Green Party Chooses Homophobic Theocrat In Illinois
Back in December, we wrote of the Green Party contest in the 2nd congressional district of Illinois. Two Green Party candidates were competing for their party’s nomination to challenge incumbent Democrat Jesse Jackson Jr. in the general election this fall.
One of the candidates, Michael Mayden, didn’t explain his policy positions very well, but spoke of his community connections and radio show. The other candidate, Anthony Williams, was very specific on many policy issues, but not in the way that most people would expect from a Green Party candidate. Anthony Williams wrote quite openly that he opposed abortion rights, opposed marriage equality for lgbt Americans, and saw it as the mission of his campaign to mix his Christian religion into the policies and programs of the federal government.
At the time, I asked whether the Green Party of Illinois might have miscalculated by working to gain ballot status for its party before having an adequate infrastructure to ensure that its candidates would be in line with the progressive policies the party claims to believe in. Could non-progressives like Williams now come in and hijack the Illinois Green Party, using it to promote their unGreen ideas?
Illinois Green Party activists were rather upset at the suggestion that Anthony Williams could be interpreted as being representative of their political party. The predicted that Williams would be rejected. “Green Party activists certainly repudiate the stands of Rev. Williams on abortion rights, gay rights, and immigrant rights,” one Green Party voter from the district wrote.
What actually happened didn’t reflect this perspective. Just over 200 registered Green Party voters turned out for the primary election in the 2nd district. Almost 60 percent of those Green Party voters chose Anthony Williams over Michael Mayden, in spite of the fact that, as one of our readers put it, “I know Mayden, he’s been working for Green causes for a long time.”
Why did most of the Green Party voters choose the candidate who opposes same-sex marriage, who wants to mix Church and State, who opposes abortion rights? These positions are contrary to the Green Party’s platform, but could it be that members of the Green Party are actually much less progressive than they are commonly assumed to be? In order to gain more members, is the Green Party shifting to the right?
The official Illinois Green Party web site still doesn’t acknowledge that Anthony Williams is its candidate in the 2nd congressional district. It still claims that Michael Mayden is the Green Party candidate for that seat, though that’s just not true. It seems that the Illinois Greens are struggling between a significant gap between what the central organization says the Illinois Green Party is, and what the Illinois Green Party is in practice.
“At the time, I asked whether the Green Party of Illinois might have miscalculated by working to gain ballot status for its party before having an adequate infrastructure to ensure that its candidates would be in line with the progressive policies the party claims to believe in. Could non-progressives like Williams now come in and hijack the Illinois Green Party, using it to promote their unGreen ideas?”
If you knew anything about how the party system works in IL, you’d know that the state parties have no power to dictate who runs in the primary. Hijacking is an ever present problem, and happens occasionally, most famously when the Larouchites hijacked the Dems back in the 80s.
Likewise, your suggestion that the ILGP miscalculated by “working to gain ballot status” reveals ignorance on your part with how the system works. Ballot assess was gained as a by-product of winning a certain percentage of votes in the general election. The only way to have not attained ballot status would have been to either not run candidates or run poor campaigns, either suggestion ridiculous for a group that is a political party.
This is really an unfortunate growing pain of a new established political party – a very low petition signature requirement, coupled with a strained infrastructure.
Obviously, Anthony Williams is NOT a member or affiliate of the Green Party, in any capacity other than using the name for his personal agenda. He’s the problem we face in society as a whole – ignorant people that force their ignorant agenda on everyone else, because their ignorance prevents them from seeing a different perspective.
I also disagree with the article author’s reference to supposed “Green Party voters” choosing this candidate. Any resident of Illinois can choose any ballot he or she wishes – so the fact that Williams received some votes only means that he was able to convince friends and fellow religious zeaolots to pick a Green Party ballot to vote for him. The people that voted for Wiliams are NOT Greens, in either their idealogy or membership.
Anthony Williams should come out of the closet, stop pretending to be someone that he is not, and immediately change his political party affiliation. Truth and candor would ease his conscience, rather than keeping up the lies and misrepresentations of being a Green.
Anthony Williams’ positions are closer to those of the GOP – he’s a closet Republican, and who knows what else will surface if starts being honest, truthful and candid with his positions.
Think in detail about this, yabba. The Green Party can’t control who runs in the primary, but Green Party activists could have done a lot of work to inform voters about the anti-progressive elements of Anthony Williams’ campaign. I can’t find any evidence that such efforts took place at all.
The choice about whether to go for ballot status is at core about the choice of when to field candidates. The Green Party of Illinois has put forth statewide candidates that can get sufficient numbers of votes before the Green Party has sufficient infrastructure to deal with the consequences. Green Party strategy in Illinois and elsewhere often seeks to get ballot status above all else – often by getting a certain vote count in an election, but there’s no strong strategy for what to do after that. The assumption is that ballot status is the key to success. The victory of Anthony Williams shows that a lot more is necessary.
The Larouche Democrats didn’t actually succeed in hijacking the Democratic Party because the Democrats were strong enough to fend it off.
What the Democrats haven’t been strong enough to fend off are the Blue Dogs / DLC conservative types. THAT is a major drain, and a serious crisis for the party.
