The closest to final figures I have received was from AP: with 98% of results reported, you brought in 2,349 votes. I shall take your voices in to the legislature. Keep checking in here. There is still much you need to know about how this world you have inherited came to be the way it is.
Election Day has finally arrived, and only the counting remains.
What are candidates thinking about today? I suppose a lot of us are wondering what the numbers will show. Maybe five or six will find themselves grinding their teeth in nervous tension as they await the outcome.
But that’s not true for this candidate.
I’ve already won....
What’s coming to my mind today is the many times during the past two years I would have someone tell me that they remembered me from the Super Sunday debates of 2002, that they liked my ideas and hoped to see me run again.
When I decided to do so and needed to collect signatures in order to be an Independent on this ballot, I was overwhelmed by the support and encouragement I was given by so many good friends.
And from the very start I was heartened by people telling me that they planned to vote for me. But I was especially pleased to receive an email from Matthew Goodrich early in October telling me that he would vote for me. (Matthew gave me his permission to quote him and his email on this blog, but I was not yet good enough at this blogging to get the whole email up on the web site.) And then I knew I had one real vote when a friend who voted early told me I had got his.
I could not have campaigned actively without the assistance Lisa and Morgan gave me, driving me out to all the places where I got to meet and talk with so many wonderful people.
Because I began my campaign deeply disturbed by the mess my generation and my children’s generation have left all our grandchildren, I have been pleased to find so many of my peers as concerned as I. And so many people of my children’s generation, especially the women, are already working to correct some of this harm.
But it is all the young people I have met who are so aware of and so ready to work at the changes we must make who have thrilled me the most. You, my dears, are our treasure.
I have made a pledge to all of you who vote for me that I shall be taking your votes into our coming legislature and working to get a start on all the things about which we talked.
Keep checking in with me here. There is still much to tell you about how all the bad things happened. And we need to share ideas on how to make changes happen.....
The Public TV Super Sunday candidate debates were held yesterday. I was a participant in the last of the group, the debate of the gubernatorial candidates.
I can’t speak for the other debates or for the other candidates for governor, but for me it was a frustrating experience. I felt that there were too many questions and that these seemed much too related to previous discussions and debates between Governor Douglas and Mayor Clavelle. And especially I felt that we were not given enough time to respond in any meaningful way.
I don’t know how the other candidates felt, but I, with a new and fairly complicated message, found the time allotted for answers never quite enough. I was constantly having the “shut up” bell rung before I could fully articulate a position.
Over the past month and a half, from talking to so many of you younger voters, I have come to see that I have two points to articulate as best I can although both are essentially related to our being able to live on and with our planet.
We have allowed too long a corporation business philosophy that business has no responsibility to any community from which it makes its money, only to make a profit.
For Vermont this has meant that the burden of supporting all the infrastructure out of state corporations need to conduct business here has fallen on Vermonters and largely on Vermont property owners.
We can start changing this by taking school funding off property taxes and instead funding it through a mandatory, tiered income tax on all income generated in Vermont. This would impose a small, cost-of-doing business expense on every out of state corporation operating in our state and thus greatly lessen our burden..
But far more serious for all of us is this business attitude that in its pursuit of profit it is entitled to make nature do as business wishes rather than making business conform to nature.
As a biologist and a senior I see the human race very close to extermination if it continues in this path. Only in discovering how clear is the understanding of all you young people about how dangerous this business practice is to our survival have I found any hope.
The other point is the immediate benefits for Vermont of starting an alternative biomass fuel economy. There are already two articles on this to be found on this blog and so I won’t give details here.
In my closing remarks last night I promised that I would take all of the votes I receive and pester this next legislature to take action on your concern. And I shall do so....
No blog for yesterday-- I was out talking with you instead of writing to you....
And as usual my visit with you has restored my hopes for our future.
If the young man with whom I was discussing the legalization of marijuana sees this blog, I suggest that he scroll down the list of recent posts to Hemp History and click onto the link provided for a short history of how hemp and marijuana became illegal in this country. And while he is there, I suggest that he use the ‘return’ option at the bottom page to read the “To the Coming Power Generation” articles, 1, 2, and 4 (Hemp is number 3).
I am still so excited by meeting the young people from Youth for Democracy. Their web site is www.youthfordemocracy.org.
If you are older as am I, a grandmother, and you are discouraged by all of the problems we are facing, visit this site. Your hopes for our future will rise again when you see what these young people are doing.
