( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Progressives often claim that they will gladly support Greens when they see a Green campaign that can win. Well, here's a Green who can win and a chance to put your money where your mouth is:
Jeremy Karpen's clean-money Green campaign for the IL State Assembly is poised to pull off an upset victory against his Chicago Machine opponent.
Jeremy and his volunteers have already knocked on 7,000 doors and made 3,000 phone calls. Jeremy has earned enthusiastic endorsements from leading newspapers, unions, and voter groups.
At this critical moment, Jeremy needs to raise $3,000 to air a bilingual TV ad, “I support Jeremy Karpen/Yo Apoyo a Jeremy Karpen.”
Watch the ad and make a donation at www.jeremykarpen.org/content/put-jeremy-tv.
Jeremy Karpen is a Licensed Professional Counselor working as a supervisor with
at-risk youth at a residential treatment center in Chicago. He was motivated to run by
the failure of Illinois’ corrupt government to provide decent funding and services for
underprivileged communities.
He first ran for the Illinois Assembly 39th District seat in 2008, taking 21% of the vote with a bare-bones campaign. This year, his campaign has opened a beautiful storefront office next to the largest polling place in the district, knocked on over 7000 doors, and identified thousands of supporters. Karpen’s commitment to quality public education, affordable housing, green jobs, single-payer health care, and clean politics is paying off.
Karpen is the only challenger to receive the endorsement of the Chicago Teacher’s
Union, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times. He has also received the
endorsement of the Independent Voters of Illinois and is the only Chicago candidate
being supported by the local chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America.
His pledge to not take corporate money highlights the clear difference between Jeremy and his sole opponent, incumbent Democrat Toni Berrios, the daughter of gambling lobbyist and Chicago machine insider Joseph Berrios. She regularly votes for bills that directly benefit her father’s clients and her own corporate donors, and supports an expansion of predatory gambling in the community.
Electing a clean-money Green over a corrupt Chicago machine politician would send
a message that can’t be ignored: organized people can beat organized corruption and
entrenched political power.
Watch Jeremy Karpen’s bilingual 30 second ad, “I support Jeremy Karpen/Yo apoyo a
Jeremy Karpen”.
The campaign is attempting to raise an additional $3000 to get the ad on the air in the final week of the election.
Please donate today to give Jeremy Karpen a strong final push to the finish line.
If you have a spare hour to phone bank, please volunteer by emailing [email protected] with the subject line “phone bank”. Even if you don’t live in Chicago, you can make calls from the comfort of your own home.
Jeremy Karpen's election could be the beginning of a Green revolution from coast to coast. His victory will prove that Greens can start winning state legislative races without compromising their principles or taking a dime of corporate money.
If you are, like me, among the legion of progressives who prays for the emergence of an independent progressive force to challenge the militarist, corporatist duopoly: Let's do everything in our power to help Jeremy Karpen win.
2 comments
for developing left-progressive power in the US, there are certain situations where there could be substantial payoff to an election as a tactic. If you’re challenging an entrenched corrupt machine, and you have an opportunity to defeat one of their nepotistic insiders on a third-party/independent basis, I’m willing to listen. After all, if Karpen could pull this off, the impact would be much greater than just winning a state leg seat. The greatest threat to the dominance of a machine is to be exposed as vulnerable, to end the aura of inevitability of machine politicians and machine politics. Once cracks are exposed, the superstructures tend to collapse with surprising quickness.
In memory of my great-grandfather, a century ago in Chicago the 1910 Socialist Party candidate for Cook County Treasurer, I’ll get a donation out to Karpen tonight.