Is Cornel West daft? Peter Daou? Both?

Cornel West's announement today  he was ditching the Greens to run independent has me scratching my head, to say the least.

I said, a couple of months ago, when West decided to run as a Green, and not with Nick Brana's sleazy Movement for a People's Party, that he seemed to be head and shoulders above other filed, announced but not yet official, and other would-be Green candidates. 

Now, more on last week's announcement. 

First, he doesn't have RFK Jr's money to pay for signature gatherers. (All states allow it; I extrapolated from a Ballotpedia piece about paid signature gatherers for initiatives, and that's incorrect.) Second, while he has some name recognition, he doesn't have the same as RFK for where he can't afford signatures. Nor, AFAIK, does he have Bob's degree of experience, from Kennedy as head of Waterkeepers, attorney with NRDC, etc.on initiative-type ballot access petitions. 

(I volunteered to help with a GP petition in the Metromess approximately 20 years ago. Purely on my own, with another person already on a clipboard at a mall. Never asked at the time if Republicans were paying anybody.)

And, even with people eligible to be paid in all 50 states, the principle holds. Cornel West does't have RFK Jr's money. And, per Republicans helping Greens in the past, West is enough of a wild card as an independent, I don't know that that many GOP/conservative checks get written for this.

He DOES, though appear to have cluelessness about the ballot access process. Independent Political Report, at the top link, quotes from an email he sent backers:

West also stated that the Constitution “provides for Independent candidates to gain ballot access in all states” and confirmed that he was pursuing ballot access as an independent candidate unaffiliated with any other organization.

Really? Yea, I along with other commenters at IPR, are laughing about that. The Constitution "provides" nothing here, and other than establishing the Electoral College and how and when its votes are counted, says nothing else about presidential elections beyond age of eligibility and elimination of religious tests.

I expect that West will get on less than half of the 50 states' ballots.

He doubled down on that general idea the time of the announcement, in this tweet:

People are hungry for change. They want good policies over partisan politics. We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people. I'm running as an Independent candidate for President of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true… pic.twitter.com/34FFQARTEe

— Cornel West (@CornelWest) October 5, 2023

Again, really?

As for his campaign? At the time, IPR asked if Jill Stein is following him. She said that day that she wasn't:

BREAKING - Stein & Baraka wish Dr. West well, affirm support for a strong Green campaign

Boston - Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, previously advisors to the West campaign, today wished Cornel West well in his upcoming independent presidential campaign, in the following joint…

— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) October 5, 2023

Full link to long Tweet here. This is going to implode, and if this was Peter Daou's idea, not just West's, I question his judgment, too.

Per ongoing discussion at the link at top, I think Ryan's on the right trail. I think West wanted to be the GP candidate without being a Green, like St. Ralph of Nader in 2024, and took off when that wasn't going to happen. Since this happened just a week after Daou joined the campaign, and as campaign chair with Stein being kicked upstairs to a senior advisor role, I think this is in part Daou's doing. In any case, he's not talking publicly on Twitter or either of his Substacks. 

UPDATE, Oct. 27, 2023: Less than a full month after Peter Daou became West's campaign manager, and only three weeks after signing off on West leaving the Green Party, Daou is OUT, allegedly for health reasons, according to a Tweet from West, as reported by Independent Political Report.

I am reminded of the VERY interesting book, "The Commissar Vanishes."

"We regret that Comrade Kamenev has resigned from the Politburo for health reasons," I picture.

And, as I type this at 10:45 p.m., 10 hours after West's tweet, Daou has no tweet of his own, though he did quote tweet a tweet from earlier in the day, talking about PTSD about growing up in the bombing of Lebanon being triggered by the situation in Gaza.

Possible? Yes. I'm still somewhat skeptical that this is all the story there is, though.

As for him being head and shoulders above other Greens? Stein and Ajamu Baraka recognize that and are beating the bush for new candidates, per that Tweet.

I'll have more on Cornel in a week. 

