Category: Election 2024 Primary

Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler

By Bob Small

Full disclosure: I’m a registered Green Party member having participated in Green Party presidential campaigns, those of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. I haven’t been active for a while, but Cornell West might just re-activate me.

There’s a lot to know about Dr. Cornell West.

He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and  taught at Harvard and Princeton. He has authored 20 books, the latest being Prophetic Fire, about 20th-century African-American leaders. He’s included in music albums and  movies. He is well known for his participation in various protest movements. He is married to a psychologist, Iranian immigrant named Dr. Annahita Mahdavi West,  a professor at Long Beach City College.

In June, West announced he was running to be 2024 candidate for the MPP (Movement for a People’s Party), which he founded  with other disgruntled Sanders supporters.

However, after some issues arose about MPP,  Chris Hedges introduced West to the Green Party and he changed his plan.

“America must be a nation among nations that is committed to justice,” and West. “I’ve said over and over again: if and when I win I’m not going to the White House until everyone has a house.”

Jill Stein, a former Green Party presidential candidate, is managing West’s campaign.

The decision does not sit well with all on the Left. Joan Walsh, writing in The Nation, doesn’t believe West should be running.

I don’t believe anyone has the right to tell anyone not to run for president.

With regard to West possibly taking votes from Trump, Caitlin Johnstone says this on the site formerly known as Twitter: One of the stupidest things all American liberals believe is that if the Green Party candidate drops out of a presidential election the antiwar socialists who would’ve voted for them will go ‘Oh darn, I guess I may as well vote for that warmongering capitalist Democrat then. . . .I guess it has something to do with Democrats believing they’re on the ‘left’. So they see a candidate running on a left-wing platform, and they think ‘Hey, they’re stealing our votes!’ When really they’re just a bunch of closet rightists who real leftists hate.”

Thanks to radical brother John Murphy for sending me this quote.

Last question — why do only Democrats use the term “spoiler” ?

Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler

Larry Elder Time Has Arrived?

By Bob Small

One of the more well-known second-tier candidates for the upcoming presidential race is African-American Larry Elder, aka Lawrence Allen Elder, the 72-year-old California radio talk-show host of The Larry Elder Show. In the “crime” section of his campaign web site, he says that one reason he’s running is to support “the Enforce-the-Law Act” to rein in the George Soros-backed prosecutors and hold them “accountable”.

He’s known for his candidacy in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, in which he garnered an astounding 48 percent of the vote!

Elder grew up in South Los Angeles and is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School. This article lists 14 links at the end, including one to an article stating that Elder’s ex-fiancée has become his biggest critic, and another one entitled “Elder and Newsom: A Special Relationship”.

He opposes college-admission racial preferences as “hurting more qualified students” and says that “the people that supposedly benefit end up dropping out. You put somebody on a campus where the pace is too fast, and they’re not going to be able to keep up.”

When he was first offered a job as a talk show host, he discussed it with his then-wife, Cynthia, a physician. According to him, the conversation went like this:

Larry: “I think of talk radio as stupid, shallow, and glib”.

Cynthia: “It is, you’d be good at it”.

Elder later stated that this “gives you an idea of that marriage”.

His private life has taken several twists and turns since then.

For another view of Larry Elder, see Opinion | The Off-Mic Moment That Changed My View of Larry Elder

Larry Elder is also a prolific author.

Note: Only a Black man could get away with titling a book Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card — and Lose.

Lastly, Larry Elder is challenging the RNC debate limits.

RNC debate limits are bad for the party and the American people

“Restricting speech is the way of the regressive left, obsessed with censorship on college campuses and in corporate boardrooms. Republicans have long championed free speech.”

Hopefully, some of the second-tier GOP candidates will be included in the upcoming debate(s).

Larry Elder Time Has Arrived?

Could Ryan Binkley Be Pastor-in-Chief In 2024

By Bob Small

Fifty-five-year-old North-Texas businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley feels “we have to be unified” and “it’s time for us to believe”, and that he is the person to lead us.

Blinkley is among those running for president in 2024

Binkley is president and CEO of Generational Group, which has a dozen regional offices in the US.

He co-founded the Create Church with his wife Ellen, where they are the lead pastors. They have five children.

He also founded the Way to Freedom. The Way to Freedom is a 501 (c) (4) organization that seeks to rejoin conservative voices with compassionate voices.

A quote from his interview with D Magazine is “when we return to God, return to trusting each other, and return to wisdom to govern, our nation will never be the same.” 

Binkley contrasts the time he has spent working for various companies with a 1995 church mission trip that he made to Guatemala, and discusses the ways in which the business part of his life intersects with the church part. He adds that “God really spoke to me that business was really part of my calling.”

He had some interesting ideas that he describes in the Word and Way interview.

While supporting the GOP’s positions on marriage and abortion, he says that, as a pastor, he believes that “the Democratic Party, in some ways, has a stronger position” on issues like “caring for the immigrant or for the poor”. He adds that “God is neither Republican or Democrat”.

