McKinney for Prez? (Updated)

Leland Lehrman, the Lamy activist, vegetarian cafe owner and small newspaper editor, told the Santa Fe Reporter last week that he has given up on his bid for the U.S. Senate. As the paper noted on its Swing State of Mind blog, Lehrman said he may endorse Tom Udall in the senate race, but he probably won’t be voting for Barack Obama.

Lehrman likes former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who is running for nomination as the Green Party candidate for president. Lehrman told SFR "She did a great job in the House of Representatives. She was the most opposed to Donald Rumsfeld and the most skeptical of the official story about September 11. It took a lot of deceptive politics to get her out of her position.”

You probably remember Cynthia McKinney for some of the notable things she said and did while serving as a Democratic representative from Georgia for two periods between 1993 and 2007. 

The outspoken representative was lauded by some for asking hard questions about 9-11 after the 9-11 Commission Report came out, but ultimately many felt she went too far when she insinuated that President Bush had prior knowledge of 9-11, which she suggested he kept quiet for his family’s financial gain. 

A prominent civil rights activist, she stepped on the wrong toes during Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign by writing that "Gore’s Negro tolerance level has never been too high. I’ve never known him to have more than one black person around him at any given time," something that probably caused some consternation for Gore’s black campaign manager, Donna Brazile. 

McKinney was praised by pro-Palestinian groups, but raised the ire of the supporters of Israel, not only with her support of a Palestinian state, but by offering to accept money from a Saudi prince who asserted that American foreign policy in the Middle East was partially responsible for 9-11. In the aftermath of that incident she received a flood of campaign contributions from Muslim groups, a small number of which were under investigation for terrorist ties. McKinney responded by saying she would not "racially profile" her contributors.

Could McKinney’s presidential campaign have an effect on the race in New Mexico? It’s possible. Recent figures from the New Mexico Secretary of State indicate that although only 2 percent of New Mexico voters are registered as belonging to a third party, 15 percent declined to state a party preference.

Certainly some far-left New Mexico Democrats will be drawn to her anti-war, anti-Bush message, but her allure would probably be greater if the Democratic nominee weren’t a progressive African-American who also preaches an anti-war, anti-Bush message. McKinney has not yet received the nomination of the Green Party (although she almost certainly will), and has not yet announced a running mate, but if Obama chooses a woman for his ticket, her appeal may dwindle further.

James Olmsted, co-chair/spokesperson of the New Mexico Green Party and a supporter of McKinney, claims that Greens make up at least 2 percent of New Mexico voters, although he says he had no exact figures.

"She was unhappy with the Democratic party," Olmstead says of McKinney, "because her viewpoint was that the Dems should be focusing on human rights issues and injustices and the environmental problems that are going on, and the war, of course. That’s the green platform and she represents it very well." 

Assuming McKinney clinches the Green nomination at the party’s national convention in Chicago next week, she will be on the ballot in New Mexico in November. 

"We’re estimating that her candidacy will probably be 12 to 15 percent of the vote," Olmstead says, "because…she has a following among progressives."

Asked if McKinney’s previous public fumbles would hurt her chances in the election, Olmstead responded "She’ll probably continue to speak out the same way she has. She’s blunt and she says what she wants. Whether or not she’ll try to speak more toward our platform I can only say I hope so."

In the 2004 general election in New Mexico, Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb received 1,226 votes statewide; George Bush beat John Kerry by a margin of 5,988.

Earlier this year, the late Meet the Press host Tim Russert asked Ralph Nader if he thought the Greens could spoil victory for the Democrats in November. "Not a chance," he said. "If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, and emerge in a different form."

UPDATE: Asked how he thought McKinney’s candidacy would affect New Mexico, Josh Geise, Executive Director of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, responded by e-mail: "The divisive politics of Cynthia McKinney is not what Americans are looking for this election year. We are confident that Senator Obama will continue to draw support from members of the Green Party and other Progressives, who like millions of other Americans, want a leader that will bring real change to Washington."