Topic: Election 2008
McKinney Growing Green Party An analysis of the 2008 Green Party presidential race and result prediction.by Bradley Jansen
(libertarian)
Friday, October 3, 2008
Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, like Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr, served in the US House of Representatives, and is on the ballot in 32 states with 368 electoral votes. McKinney also got the endorsement of the World Workers Party. Her candidacy is reviving the Green Party.
The most recent national polls to include McKinney were the Zogby Internet poll which put her support at 0.6%, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll which put her support at 1% of likely voters, and the CNN/Opinion Research poll which also had her support at 1%. The LA Times poll provided some crosstab information which showed that while McKinney did not demonstrate statistically measurable support among registered voters, liberals and moderates, whites and women, she did poll 1% among likely voters, independents and Republicans, conservatives and men; interestingly, McKinney did not demonstrate any statistically measurable support from Democrats. That she polls higher with likely voters than registered voters indicates that her support is firm for those indicating they will vote for her.
Various state polls from September in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Indiana all show her averaging 1% of the vote. The USAElectionPolls.com site also has McKinney getting 1% of the vote in Southern, Midwestern and Red states, but no measurable support in Western, Northeaster and Blue states.
McKinney has staked out a strong position regarding the biggest issues facing voters at this time: "We the people must now seize the time! We have always had the capability of determining our own destiny, but for various reasons, the people failed to elect the leaders who provided the correct political will. There was always some corporate or private special interest that stood in the way of the public good. And they always seemed to have the power of the purse to throw around and influence public opinion or our elected officials. The very foundation of the U.S. economy is crumbling underneath our feet. This represents a unique moment in U.S. history and we must now seize the time for self-determination--for health care, education, ecological wisdom, justice, and all the policies that will make a difference in the lives of the people including an end to all wars, including the drug war!"
Through the end of June, 2008, according to FEC P80004930, McKinney had raised $132,856.
Then Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader got an impressive 2,883,105 popular votes for 2.73% of the total in 2000 and was on the ballot before 90.5% of the voters. In 2004, the Green Party ticket of David Cobb and Pat LaMarche got 119,859 votes for 0.10% of the nationwide total and was on the ballot before 54.8% of the voters. There were 122,293,548 votes cast for president in 2004.
Extrapolating from the 0.9% Cynthia McKinney averages in the polls now and considering that she will be on the ballot in states that cast 70.5% of the national popular vote in 2004, we can make some back of the envelope "if the election were held today" prognostications. There is, of course, another huge caveat that my assumptions of the 0.9% average national support for McKinney is based on the very limited polling over the past few weeks (which is considered very stale in polling). So, since McKinney is on the ballot for 70.5% of the Americans who will be able to vote for her in November (according to Ballot Access News), and using the same 2004 turnout (for lack of a better number), then 86,216,951 people will see her name on the ballot. "If the election were held today" and the 0.9% national average polling rate for her holds, then Cynthia McKinney is poised to get a respectable 775,952 votes. That number would be about one-fourth of what Ralph Nader got in 2000 but seven times the Greens' 2004 total.
J. Bradley Jansen was a legislative staffer for U.S. Congressman Ron Paul from 1997-2001. He is director of the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights of the Liberty and Privacy Network (but views expressed here are his own), which is part of Bob Barr's Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances.
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The views expressed in this
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