What you’re unable to refute yabba, as much as you might quibble about the details, is that the victory of Anthony Williams, anti-choice, anti-gay, theocrat, by a 20-point margin in a Green primary, presents a crisis of conscience for the Illinois Greens.
Andy, the argument you’re making at the end of this comment is a bit of a cop-out. If Anthony Williams was able to convince 120 something people to come and vote for him, why on earth couldn’t a more progressive Green have convinced more people to come out and vote against Williams? We’re not talking about getting a turnout of 10,000 people. 200 people voting for a progressive Green would have provided a large margin of victory. Why couldn’t the Illinois find even that many people, in an entire congressional district?
#5 CW – yep, encouraging candidates to run for office is one of the areas the ILGP still needs growth, though considering it became an established party only after the 2006 election (and this is the 2nd statewide ILGP primary), the number of candidates, and people voting Green is growing at a very good pace. Infrastructure is growing, and that will help in this process.
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On the other hand, the ILGP would not “pick” or “run” a designated candidate – that would be no better than the Madigan-Daley-Stroger-Jackson, et al family political empires, who pick their candidates.
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The ILGP is about grassroots democracy, rather than the top-down orders issued by the bi-partisan status quo parties. Candidates can be encouraged to run, but it has to be a voluntary choice and committment to do so, knowing the odds of running against a machine candidate.
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The ILGP is growing at a record pace this year, with many ex-democrats voting Green and signing up as new members. The ILGP’s positions are very well-received by democrats, and are in line with what real (ie not Daley) democrats believe and support – single payer healthcare, equality for all, non-violence (and downsizing military), pro-people/labor, pro-environment, local business/economy. http://ilgp.org/about/10-key-values/
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However, it still boils down to membership, and there are still people out there who (a) have to discovery that the ILGP exists, and (b) overcome their fear of leaving the herd and going in a different direction. It’s just a matter of time and the democrats are doing a great job of thining their herd.
I’ve spoken to a Green Party member in another state who was asked to circulate petitions this year to open up a ballot position for a seat in his state legislative district. He said no — first of all, because the state rep. in his district is already progressive, and second because there was no strong candidate to fill the candidacy spot. It’s the same issue here: if you’re going to open up the ballot, you’ve got to have a good candidate ready to go on the ballot and you’ve got to have enough of a base of voters to keep your party from getting hijacked.
It doesn’t by any means have to be an “anointed” candidate (goodness knows that’s what’s wrong with the Democratic Party), but someone willing to put forth the effort and able to convincingly articulate a progressive vision has to be there. I mean, 200 votes in a congressional district? School districts can manage levy votes better than this.
Congress Watcher, you really do not have a good grasp on what you’re writing about, and you still have yet to issue a correction for your earlier fabrication — that the Green Party is “targeting” Jesse Jackson. You can get up on your high horse about the supposed ” crisis of conscience” for the Greens, but what about you…you created a lie, published it on your little Web site thinking it would make you sound like some sort of expert, and when you were called out on it, rather than apologizing and issuing a correction, you stubbornly defended your lie, no matter how absurd you sounded doing it.
You persistently ignore the fact that there really is almost nothing the Illinois Green Party can do to stop Williams from running, outside of challenging his petitions, and even that would have been totally fruitless. You’re also conflating the people who vote in the primary with members of the Illinois Green Party — they are not necessarily the same thing.
You have to understand, there is the Illinois Green Party, a membership based organization that exists independent of election laws. And there is another thing called the Green ballot line. The ballot line is created by the state, defined under election laws. Yes, it was created because of the success of the Illinois Green Party, but it is NOT the property of the Illinois Green Party. It is the property of the state and the people. The state makes the rules for who can and can’t qualify for that ballot line, not the ILGP. The same is true for the other party ballot lines.
Furthermore, to address your latest miscalculation of the truth, the Illinois Green Party plays no role in determining who qualifies as a voter for the Green Primary or any other primary. Those voter qualifications are also determined by the state. Voters in the Green Primary aren’t necessarily members of the Illinois Green Party — mostly they are not. They aren’t necessarily progressive, they don’t necessarily subscribe to the 10 Key Values. Really, anybody can walk up and ask for a ballot. So the fact that Williams won says something about the people who voted for him, but it doesn’t say anything about the Illinois Green Party, unless you can show that those people are members of the Illinois Green Party (and I know that you can’t). Probably, if you did research, you’d find that while there are no doubt a few Green members who voted for him for whatever reason, I’m fairly certain most of the voters are either Williams’ personal friends/family/followers with no ties to the ILGP, or people who had some kind of ax to grind against Jackson or the Democrats. That scenario cross your mind?
Wait a minute, PFK – Anthony Williams is clearly the Green Party candidate. He was chosen in the primary. As the official Green Party candidate, he is targeting Jesse Jackson Jr., is he not?
You’re really not addressing the key point, PFK: The Illinois Green Party has put itself a place where it’s got ballot status, without the werewithal to provide any management whatsoever of the candidates. The Republicans and Democrats, as political parties, are very involved in the selection of political candidates and the allocation of resources to support those candidates. The fact that, as you admit, the Green Party of Illinois has found itself incompetent to do so, is the POINT.
