Alaska Green Party booted; good riddance, but state chair Robert Shields and national GP may be peas in a pod

The Green Party has officially decertified or de-accredited the Alaska state party for violating national affiliation rules by nominating Jesse Ventura instead of Howie Hawkins for president last year. "Going rogue" is right, per this site. The going rogue is even more true as the party also nominated Cynthia McKinney, who has officially been a Libertarian since 2018, as Veep.

State chairman Robert Shields is doubling down on both defiance and lies at the state party Facebook page. He claims the affiliation rule of how state parties must agree to support a nationally nominated candidate is, essentially, a paper legal technicality, and that he had missed it.

Uhh, wrong on all counts.

First, it's far more than a paper legal technicality. It's a keystone of having a national party.

Second, ignorance of the law, or of things like party affiliation standards, is no excuse.

Third, it's a lie. As shown by Shields' own words.

Robert Shields, Chair of the Green Party of Alaska, had this to say regarding the decision: “[Ventura] was an easy choice for independent Alaskans and he is clearly the most competent candidate. Drafting is a proven way to make radical changes to the system.”

Like shooting fish in a barrel. Note that last sentence. Also note this Facebook post.

And, per that same link, it's also bullshit:

If Shields thinks Ike was drafted off the street by a bunch of John Does, he's an even bigger idiot than I thought before. If he thinks he can peddle bullshit like this without being challenged, he's an even bigger grifter than I thought 30 seconds earlier.

Drawing parallels to the Draft Eisenhower movement of 1952, the Green Party of Alaska outlined the following in their official statement: “Only once before in US history has an ordinary citizen been lifted up by the people and elevated to the office of President of the United States. … Over the next decade, the United States of America can emerge as leaders of the fossil-free world and end poverty globally ... To get us there, we need strong leadership at ALL levels and only a trained soldier working side by side with a seasoned advocate can hope to lead the campaign of waging peace in a world at war.”

Shields is also either a real New Agey nutter or else a further grifter off being a fake New Ager, neither of which thrills me.

Shields Facebook messaged me to accuse me of being a troll. He then blocked me from commenting on the state Facebook page. That's of partial parallel to the official national GP Facebook mods censoring me multiple times, hence the latter part of the header for this piece.

Beyond that, I'm beginning to suspect Shields is the Bob Fitrakis of the Alaska Green Party. Yes, putting Jesse on the ticket may have gotten almost twice as many voters as state party members. It was still less than 1 percent. And, doesn't that say something about state party membership?

Finally, is this the start of a "purge," as Shields claims? Rhode Island had long been a paper party, nominating zero candidates for anything in a decade until last year, and sending no delegates to the national convention before endorsing Joe Biden! It deserved the boot. Alaska? I would have backed something less than de-accreditation, if GP bylaws allowed that, but only with the precondition that Shields step down as state chair and agree to never serve again.

As for whether these were two dominoes to ultimately target the Georgia GP? I have written about that, more broadly and less personally, in my first piece for Independent Political Report.