The Final Call

Cynthia McKinney runs for president

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• Cynthia McKinney (McKinney for President Campaign Site)

Cynthia McKinney

Whatever they would be, Cynthia McKinney is ignoring them.

The former Georgia congresswoman, known for her outspokenness on hot political issues, is one of 5 candidates for  the presidential nomination of the Green Party.  She was in Austin, Texas in December, soliciting support for her up the mountain campaign.

Ms. McKinney spoke to listeners of KAZI-FM’s talk show, “The Wake-Up Call,” telling listeners that both the Democrats and the Republicans want to feed people to the war machine. She said people’s values are ignored by the major parties and opportunities for advancement are being exported, instead of cultivated here at home. Rep. McKinney spoke with Nokoa by phone following the radio broadcast.

“The Green Party has a primary process. I have had a long relationship with members of the Green Party. Their members supported my first campaign in 1992. Think about economic justice, public policy for people who have been left out, health care, these are all concerns I share with members of the Green Party,” she said.

Ms. McKinney, who served in Congress as a Democrat, quit the party in September.

“Being green, feeling green, but not being a Green. The structure of politics doesn’t fit my values so you have to find where your values do fit,” she said.

In the radio interview, Ms. McKinney said she was on the ballot in four or five states. She tells Nokoa that she won’t stop there.

“My goal is to be on 51 ballot lines, including the District of Columbia. In Texas our petition drive needs to collect 45,000 valid signatures from registered voters for my name to appear on the ballot. Nationally, our goal is to get over five percent of the vote.”

Ms. McKinney is traveling by car. She has toured Oklahoma, Illinois and Minnesota. She said she has visited 25 states so far and support keeps growing everywhere she makes an appearance. She visited Houston before her Austin appearance, which took place at the Ruta Maya Café. There she was greeted by a throng of supporters and Green Party activists.

Some pundits would say that Cynthia McKinney has about as much chance of winning the presidency as George Bush has of being named a Rhodes scholar, but she also has an immense opportunity to make a major difference in America’s political spectrum. It would not be a leap of more than inches to assert that the majority of Americans are dissatisfied with both the Democratic and Republican parties. America’s founders did not want political parties at all, but they quickly learned that an opposing choice offers greater democracy. And now that it is evident that the choice between the two ruling parties can only result in a ruling party with a dissenting partner, the only real option is other options.

Cynthia McKinney served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003 and from 2005 to 2007, representing Georgia’s Fourth Congressional District. Ms. McKinney was defeated in the 2006 Democratic primary, losing her congressional seat for the second time. She quit the Democratic Party about a month before filing paperwork with the FEC creating an exploratory committee for a Green Party presidential campaign on Oct. 22.

Ms. McKinney earned a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California, a Masters of Art in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is a Ph.D. student at University of California, Berkeley.

Her political career began in 1986 when her father, a representative in the Georgia House of Representatives, submitted her name as a write-in candidate for the Georgia state house. She won about 40 percent of the popular vote and began preparing for another attempt. In 1988, Ms. McKinney ran for the same seat and won, making the McKinneys the first father and daughter to simultaneously serve in the Georgia statehouse.

In the 1992 election, Ms. McKinney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as the member of Congress from the newly created 11th District, a 64 percent Black district stretching from Atlanta to Savannah. She was the first Black woman to represent Georgia in the House. Ms. McKinney lost her seat in 2002 after losing the primary election. She regained her seat in 2004, when it was open due to then Rep. Denise Majette’s run for the U.S. Senate. In 2006, she was opposed in the Democratic primary by Hank Johnson and John Coyne III. She lost the primary election runoff 59 percent to 41 percent for Mr. Johnson on August 8, 2006.