyk said. "And it's simply because the major parties have their own agendas. They don't know what it is that's affecting the people in the state of Connecticut. All they know is, they're funded by sources and those sources expect, after the elections, to have an ear. They're the ones that the governor listens to, who funded their campaigns."

Thornton agreed that the major-party candidates are not in touch with average citizens.

"These two people that are running for office have virtually shut us out of the debates and all types of media," Thornton said. "Everywhere I go where DeStefano is, I get the loudest ovations and I get the thumbs up from the crowd. It just goes to show you that he's not speaking to the people. Rell, I don't know where she is, she never appears anyway."

Thornton and Zdonczyk were both recently kept out of the state's televised gubernatorial debates, even though the League of Women Voters, an original sponsor of the first debate, had invited Thornton to attend. The New London Day, the other sponsor of the event, accepted responsibility for excluding Thornton, saying that he did not have enough financial contributors to warrant a podium. 

Though the Day took blame for barring Thornton, DeStefano's campaign had reportedly threatened not to participate in the first two debates if minor-party candidates would also appear and even publicly suggested that their presence would serve only as a distraction. Similarly, Gov. Rell refused to meet more than twice for what her staff called "an extended series of debates."

Even though they were prohibited from standing alongside the major-party candidates, both of the third-party nominees showed up at the first gubernatorial debate in New London's Garde Arts Center. Zdonczyk got on stage before the event to address the crowd for a short time before politely being escorted out. Thornton rallied with dozens of Green Party supporters outside, in a scene that was filmed for a commercial later aired right before the second debate.

At UConn, discussing the topic of transportation, Thornton suggested that Connecticut invest in mass transit undertakings like railcars. Zdonczyk said he would like to see more people working at home, since that would cut back greatly on the need to commute. 

The candidates were eventually asked for their opinions on medical marijuana.

"I would like to see the outright legalization of marijuana," Thornton said. "And along with it, hemp, because hemp is one of those alternative energy sources that we could possibly use to help with the energy problem in this particular state and in the country. It produces much more biodiesel-type fuel than corn for a lot less money."

Zdonczyk sharply disagreed with Thornton over marijuana.

"It would seem to me that there are all kinds of medical alternatives-you talked about alternative energy-I would think there are all kind of other alternatives to ease the pain and suffering of people who are insistent upon using marijuana as their form of relief. Marijuana, I believe, is a gateway drug," Zdonczyk said.

"Cannabis has been used for medical purposes for thousands of years all over the world," Thornton said. "So when you speak of marijuana, marijuana has the ability and is much cheaper than synthesized drugs. This is why they don't want to make it legal. It's cheaper, in many respects it's much more effective and [another] reason they really don't want marijuana legalized is because of hemp. Now, you talk about money and say it's all about money. This is all we're talking about. Any time that you talk about legalizing, medicalizing or decriminalizing drugs, you're only talking about one thing-the redistribution of economic power."

Unexpectedly, one male member of the audience interjected and began speaking to the candidates for a few minutes.

"I feel that there's much bigger issues at hand than a lot of these things that we are saying, because the structure of power is so small," Hugo Barecca, a 3rd-semester philosophy major, said.

The young man criticized the Federal Reserve banking system, as well as the passage of legislation establishing military commissions for the War on Terror that deny illegal enemy combatants habeas corpus and the right to cite the Geneva Conventions. 

"You're frustrated," Thornton said.

"I'm very frustrated with the system," Barecca.

"Right and I hear your frustration," Thornton said. "However, if you don't participate in this thing called democracy, then you're just as much at fault as they are."

Thornton linked the audience member's fears about diminishing American freedoms back to the subject of drugs.

"When you look at it and you look at the decades of this Drug War, you will see the erosion of our rights through this Drug War," Thornton said. "You will see the conspiracy theory that allows a police officer to frisk you or stop you just because he thinks you may have drugs. So the Drug War is at the core of most of our problems. If we didn't have the Drug War, we couldn't have passed the PATRIOT Act."

"Reasonably, what you're saying is, we've got to get back to our Constitutional fundamentals," Zdonczyk said. "You know, when the Constitution was put together, it strictly defined the limits of those three branches of government-the executive, judicial and legislative. And also the Ninth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment, particularly, say in effect that all of the authority that is vested in the central branches is strictly defined and that all other rights, which is what you're talking about, are reserved to the states and/or the people."

The Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Tenth Amendment reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

"Going back, if you're looking at the Constitution, you have to look back even further than that," Zdonczyk said. "You have to look at the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence: it was the birth certificate of this country. Now what does it say? We have certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and that government is created to assure these rights."

The candidates were then asked by the SSDP's Stephanie Molden to define their land ethic.

"I don't want to see any more roads built anywhere," Thornton said. "I want to see mass transit. I want to use the farmland that we have to produce hemp. I want to make sure that, when we start building businesses, we don't start changing the codes."

"The other thing that is very important is eminent domain," Thornton said. "Eminent domain has changed over the last ten years. Eminent domain is supposed to be when the government takes over private property and uses it for highways, libraries or schools. But now they are taking away people's personal property and putting businesses in there. I'm gonna stop that. I don't want that to happen."

By comparison, Zdonczyk denied that government could assert any authority over personal property.

"Going back once again to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, that is involved in that whole concept," Zdonczyk said. "Life and liberty, how you use what you're going to earn by your own sweat and toil. That's a personal thing and it belongs to you. And the idea that you could be working a lifetime to put together a few bucks and buy a piece of property and live there and make it your home, the idea that some governmental agency is going to come in and, just by reason of this vague concept of the greater good being served if we can grab your property, is repulsive. And what we need to do is understand that, once the government comes in and asserts its supposed authority to grab your own home, we're in serious trouble. And we have to fight this for as long as we have a breath, because once we give up that right, that is just giving away that authority over our property."

Both men referenced Rell and DeStefano in their closing statements.

"I'm running as a taxpayer advocate," Zdonczyk said. "I'm face-to-face with two big spenders who have absolutely no concept about where that money comes from and how hard we have to work to get it."

"If you're not satisfied with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, then listen," Thornton said in his concluding remarks. "What I'm going to do, if elected to office, is challenge the federal government to bring these drugs inside the law by setting up programs like heroin maintenance and cocaine maintenance that have been effective not only in Europe, but in Canada. The next thing I'm going to do is shore up education within this state. And the third thing that I'm going to do, I'm going to have an audit on every single department, over the last ten years, to find out where they're spending the money and how they're spending it."

While neither of the two minor-party candidates is expected to win the election, third parties have traditionally helped to push taboo issues like slave abolition and labor rights into mainstream political discourse. During an interview with the Daily Campus last January, Thornton said that he would personally be happy to secure only five to 10 percent of the vote.

The election for this office and others is scheduled to happen on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

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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