If you are young and feeling isolated in the midst of all that is going on, check out what your peers are into and join in.
As a biologist I see only a bleak future for the human race. There are too many of us and we are being too destructive of the planet on which we depend for our life.
And so I am thrilled by all the young workers and students I meet who are old enough to vote and who understand so well how necessary it is for us to begin getting renewable energy from plants, from crops which can be replanted every year and which nourish the earth while they give us their bounty.
Meeting all you young people has been the greatest gift to me of my candidacy. No matter how the vote turns out, my memories of the campaigning will stay with me and continue to make my life seem worthwhile.
Channel 17’s full governmental debate-- all candidates invited-- was Monday, October 18th..
Of six potential governors, only four showed-- Peter Diamondstone of the Liberty Union Party, Hardy Machia of the Libertarian Party, Cris Ericson of the Marijuana Party, and myself, the only Independent.
I really had thought that Peter Clavelle might come since Channel 17 is in his backyard. I knew that Governor Douglas would not. Back in 2002 when he was only one of the candidates, he couldn’t be bothered with us. But the mayor apparently also decided that we just don’t count.
Hardy was the new kid on the block. For the three of us it was more like a class reunion, since we had been together in 2002. And in general we were a very cordial group. I find myself in agreement with bits and pieces of everything the others talk about. I completely agree with Cris that we need to get marijuana off the illegal list. The link I have posted today to the history of how and why hemp and marijuana became illegal makes clear why. Peter wants a state bank to manage state money. I want state money in our few remaining local banks rather than in out of state corporations. Hardy wants changes in taxation. So do I, but not in the way that seems important to him.
There was only one time when any real controversy erupted among us.
A woman called in to ask about our positions on abortion and women’s reproductive rights. Two of us said very strongly that federal money should not be used to fund abortions for poor women.
I personally was deeply shocked. For one thing I know from all that has been said this election season that people who are against abortion are for the war in Iraq. I am for all women’s rights and totally against the war. My tax dollars are being used for the war against my wishes. I see no justification for the anti-abortion people denying tax dollars for abortions.
Women need to be scared this election, and especially if the present Republican Congress remains as it is. There are four anti-women laws that have been passed, two under Clinton and two under Bush, and there is no likelihood that this trend will stop unless there is a major change in Congress-- the defense of marriage act, welfare reform, granting legal rights to a fetus, and the late term abortion act.
Closer to home we women need to remember that the Douglas administration is as woman unfriendly as the national Republican party.
Substituting a monthly premium for health care for the prior fee-for-service co-payment is a cruel burden for women with limited incomes, whether they are raising children in a partnered relationship or as single mothers.
Women can never be sure of their rights, reproductive or any other, until we finally have the Equal Rights Amendment in place. Three states out of the thirty-eight needed still have to ratify it. Check out the ERA Campaign Network Website and see what you can do to help.
If you are interested in learning how hemp became illegal to grow in this country, go to www.womansvoice.org and read Entering Adulthood, To the New Power Generation Part Three.
Late start today and so I will put a blog on biomass fuel and why we should be using it as our principal energy source up tomorrow.
Why so late today--
I was out campaigning in Burlington yesterday. Being out talking with people is the nicest part of being a candidate. Yesterday was another day of wonderful encounters and delightful conversations. And my memories of these many days will stay with me long after this election is over. Although I do see many people nearer my age, my greatest delight is in the sensitive, intelligent, caring young people I meet. To those who are turned off by “politics” I say that this is your life which is being legislated on by the politicians, that you and I and all of us are the government, and that we need to participate in our government. The sooner you begin to participate, the sooner the politician attitude can be changed. Most of the young people I meet do seem ready and I hope that I am encouraging them to be more active.
But I am an old woman and I do get tired. My greatest hope is to see this campaigning I am doing result in inspiring some young people run for office at any and every level.
Well, that’s pretty much all for today except to tell you that Joe Merone of Vermont Public TV has given me permission to put that very nice photo of me they have on their candidates site up on my blog.
In case you missed my two blogs on the media, I want to say very clearly that I regard Public TV as number two in public service to Vermont with their candidate coverage. Number one spot goes to Channel 17, which is hosting their gubernatorial candidate forum tonight, and to WGDR of Plainfield, which is more than generous in its offer of air time to candidates.
Interested candidates can call WGDR at 802-454-7367 for more information, and check out www.channel17.org/debate.htm for possible live coverage tonight. But it will be archived at /seeitnow.html if you miss it tonight.
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