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Houston Greens support party nomination, Jill Stein

Jill Stein Greg Fails 8.4

Jill Stein was officially nominated and confirmed as the Green Party candidate for president on Saturday. | Greg Fails/The Cougar

“Jill not Hill! Jill not Hill!” The shouts echoed throughout the Student Center South.

If you weren’t near the Student Center this week, you probably missed the chants decrying corporations and Hillary Clinton and extolling democracy for the people.

On Saturday afternoon, the Student Center Theater was standing room only as over 500 Green Party members packed the space and nominated their ticket for the 2016 presidential election: Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.

Almost as an answer to the Republican presidential debate last February, the University of Houston played host to the Green Party’s national convention. According to Texas Green Party leader and UH alumna Laura Palmer, their choice for convention location was decided over a year ago.

“You look at the skyline (of Houston), and it is like looking at the face of Corporate America,” Palmer said. “But also because of the diversity of this city, it’s incredible richness.”

The event spanned several debate-filled days with occasional disruption, though notably less than either the Democratic National Convention or Republican National Convention.

“I am really excited and hopeful, because this [convention] represents real change instead of just fancy catch phrases,” Law Center student Remington Alessi, who attended the convention, said.

Alessi wasn’t the only participant with feelings of enthusiasm, and they had some real reasons for it. In the 2012 and 2008 presidential elections, the Green Party only grabbed a dismal 0.36 percent and 0.12 percent of the popular vote respectively. However, according to Stein, her poll numbers have risen to 6 percent following the Democratic National Convention less than two weeks ago.

According to CNN, Stein also earns a 16 percent rating among young people, which is almost double that of Donald Trump, though still far behind Hillary Clinton’s 41 percent. The convention’s registration numbers to attend doubled during that same time.

The Greens’ platform ranges from support for Black Lives Matter to cutting the military budget and a “Green New Deal” intended to create 20 million jobs. But they think they have what might be a winning strategy in “abolishing student debt” and making higher education free.

“We actually have the numbers to win the day,” Stein declared during her nomination acceptance speech. “I think you know, there are 42 million young people and not-so-young people who are locked into predatory student loan debt. That is a winning plurality on the presidential vote.”

In addition to the presidential race, the Greens are fielding over 100 local candidates in counties and states across the country, with a dozen running out of Harris County, including for Congress and for Texas’ Railroad Commissioner, which regulates the oil and gas industry.

The Green local and statewide campaigns may face even more robust obstacles than the Stein/Baraka ticket. In the most recent Railroad Commissioner race, Martina Salinas, a UH alumna who is running on the Green ticket again this year, only received 2 percent of the vote. Texas Greens are banking on the newfound notoriety of their presidential campaign to boost their local campaigns as well. But aside from that, resources for Salinas’ campaign are scarce. Likely as a result of that sparse funding, the Green Railroad Commissioner campaign does not really have an existing campaign strategy aside from participating in forums and generally “getting the word out.”

There are major uphill battles ahead for the Green Party to be anything close to a serious contender in the upcoming elections. It is a rare thing for third parties to do more than influence the platform of the two major parties.

The Greens have yet to be ranked high enough in the polls to be invited to a presidential debate, but regardless of the long odds, they think they have a chance to change the game. Stein quoted Democratic runner-up Bernie Sanders in her acceptance speech: “The only solution for the likes of Donald Trump is a truly radical, progressive agenda.”

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12 Comments

  • Since Clinton has Omar Mateen’s father attending her gatherings … I wonder if Jill can get a lower level mass shooters parents at her gatherings.

    I can’t call Jill or Hillary’s gatherings instead of rallies, since 10,000 is the going number to call a gathering a rally.

  • Trump calls for Hillary Assassination? Really? He never mentioned any harm towards Clinton … and the Left Media knows it.

    Clinton stayed in race in 2008 awaiting Obama Assassination.

  • Hey Daily Cougar … where is the Hillary Coverage? Who is touting her achievements of four dead at Benghazi … hundreds of millions of donations to her foundation for future Presidential favors? BTW the Clinton Foundations uses only approx $67,000 out of every million raised for their programs. Any other charity would be jailed and disbanded.

    How can the TDC call itself a paper? The journalistic malfeasance being projected as truth by this paper should make most students feel intellectually insulted.