That said, West's platform is in many ways more radical than the Green Party. One thing in particular I note is that he seems to want a British-style NHS. I totally agree. Whether that's any factor in the split with the GP and two-time presidential candidate DOCTOR Jill Stein and Howie Hawkins 2020 advisor DOCTOR Margaret Flowers or not, I don't know. I DO KNOW that both support Physicians for a National Health Plan's version of Medicare for All, which leaves current fee-for-service medicine in place, albeit while trying to ameliorate it.

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I was also curious about what a few people I know on Twitter (and the first two, personally), said. David Bruce Collins laments it. Brains said nothing, and neither did Ryan Knight.

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Update, Oct. 12: Per the rhetorical questions in the header, this Politico piece, pretty good on GP coverage, even if of a Cleanup on Aisle 6, says "both" on the daftness. West wanted out, and asked Daou to lay out pros and cons, and Daou obviously sealed his mind.

Cons: ballot access headaches; continued questions about his seriousness as a political figure; the destruction of a potentially mutually beneficial coalition. Pros: getting to set your own agenda; removing yourself from some of the intractable and unserious elements of the party; crucially, for West, no more need to kiss any ass.

The next couple of paragraphs after that do note that GP debate appearance requirements might be a PITA, but, at the same time, the party simply wasn't going to crown West. And, the party went down that same road with Saint Ralph of Nader in 2004. (Politico reminds us that he eventually ran on the Reform Party line that year, without saying that it was because he didn't have to fight for it.)

At the same time, Politico implies that he had halfway been led on, in the GP's desire for a "credible" candidate, besides the dog's breath it had before West joined:

West was never the official Green Party nominee; as he mentioned, he bristled at the need to spend the time and effort necessary to secure the nomination at their convention next year. (It should be noted that running on a major party ticket requires jumping through many more hoops than in the Green Party.) But he had essentially already been ordained as such — with Stein as his guru, the party was dedicated to helping him get on ballots and supporting his candidacy across the country. Some state chapters of the Green Party had already set up dedicated teams aimed at specifically helping West’s campaign. With a few phone calls, all that effort was for naught.

So, put that part of the issue halfway, at least, on Stein, even if the burdens along with the wink, wink, nudge, nudge, weren't onerous. It's still, overall, more West's fault.

As for West thinking the GP can't take him where he wants to go? That's rich, given he first went to the MPP, and for him joining it, announced his campaign on Russell Brand's channel.

Speaking of, the Politico piece goes on to call West a political neophyte (he is, on electoral politics), then lays out his confusing arc.

That said, the supposedly seasoned Daou is just as much a neophyte, with this:

Daou has responded publicly, saying on X (formerly known as Twitter), “Cornel West aims to be on the ballot in 50 states. The Green Party has a ballot line in 18 states. The difference between being Independent and Green is 18 states, not 50.”

Really? I'd already offered 25 states as my over/under, at IPR and elsewhere, while saying I'd take the under. In more colorful language, I told Daou that on Twitter.

Oh, as for the number of signatures? Here in Tex-ass, it's 113,000 and change. I think it was a lot lower for Mimi Soltyski in 2016; the high presidential turnout in 2020 plus increased population has jacked the number. It was 90K in 2020.

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Sidebar to all of the above: I wonder just how much "lane-clearing" Stein promised West. I wonder who else she had roped in. I'd love to find all this out, but, like with some of the machinations in the 2020 Green Party nomination battle, which haven't come out despite my (and others, I presume) asking, or like Stein's head-fakes with her 2016 recount fund, I'm not holding my breath.

Don't forget that before Howie Hawkins gained steam to the 2020 finish line, Stein also reportedly entertained pushing Jesse the Body Ventura (his suck-ups hate him being called that) as he was looking at tagging RFK Jr. as his veep. (That's why I refused to cosign bullshit any more and openly called her an antivaxxer.)

Another reason to call the Just.Another.Political.Party™.