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Presidential candidates don’t think it’s
too early to start planning for the 2008 election — and neither does
the Illinois Green Party. As the legislature sputters, trying to pass a budget,
address electric-rate relief, and beat back efforts by Gov. Rod Blagojevich
to pass a massive new health-care initiative — all in the face of a
possible state-government shutdown — the Greens are hoping to
capitalize on voter discontent next year. Rich Whitney, the Green Party candidate for Illinois
governor last year, believes that the current legislative impasse, under
the leadership of the state Democratic Party, will help “ensure that
Green Party candidates will do well in the 2008 election cycle.”
The Green Party now finds itself in uncharted
territory. Thanks to Whitney’s capture in November of 10 percent of
the statewide vote, Green candidates will appear on the ballot just as
Democrats and Republicans do.
“This means we have an ability to run for
office that we’ve never had before,” says Phil Huckelberry,
chairman of the party’s political and elections committee and a
two-time candidate for state representative. Before winning established-party status, Illinois
Greens found it difficult to raise money just to circulate petitions and
subsequently defend those signatures against legal challenges from the two
major parties. Huckelberry says that the Green Party can now hit the
ground running for 2008, when, he says, it expects to field candidates for
local and state legislative seats, as well as Congress. Everything that’s happening in Springfield is
also happening in Washington, D.C., Huckelberry says. “On the national level, millions of voters have
to be wondering why they bothered,” says Whitney, referring to
Democrats’ winning the majority in the U.S. House last fall. But Whitney, a former member of the Socialist Labor Party of America [see “Letters,” Nov. 2,
2006], says he will not seek office next year. Instead, he will advise
state Green candidates, whom the party will
select later this summer.
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2007.
