No Self-Respecting Progressive or Green Can Vote for
David Cobb, Cobb Should Withdraw From the Race
by Carl Mayer
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 22, 2004



 

No self-respecting progressive or Green can possibly vote for David Cobb this November 2^nd. 

Cobb has so badly misled Green Party members and progressives about his campaign that Cobb should withdraw from the race.  

Many articles and opinion pieces by now have exposed how Cobb and his allies, working with Democratic Party operatives, rigged the Green convention with the sole purpose of denying Ralph Nader, or any other legitimate progressive, the Green ballot line.

It is by now established fact that no more than 300 people nationwide have signed up for the Cobb for President meetups and that as of July 31, 2004, Cobb had raised less than $70,000 for his presidential campaign. (All these facts can be verified at opensecrets.org or meetup.org)  It has also come out, during the course of the campaign, that, far from being a long-standing progressive activist, Cobb actually spent his career defending insurance companies in court against the claims of workers and only relatively recently joined the Green Party.

Now we learn that, after putting out a press release claiming that David Cobb would be on forty state ballots this fall, his own campaign now admits that he will only be on twenty-eight state ballots.   This means that Cobb has only managed to secure enough signatures to get on the ballot in SIX states, since the Green Party already gave Cobb the line in 22 states.    

In 2000, Nader was on the ballot in 43 states and the District of Columbia.  This means that Cobb is actually shrinking the Green party, instead of growing the Green Party as his campaign claims. 

The Cobb campaign has now been forced to admit that it will be on the ballot in fewer states than Nader and get fewer votes than Nader.  (My own prediction: Cobb will garner less than 500,000 votes, or roughly one-sixth of the vote total of Nader in 2000). 

As Cobb and his allies have been exposed as nothing more than prevaricating patsies for the Democratic party, the campaign has grown more desperate and taken to doing the dirty work for the Democratic Party by urging progressives not to vote for the only dedicated progressive on the ballot: Ralph Nader. 

In a recent column, Ted Glick -- who spends full-time attacking the Nader campaign and is bankrolled by Democrats -- accuses Nader of taking assistance from Republicans and all manner of sordid right-wing elements.   (See Glick’s column today)  In doing so, Glick repeats the same Democratic Party lies leveled at Nader for the better part of this year.   The website www.votenader.org debunks the myth of Republican support and shows that the Kerry campaign takes 100 times more money from Republicans than the Nader campaign does.  The Nader campaign takes no corporate PAC money, unlike the Kerry campaign, and most individual donors who are Republicans are people who have worked with Nader over the years on progressive issues.

Ted Glick’s brand of falsehoods and attack politics have no place in the Green Party or in progressive circles.   The same can be said for David Cobb who accused Nader earlier this year, falsely, of taking money from “thinly veiled racists.”  (The charge was made in the New Mexico Statesman and never supported by Cobb.)

David Cobb and his allies are intent on turning the Green Party into the Democratic Party Junior Varsity.  While misleading Green Party members nationwide about growing the party, Cobb and company are actually shrinking the party, rolling over for the Democrats, and betraying progressive principles.

Cobb’s ineptitude is reflected in his efforts to “grow” the Green Party.  Case in point:  Cobb and Glick recruited a candidate to run for Congress in the 12^th Congressional District in New Jersey, my home state.  Only one problem:  the candidate is a convicted sex-offender.   Green Party Congressional Candidate Darryl Brooks was convicted of a sex-crime involving minors in 1998 in New Jersey and served in prison until 2002; since then he has been under the supervision of a state parole officer.   The Green Party is embroiled in an election law scandal in New Jersey because it appears that their candidate can neither vote nor run for office and the matter is before the courts and the State Attorney General’s office.  (Trenton Times, October 8, 2004)

David Cobb campaigned with Brooks in New Jersey, as did Ted Glick.  Both men knew of his criminal record. 

To be fair, I called up Brooks, who lost the appeal of his conviction some years ago.  Brooks claims, bizarrely, that he was “set-up” for his sex crimes conviction by the Democratic Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey.  Seems odd, then, that Brooks would join up with Cobb whose sole self-avowed purpose is to help the Democratic Party.  Cobb’s efforts have gone from tragedy to farce.

Here is my advice to David Cobb:  1) You don’t grow the Green Party by recruiting felons to run for office, particularly sex-crime offenders; 2) you don’t grow the party by getting on fewer ballots in 2004 than in 2000; 3) you don’t grow the party by getting fewer votes than in 2000; and 4) by attacking and spreading falsehoods about the Nader campaign you have betrayed Green Party values and the members of your own party. 

The Green Party in states like Utah and Vermont were well advised to refuse to place Cobb on their ballot.  Someday soon, legitimate progressives will take back control of the Green party.

In the meantime, David Cobb should withdraw from the presidential race.

Carl J. Mayer, an attorney, is an advisor to the Nader for President campaign.  He ran for Congress on the Green Party ticket.  He is the author of Shakedown: The Fleecing of the Garden State.  He can be reached at 609-462-7979.

Other Articles by Carl Mayer

* History is on the Side of a Nader Candidacy
* Cobb's Cool-Aid
 

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