The Democratic Party and the Republican Party may be the biggest players on the block when it comes to the 2008 elections, but they’re not the only players. Unity08 is a media darling, proclaiming its interest in fixing all the problems besetting this nation by electing its own candidate, although it stridently refuses to develop its own platform describing how it will, you know, fix all the problems besetting this nation. It just will, OK? Unity08 suffers from the additional problem of shady-looking funding from hedge fund operators, venture capitalists, and zero-interest payback-optional loans.
Similarly, the Green Party has suffered an image problem since it came out that its own candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania was the only non-Republican contributor to Green candidate Carl Romanelli’s campaign. This kind of information makes the Green Party look like a puppet of the Republicans. However, when you look at individual leaders of the Green Party, it’s easy to find a lot of people who have a solid history of activism and an earnest desire to make this country a better, fairer, more just place to live in.
Take Rebecca Rotzler, for instance. As a SUNY New Paltz student, she headed up Students for a Free Tibet before becoming part of a Green Party team that ruffled a few feathers while running the New Paltz city government. Rotzler has recently been involved with anti-war, anti-Bush and sort-of-socialist group World Can’t Wait and helped organize that recent Impeach Bush summit in New York City you may have read about. Rotzler got just 8 votes out of a total of 122 in an exploratory Green Presidential instant runoff poll in January of this year, but those who appreciate her work feel strongly enough that they’ve started up a website to Draft Rotzler for President in 2008.
This is the time in the election cycle when we’re supposed to be looking around and considering our alternatives, right? Why not cast that net as widely as possible? If you’re looking for a candidate to articulate values on the left side of the progressive political spectrum, follow the links above to check Rotzler’s record out (read also this profile). If you’d like to get in touch with Rotzler or the Draft Rotzler campaign, either with questions or offers of assistance, head over here.
Thanks for the information – this is exactly why i keep reading Irregular Times: you aren’t afraid to find real people willing to try to do it right and who aren’t in the pocket of the corporate sector.