2. Why did you choose to run for the Green Party Presidential nomination?
*=GPUS recognized candidate
Howie Hawkins*
I am running because I was asked to run by Greens across the country. I have run credible large-scale campaigns statewide in New York four times: for US Senator against Hillary Clinton in 2006 and for Governor of New York against Andrew Cuomo in 2010, 2014, and 2018. In each gubernatorial race, I received enough votes to secure a ballot line for the Green Party. I can draw on this experience to run a credible national campaign with significant impact on the debate and party building.
Susan Buchser-Lochocki
I was really an Independent, but as a US Citizen living in Switzerland, you don’t get to vote in the primaries unless you are registered in a party so I chose the Democrats about 10 years ago. I was raised in a Republican household. When I decided to run for President, I needed my family’s approval, my daughter said yes eventually, and my husband said he would support me as best he could but only if I got a PARTY behind me. So I looked at ALL the US Political parties out there last October/November and for me, I felt the 4 PILLARS were closest to MY IDEAS. Some of the 10 Key Values I disagree with, but overall we had enough in common for me to say, “Green Party is my Party.” And lastly, the Green Party is not afraid to put a woman on the ballot. As for “why I am running for President” I’m a Peace Promoter and well this is the 100 year Anniversary Year of Women’s Right to Vote in the USA. Soon we will be 250 years old, 50% of the population in women, in this Anniversary Year for Women, If we don’t vote a woman in as President I don’t know how we citizens can hold our heads high anymore, it would be an insult upon insult. To Quote Susan B. Anthoney in her last speech, “Failure is Impossible!” We don’t need another man leading us into war, we need a woman to lead us into peace. ...It is time. We tried war, let’s try peace. PEACE matters
Dario Hunter*
As the only person in this race to have been elected to public office, a former member of the Youngstown, Ohio Board of Education, I have first hand experience facing up to a system stacked against the public's best interests and in favor of profit. I dealt with a pernicious state takeover, designed to reduce local voice in education, maximize profit off of children's educational suffering (through corporate contractors) and feed Black and Latinx children through a vicious school-to-prison pipeline. Education was my ticket out of the ghettos of Newark and Jersey City, New Jersey and into a career as an environmental attorney, educator and rabbi. But in fighting for children of color to have the same chances I had, I found myself fighting the powers that be, including the Democratic Party in what is a politically corrupt one-party town.
That's why I'm proud to be a Green. Together we fight for what matters most.
And that's why I'm running for President. It became clear to me that the challenges Youngstown faced, similar to those faced in struggling school districts and communities all across this country, needed a national solution. We have to end the democratic deficit. We must end the profit-motivated stripping of power from most Americans in what is supposed to be a democracy. And we must end educational, judicial, employment-related, environmental and financial racism.
As a part of an ecosocialist, people-powered movement free of corporate influence, we'll take that message straight to the people – and never stop until we get the change we all deserve.