Greens Nominate Cynthia McKinney

By John Nichols

17/07/08 "The Nation" -- - The Green Party has made a good deal of history this weekend.

The party has nominated a former member of Congress for the presidency, a coup for the party that itself has yet to elect a U.S. representative or senator.

The party has nominated a woman for president, no small matter in a year when Democrats have rejected an opportunity to crack the political glass ceiling.

The party has nominated an African-American for president, no small matter in a year when the Democrats have embraced Barack Obama.

And the former member of Congress, the woman and the person of color that the Green Party has nominated is a smart, articulate and outspoken public figure who – despite the fact that she has taken her hits from a media and a political class that never could get comfortable with the idea that a young black women was walking the corridors of power and making no apologies – is more than capable of standing her ground in a presidential race that so far has been longer on style than ideas.

Cynthia McKinney, a former Democrat who represented Georgia in the U.S. House during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George Bush and often sparred presidents of both big parties, easily secured the Green nomination Saturday at the party's convention in Chicago.

She then delivered an acceptance speech in which she made it clear that the small but serious party, which has more than 200 elected officials nationwide and grassroots organizations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, would be heard in a campaign where much of the media has a hard time seeing beyond Democratic blue and Republican red.

As delegates and supporters waved "Paint the White House Green" signs, McKinney declared, "I am asking you to vote your conscience, vote your dreams, vote your future, vote Green."

Resolutely anti-war and anti-imperialist, firmly committed to defending individual liberties and determined to hold the outgoing president and vice president to account – as a member of the House in 2006, McKinney introduced the first articles of impeachment against President Bush – McKinney is an ardent advocate for national health care, expanded education spending and energy policies that emphasize mass transportation and conservation rather than rewarding oil-company profiteering.

And, as she notes, "I have a record of standing up on all of these issues."

It is that record, and her willingness to stand on it, that distinguishes McKinney from Democrat Obama and Republican John McCain, both of whom are being accused of changing positions in order to reposition their campaigns for November.

McKinney does not spend much time attacking either the Democrat or the Republican. Rather, the former state legislator and six-term member of the House – whose broad experience as a child of the civil rights movement, a community activist, an educator and a state and national official compares favorably with both of her big-party rivals – simply says: "Don't expect me to keep a count of the major flip flops of the other candidates between now and November. I'm sure there will be plenty. They are in this flip flop because they have to appear to share our values -- while they serve somebody else."

That "somebody else" comment is a reference to the corporate and governmental elites that Cynthia McKinney has spent a lifetime battling. She has her scars. But she is still reasonably young by presidential politics standards – just 53 – and she is still appealing and appropriately idealistic.

Don't talk about "wasted votes" or "spoiling" that which is already spoiled, she says

"We are in this to build a movement," McKinney told the cheering delegates. "A vote for the Green Party is a vote for the movement that will turn this country right-side-up again."