    But unfortunately, Progressive indoctrination at UH is a strong force that has captured many weak minded individuals like Alex Colvin, ***David***, and others; who could not come up with an original thought to save their own lives.

    • *gasp*, I’m offended. No mention of me?

      Listen, Jones, you put way too much time and effort in to what you want TDC to be versus what it actually is.

      It’s a student newspaper.

      If you’re so convinced this paper is as bad as it is why don’t you write a guest column? Hmm?

      If the likes of Alex Colvin can make it into this paper not once, but several times, then there’s no reason you couldn’t.

      Instead, you whine about “progressive indoctrination” in TDC that seems to only exist on the level of you and the army of half-wits that invaded TDC’s comments section when none other than Fox ‘n’ Friends caught hold of the Sethi v. SGA thing and rampantly spread misinformation on the subject.

      Meanwhile, TDC ran multiple columns by people who did and who didn’t agree with Sethi’s sanctions and they’ve even done the same with the whole Campus Carry debate that’s run the course of pretty much an entire year. Weird, right? Multiple different takes on the same idea? That doesn’t seem like progressive indoctrination to me.

      I’m not denying that TDC doesn’t have liberal biases because it does, and they’ve admitted to that themselves, but in that admission they also petitioned for more writers with right-wing ideologies, so all-in-all it’s only your fault for not taking them up on the offer when it’s been on the table for a while now.

      You can’t deny though, it’s so much easier to sit behind a screen under the guise of anonymity (or a photoshopped Colvin face) and spout your baseless thoughts in lieu of doing some actual form of journalistic work to help formulate your opinion and have it printed on a newspaper.

      • Organite!!! … you’re alive!!!

        How’s the library? Loved the last pendant I saw on you. And I would never mention you in the same sentence as Alex Colvin.

        I know you are upset at my and the UH Conservative Army’s heavy-handiness projected at TDC, but they are baby Progressive reporters, and need to be treated as such. And we all know that they aspire to be adult Progressive reporters fawning over the Progressive crews that were here for the debate earlier this year.

        Organite!!! You don’t know about Progressive indoctrination, because you are under its influence.

        Organite!!! Have you ever had an original thought? And if that thought didn’t jive with Progressive mainstream thought … did you fear reprisal?

        Let face facts Organite!!! … in other countries (like California, New York, North Korea), Sethi would have been jailed or executed for expressing her thought of ALL LIVES MATTER.

        From the looks of it Organite!!! you agree with the SGA’s decision to put Rohini is a virtual stockade of UH public opinion, and you call my thoughts baseless?

        Do you understand consequence to actions Organite!!! For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Shane Smith’s vilification of Rohini Sethi did not register as wrong with you. Now that is sad.

        A person expressing their free speech right (Rohini Sethi) was punished for it … and she called no one a racial slur or demeaned them in any way. I ask Organite!!! … when will it stop.

        If I held a sign saying ALL LIVES MATTER in front of the library … would you spit on me? Others would for sure, but then I would spit or fight back, and I wouldn’t pull my gun if your thinking about it.

        • The UH conservative army? Please, the vast majority of those loons admittedly had no affiliation with the university.

          And how presumptive of you to assume I agreed with the Sethi sanctions when I never said one way or another. The fact is I didn’t, but that bore no bearing to the argument you so aptly dodged with more baseless rhetoric.

          I guess I’ve come to expect that from the conservative base though. They are unable to debate the topic at hand without deflecting on to another irrelevant subject, or bringing out the oft touted conservative sound bites like “progressive indoctrination” that make no sense.

          Jones, I feel like after all this time you actually don’t realize how moderate I am. No I am not the person who would spit on you or fight you for holding up a sign that said “All Lives Matter” in front of the library. I would challenge your opinion using the same free speech principles we’re all entitled to.

          In fact, I put it to you. I guarantee that if I stood in front of the library wearing a sign saying “RELIGION IS POISON” it would be met with a whole lot more lambasting and spitting than someone holding an “All Lives Matter” sign. Why don’t we do it together? We can schedule a day, make our signs together, match our clothes, it’ll be fun!

  • TV Guy Don Lemon (who has a $50 haircut and $5 brain BTW) was taken to task by former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino over Trump 2nd Amendment statement.

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