If you can’t get organized enough to create a political party that can at least have some consistency, then the Illinois Green Party will continue to be a vehicle for opportunists, devoid of value in itself – kind of how the Independence Party of Ross Perot ended up falling apart.
It was claimed by Illinois Greens that Anthony Williams would certainly never get elected – but now it’s happened.
“the Illinois Green Party will continue to be a vehicle for opportunists, devoid of value in itself ”
Just like the Republican and Democratic Parties, unfortunately.
Oh, yes, and if you read the other articles here at That’s My Congress, you’ll see that we’re no defenders of the Republican and Democratic parties. The Green Party claims to be something better than the two dominant parties, though, and so I think that it’s to measure the Greens according to the standards they have for the Democrats and Republicans. It’s not always nice, but it is treating the Greens as equals, if in criticism.
The Tea Party organization is also showing itself to be rather corrupt as well, by the way.
When you say he’s a Illinois Green Party candidate, you’re incorrectly conflating a membership organization called the ILGP, which he is not a part of, and a state-run Green primary, which anybody can participate in, ILGP member or not. He won the Green primary, yes, but he’s not an Illinois Green Party’s candidate.
I have repeatedly addressed you’re so-called key point: Yes, there is a Green Primary, but the ILGP has almost no real ability to manage it — because the system was designed to give the People, not the parties, ultimate say over who the candidates are. The same is true of the other two parties as well. So the Greens, Democrats and GOP all have no real ability to manage who runs in their primaries. It’s interesting that we’re having this conversation around Williams, because he has, in fact, run for all those parties! And he’s run as a Libertarian. What more evidence do you need that this system mandates that ALL parties are potentially vehicles for opportunists, and this is one opportunist who has exploited every party he could.
The state election code does not give parties the ability to choose or approve which candidates will appear on the ballot, nor does it give parties the ability to choose the voters who will vote on those candidates. That has been repeatedly pointed out to you. You’re taking this flaw in the system and twisting it around, and using it to somehow make a point that the ILGP is irresponsible for existing. Your reasoning is complete b.s. and your facts are wrong, and you mix up terms, as in this statement below:
You wrote: “It was claimed by Illinois Greens that Anthony Williams would certainly never get elected – but now it’s happened.”
You don’t even understand that Anthony Williams was not elected. He was nominated. The definition of words are not inconsequential, and your misuse of them demonstrates that you really are in a subject matter that is above your head.
You wrote: “The Larouche Democrats didn’t actually succeed in hijacking the Democratic Party because the Democrats were strong enough to fend it off. ”
I don’t disagree with the above statement, but it’s inconsistent with your point about the Greens. Larouchies won the nomination on the Democratic ballot line, but they did so outside of the Democratic Party, and they really had no long-term affect on the Democratic Party. But your point is that the Larouchies won two high-profile statewide offices but didn’t hijack the Democratic Party, and somehow Williams winning a low-profile, long-shot race in the Green primary somehow means the Green Party has been hijacked by conservatives…explain how the two situations are different?
You wrote: “Just over 200 registered Green Party voters turned out for the primary election in the 2nd district.”
Illinois does not have party registration for voters. All voters are technically independent and free to choose whatever party’s ballot they want. So nobody registers as a Green Party voter, they merely may vote in the Green primary. Again, you’re mixing up your terms and it’s leading you to incorrect conclusions.
“The Republicans and Democrats, as political parties, are very involved in the selection of political candidates and the allocation of resources to support those candidates.”
Yes the Republicans and Democrats do recruit and endorse candidates, but they cannot stop a candidate that they did not recruit or endorse from running, let alone winning, as long as The People sign the peitions and The People go out and vote for them. In theory, someone as conservative as Sarah Palin could run for the Democratic Party nomination for governor and win. Someone as liberal as Ralph Nader could run for the Republican Party nomination for Senate and win. And actually, party outsiders run all the time and sometimes they win…look at the Lt. Governor’s races for D’s and R’s. Both candidates who won came out of nowhere.
Finally, you still have not acknowledged your previous LIE and continue to pretend that because you said it, somehow that it is not a lie. In fact, it is a lie, and you should have some personal dignity and own up to it. You’re conveniently ignoring those facts. You want to talk about competency, yet you do not have a clear understanding of the subject you’re attempting to address, and when you get corrected, you just blow off new information as if you never heard it. THAT is incompetency, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Congress Watcher is just pulling our leg to see how we react. This type of thing happens fairly often. Mr Green in South Carolina is a good current example. Our Mr Williams will go down in flames anyway so let’s not worry too much about it.
Tony, if I were pulling your leg, that would mean I’d be lying. I’m not. I’m not particularly interested in the sport of Green-baiting either. What I am interested in is the fact that the Illinois Greens, in spite of all their talk about how the Democrats and Republicans aren’t progressive enough, have a very anti-progressive candidate of their own on their hands now.
This might be an opportunity for you to examine your political party’s presumptions about how progressive change is made, if you can bear to let down your guard of defensiveness for a moment.