A Google search for “articles about Ryan Binkley” yielded a list of fifty-some web citations spanning twelve pages. Among these is the Daily Beast article Texas Pastor and Businessman Ryan Binkley Announces Run for President.

Binkley’s ability to get his name out there online and his financial backing are both impressive. But it is doubtful he will become the first “Pastor-in-Chief” since Jimmy Carter.

On the other hand, the article below points out that unlikely things do happen.

Nobody Thought Jimmy Carter Had a Chance in the Presidential Primary

Could we end up with a President Binkley?

Could Ryan Binkley Be Pastor-in-Chief In 2024

The Mayor Who Would Be President

By Bob Small

Though there has never been a president who from being mayor to president, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez believes he could be the first one.  The son of a former mayor, the Cuban-American is the only Hispanic among the major party candidates.

Suarez, who’s trying to channel Ronald Reagan, saying he tries “to be Reaganesque” in terms of being inclusive.  He has criticized his governor, Ron Desantis, for what he sees as his “personal vendetta” against Disney, a major employer in the state

Meanwhile, Suarez, who started as a lawyer, is being investigated by both the FBI and the SEC for $10,000 monthly payments he received from a South Florida developer for “consulting services” regarding a stalled real estate project in Coconut Grove.  This investigation is on-going.

Suarez supports sex education and feels that limiting discussion about sex and gender in all grades is “excessive”.  He supports a national 15 week Abortion Ban.

He receives his mayoral salary in Bitcoin and is a big supporter of crypto-currency.

Suarez is not a “Trumper” and he has distanced himself from Desantis, both fellow Floridians.

He is billing himself as a “next generation leader.” He’s 45 and has a history of working with Democrats which ,as they say,  “may be a blessing and a curse”. He is also a big advocate for tech, as evidenced by his mayoral career.

He was quoted as saying “I think I can grow the tent-not for an election, but for a generation”.

Most recently, he shared his lack of knowledge in international affairs.  During an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, responding to a question about the persecuted Uyghur people in China by responding “What’s a Uyghur?”

First Serious Presidential Candidate From North Dakota

By Bob Small

Doug Burgum, second-term millionaire governor of North Dakota, has declared himself a GOP Candidate for President.

In his campaign website, he touts how he inherited a $1.7 billion state budget shortfall which he balanced by cutting spending.  He’s a self-made millionaire who worked his way through college as a chimney sweep, etc.

The Stanford Graduate, from North Dakota State, (the same college as former Eagles QB Carson Wentz), sold his company, Eagle Great Plains Software, to Microsoft for a cool $1.1 billion.  He began the software company by mortgaging $250,00 of inherited farmland.

He became Governor in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020, despite his ex-wife Karen Stoker campaigning for his opponent, Shelley Lenz

He grew up in Arthur, North Dakota, population  323, 

Why Doug Burgum Could Surprise In The 2024 Republican Primary

 He is among the top six candidates financially.

A New York Times article quotes conservative North Dakota commentator Dustin Gawrylow as saying Burgum “is genuinely thinking this is a vehicle for promoting North Dakota.”

Another New York Times article mentions he has signed eight pieces of anti-trans Legislation, though there was a great deal of protest around this as per this Inform article.

For all of that, there is a great deal of hope for his candidacy.

He signed a bill requiring physicians to inform women that it may be possible to reverse a drug-induced abortion.  For his other views, see these two websites.

According to https://ontheissues.org “he would not back a nationwide ban on abortions and that the issue is best left to the states”.

Will Marianne Williams Spoil Kennedy Bid?

By Bob Small

Democrats are fond of the term “spoiler” in reference to candidates they consider “fringe” candidates, with no realistic chance of winning, but possibly siphoning votes away from the :machine” candidates.

During my active time with the Green Party, both Jill Stein and Ralph Nader were dubbed “spoilers” who might cause their candidates to lose.  If the best candidate you can choose is Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders, say, you’ve probably already spoiled your chances for victory.

In her second run at the Presidency, Marianne’s website lists some illuminating ideas.  However, she may only be spoiling the chances of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the  other major Democratic candidate.

On her website, one could wade through her eight page “Economic Bill of Rights” and discover some quality ideas such as the right for universal quality healthcare and the right  to an equitable and fair justice system.  Other sections are equally verbose. Health is nine pages; Climate Action, 8 pages, and Why I’m Running is seven pages.

Some of the alternative parties that I used to run with insisted on handing out double-sided flyers and I would want to scream “Who are you trying to reach?”  Less is always more in these instances.

One place where Marianne will do well is Fairfield, Iowa but they are in a highly spiritual universe that probably doesn’t exist in over one-tenth, if that, of our country.

And like many others, she may lack the “people skills” required for a lengthy campaign.

Her decision-making may also be called into question.

If Marianne Williamson is not a “spoiler”, she is, at best, a “vanity Candidate”, like Chris Christie or Francis Suarez.  Hopefully, she gets what she wants from her campaign.