Statement Endorsing Cynthia McKinney for President
by Rich Whitney, 2006 Green Party candidate for Governor of Illinois,
December 8, 2007

On February 5, 2008, the Green Party will have its first-ever statewide primary in Illinois. We have four candidates contending for our presidential nomination and any one of them would better serve the public interest than any of the principal candidates vying for the nomination of the two corporate-sponsored parties. But today I am here not only to introduce one of those candidates but to announce my endorsement of and pledge of active support for one of those candidates, Cynthia McKinney.

I ask each of the 361,000 Illinois voters who cast a Green ballot for Governor in 2006 - and the thousands more who now surely wish they had - to join with me in supporting Cynthia McKinney in her campaign for the White House. And I ask them to do so for the same reasons they supported me and the Green Party in 2006:

To win the struggle for a genuine government of, by and for the people, not of, by and for the corporate elite;

To win the struggle for clean, truly representative government;

To win the struggle for clean, sustainable energy and transportation, to defeat the twin threats of global climate change and the end of the era of cheap oil;

To win the struggle for universal health care through a single-payer system, instead of a system designed to benefit private insurance profiteering at the expense of our health and lives;

To win the struggle for peace and put an end not only to the illegal occupation of Iraq but to the corrupt system of corporate domination and militarism that constantly drives us into illegal and immoral wars and obscene war profiteering;

To win the struggle to restore our civil liberties, voting rights and the integrity of our vote against an executive branch that has usurped excessive authority, transforming our republic into an increasingly authoritarian imperial presidency;

To win the struggle for a healthy environment and a healthy economy, based on a sound infrastructure, restoring public services, and strong support for education - and to make good on America's unfulfilled promise of full and equal opportunity for all of its people.

Six-time Congresswoman from the State of Georgia, the first African-American woman to represent Georgia in the House of Representatives, Cynthia McKinney is the best qualified candidate to lead the Green Party ticket in 2008 and the best candidate for President, bar none. She not only stands for each of the goals that I've just outlined; she has been a leader of the peace movement, both in Congress and in the streets.

This is critical. The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq is not only a foreign policy disaster; it has not only visited death, horror and torture on the people of Iraq and sacrificed the lives and mental and physical health of thousands of our own sons and daughters in the process. It is also starving us of funds badly needed for public services here at home. The share of the direct costs of this war borne by Illinois taxpayers comes to nearly $25 billion dollars. That's enough money to provide health care for over 9 million people, or nearly three times the number of Illinoisans without health care today. It's enough money to provide scholarships to 2.8 million university students or create 180,000 affordable housing units, or pay the salaries of 403,000 elementary school teachers.

When most of her fellow Democrats stood down in the face of the stolen elections - yes, stolen elections -- of 2000 and 2004, Cynthia McKinney was one of the few who stood up and fought for the principle that in a democratic republic, the right of the citizens to vote and have their vote count, accurately, cannot be compromised. She has a spotless record on civil rights issues, fighting the encroachments of an executive branch that now sees fit to spy on its own people, deny habeas corpus and fundamental rights, engage in torture and is now bent on establishing a national ID card system that has been hallmark of every totalitarian system in modern history.

She has been a leading advocate for victims of Hurricane Katrina and critic of the federal government's policy that I would describe as military forced gentrification and an American diaspora, supporting the formation of the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to seek justice for the victims of those hurricanes and their aftermath.

She has boldly sought the truth about the many unanswered questions about 9/11 serving as a Commissioner in the Citizens' Commission on 9/11. And where her former colleagues in the Democratic-controlled Congress refuse to take action against the apparent high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration, she was the first to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Cheney , and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for manipulating intelligence and lying to justify the war in Iraq, as well as violating privacy laws with his domestic spying program.

These are just some of the principal reasons why I support Cynthia McKinney for President of the United States. But more than her stance on any issue is the fact that when you look at her overall record, her writings, her speeches and statements (what she has actually said, and not what the corporate media and the Right attribute to her) and her activism, it becomes clear that Cynthia McKinney is the real deal, a real fighter for the public good, a person of integrity and principle.

She may not have known it until fairly recently, but she belonged in the Green Party all along. I can't count the number of times when my wife and I would be watching some more bad news coming out of our nation's Capitol and watching the disappointing performance of many of our so-called representatives in Congress and saying to ourselves, "Well at least Cynthia McKinney is in there fighting the good fight." And I can't count the number of times when I've sighed, and said, "Boy I sure wish Cynthia McKinney would join the Green Party!"

Now she has come to do that - and in doing so, she has found her true political home, a place where she and her politics will be appreciated. I am gratified and elated that she has seen fit to join us. For so many years, she has been fighting for us. Now I am ready to fight for her - and I appeal to Illinois Greens and the voters of Illinois to join me in the fight to get her elected as our next President of the United States.