Sep 12 2010

Green Jesse Johnson picks up major Democratic endorsement in WV US Senate race

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

After losing the race to represent the Democrats in a special US Senate election, former Democratic politician (and arguably, institution as far as West Virginia is concerned) Ken Hechler has endorsed Jesse Johnson.  Johnson is the nominee for US Senate of the Mountain Party, West Virginia’s affiliate of the Green Party.

Salon describes Hechler and his motivation for, at 95, running for Senate:

In his 95 years, Ken Hechler has recorded history from the front lines in World War II, debriefed Hitler’s top commanders before the Nuremberg Trials, advised Harry Truman, marched with Martin Luther King, published several books, been the subject of a documentary, and — somewhere between all of this — served nine terms in Congress and four as West Virginia’s secretary of state…

    You say that you aren’t running anyone and that you want to use this race to raise awareness of mountaintop removal from strip mining. Why single out this issue?  

             I’m not really running for the Senate, I’m running to enable the people of West Virginia to register at the polls their opposition to this devastating practice, which hurts so many people in the valleys when they dump the rocks in the soil and all the things that they’re blasting out of the mountains into people’s front yards.

Hechler received about 17 percent of the vote in the primary.  Now Johnson is the only candidate in the race who opposes mountaintop removal, a situation he was also in when he ran for governor in 2008.

The following video was posted on the front page of Johnson’s website:

From the Sunday Gazette-Mail:

“People were voting not against mountaintop removal, but were actually voting against my age of 95,” he said.

 

Johnson doesn’t have that “handicap,” Hechler said.

 

“He’s 51 years old,” Hechler said as he introduced Johnson, who also opposes mountaintop removal. “Compare that with a 95-year-old, and you’ll see why you’re going to have a huge outpouring of support for Jesse Johnson.”

 

Johnson has previously run for governor, U.S Senate and president. He said he would run a grass-roots campaign and stand up to rich and powerful interests.

 

“It’s time for business as usual to be over,” he said.

3 comments

  1. From Wiki:

    The Mountain Party is a political party in the state of West Virginia that on July 8, 2007 at its state convention, voted to become the West Virginia affiliate of the Green Party.[1] At the 2007 Green Party National Meeting the party was admitted to the Green Party as a state affiliate.[2] It is a progressive and environmentalist party. The party platform calls for an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. It also calls for timber regulation that reduces flooding, erosion and eliminates clear-cutting and destruction of old-growth forests. Other platform planks include an end to corporate welfare, and the establishment of small community schools, universal health care and campaign finance reform.

    Example A of why it is a good idea to vote for a 3rd party if you don’t have a compelling reason to vote for your party of registration. Had the Mountain Party not been a qualified political party in W. Virginia, party power politics would have been able to lock out opponents of mountain top removal.

    Jesse Johnson sounds like the real deal. Well worth supporting, as is his party.

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