COBB CALLS FOR GREEN PARTY UNITY
Urges Nader To Focus on his Independent Run
Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb today called on Ralph Nader to focus on his independent run and live up to his pledge of support for the national Green Party. In a March 24, 2004 letter to the steering committee of the Green Party of the United States, just weeks after the California Green Party primary, Nader told the Greens that he was running an independent campaign and was not "seeking nor accepting" the Green Party s presidential nomination. Nader, in his letter to the Green Party, wrote that "having spent years helping to build the Green Party, I do not want to be put in a position of responding to individual state parties and thereby dividing the national party because of state ballot requirements." However, Nader's campaign is actively seeking to have the Nader-Camejo campaign replace the Cobb-LaMarche ticket on the ballot in several states, most notably in California. Cobb and his running mater, Pat LaMarche, were nominated by the Green Party at the party's June convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Cobb ran the most concerted effort for the nomination, visiting local Green Parties in forty states and earning widespread grassroots support for his candidacy. "I have consistently supported the right of Ralph Nader to run an independent campaign. I have stood with him and decried the underhanded tactics used by Democrats to deny him a rightful place on the ballot. It is now time for Ralph Nader to live up to his promise not to divide the Green Party. Mr. Nader chose to run an independent campaign and should be focusing on qualifying for the ballot as an independent or challenging the constitutionality of ballot access laws which protect the corporate duolopy," said Cobb. "All efforts by the Nader campaign to undermine the national Green Party campaign, and to attempt to use Green Party ballot lines, are divisive and counterproductive. I call on Ralph Nader to stand by his word." Since securing the Green Party nomination, David Cobb and Pat LaMarche have been traveling the country in support of local Green Parties and their efforts to obtain ballot access. Despite a misconception that the Cobb-LaMarche ticket would not campaign in contested swing states, the candidates have already visited the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. "We will take our campaign wherever it builds the Green Party," said David Cobb. "We are building a party and a movement that will continue to grow regardless of who wins on November 2. We are registering Green voters, we are supporting local candidates and we are presenting a genuine, progressive alternative for the voters of this country. Voters who want to end the occupation of Iraq, establish a living wage, provide universal health care and repeal the 'Patriot' Act should invest their vote in the future by voting Green."
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