Green Party 2020 presidential candidates: An initial take

Between Wikipedia and Ballotpedia, I have listed

Dario Hunter
Ian Schlackman
Ivan-jan Cruz Desuasido
Joe Edward Collins III
Gary Swing
Kerry Kizer
James Ogle III
Curt Nichols
Eugene Patillo
Eduardo Manuel Torres Jr
Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry (supposedly)
Kent Mesplay (likely)
Howie Hawkins (very possible, and would be my No. 1 choice with a bullet.)

Update, April 6: Hawkins has formed an exploratory committee and is soliciting comments. I told him to run, and to NOT be an AccommoGreen if nominated.

Update, May 22: OTOH, seven weeks later, Howie is still at exploratory committee stage, but soliciting money, not just comments, and part of it is for Green Part GOTV and ballot access efforts. That's stuff state or national parties should be doing, not an individual not yet a declared candidate, IMO.

Update, May 27: He's in, and I've modified my thoughts of the above paragraph.

(David Bruce Collins said he wants to make sure the national party doesn't put a thumb on the scale of the race. This piece explains that it maybe did put a small one on there already at the time of Hawkins' announcement.)

Update, Aug. 26: This is the list of party-certified candidates. No, it's not rocket science, and even within the confines of a relatively small third party, it's not serious hoops-jumping.

Jesse the Body Ventura???

See more from IPR. Or the Federal Election Commission list of filings. Note: Obviously fake candidates off the FEC filing list are not listed here.

I have plenty of knowledge of Hawkins.

And, he's too popular within the party to face potential gatekeeper issues like those that led Ralph Nader to opt to run as an independent in 2004. These same issues were related to the rise of David Cobb as AccommoGreen, an earlier split between Greens and GPUSA that is covered here by me (and that I've heard some Greens claim is "healed" when I don't really accept that), and that also lies behind the complaints already by 2004 Nader Veep candidate Peter Carmejo about "paper parties" in many states — itself still a problem. (Carmejo ran as a Green for prez himself in 2004; he was widely regarded as a Naderite, and considered by some to be a stalking horse for Nader. More on 2004 vote totals and their being undercut here.)

I have at least a bit of familiarity with Hunter and Schlackman. Think either would be OK to better. Hunter has the advantage of holding elective office already. OTOH, after converting from Islam to Judaism via a Reform process, per Wiki, he then underwent an Orthodox conversion. Curious what's up with that, and want to make sure it would not affect his views on Palestine. His rabbinic ordination was non-Orthodox, so he should be OK. Schlackman, I know, is a socialist-leaning Green.

I am also familiar with James Ogle III. Perpetual candidate. Inter/intra-party candidate. General nutter from what I've seen of him on third-party news websites. A real nutter.

Gary Swing ran for Congress in Arizona. And many other positions as a perpetual candidate.

Collins appears to be running first and foremost on his military service. I understand the military as a job opportunity if you grew up in South Central LA, but, you're apparently not familiar with the Green Party.

Moyowasifza-Curry went too far down the SJW road for me in 2016. And, she technically didn't officially file with the FEC.

Others are probably even less serious. Torres had a Twitter then deleted it, for example.

Ventura is too libertarian for me.

From comments below? Elijah, you're not constitutionally eligible. I don't care if you claimed on Independent Political Report in 2016 that you were.

Big questions otherwise?

Are any of these folks antivaxxer? Anti-GMOs?

Bill Kreml seemed the most sensible Green in 2016. Hawkins strikes me as similar, but of course with much more party experience. Hunter and Schlackman both also seem serious and sane. I mention Hawkins first due to having the most political experience while not being a perennial candidate.

Sidebar: On Book of Face, somebody claimed recently that the Greens and GPUSA had largely healed their split. Have they? I've not seen clear indication of that. See some of those links above, again.

Sidebar 2: As many Greens and Green-leaners here in Texas know, Robert Francis O'Rourke's GOTV effort in his run against Ted Cruz last year has greatly upped the signature numbers that will be needed for party line ballot access. Therefore, it's much more likely that whoever gets the nomination will be available only as a write-in here.

Sidebar 3: As American Greens tussle over eco-socialism and related issues and how much to be a left party in general, not just an environmental party, Jacobin notes that German Greens are more and more becoming less and less "left" and more and more "liberal" in the American sense of the word. This has been in the works for a few years.

Sidebar 4: Greens must fight against Democrat attempts in HR1 to cut federal campaign finance access to third party and independent candidates.