The Illinois League of Women Voters is stiffing Green Party candidates at forums to be broadcast on public television. Fortunately, the McHenry County League of Women Voters is not so narrow-minded and politically biased. Today's County Board forum at MCC (2:00PM) and Monday's 7:00PM forum at MCC for candidates for Sheriff and County Clerk will include Green Party candidates.
Four major televised debates are scheduled for the next two weeks: two debates for Governor and two debates for U.S. Senator. A debate for each race is being hosted by the League of Women Voters of Illinois and will be broadcast on WLS (ABC 7) in Chicago (with the feed available to other stations across the state). A candidate forum for each race (and for other races as well) are being hosted by WTTW (PBS 11) on their news program, Chicago Tonight.
As of right now, Rich Whitney and LeAlan Jones are being excluded from these debates, and WTTW is excluding ALL Green Party candidates from their forums. This is a disservice to the candidates, but even more so, a disservice to the voters of Illinois, who are demonstrably sick of the lousy candidates the other parties have put forward.
Rich Whitney has recorded a new commercial which he would like to get on television across the state. www.whitneyforgov.org/ The ad is also on YouTube.com
View the ad on Rich’s main Facebook page, too. That's at www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=210649791624
You can call the Chicago League of Women Voters and WTTW; see phone numbers and email contacts below. Be sure to give your name, your city and/or neighborhood, and specifically tell them to DO THE RIGHT THING and invite Rich Whitney and LeAlan Jones to the debates.
• Rich Whitney is the only candidate for Governor with a comprehensive plan for balancing the budget, making taxes fairer, creating good jobs, and improving schools.
• In 2006, Rich Whitney received over 361,000 votes in 2006 – more than 10% of the vote.
• LeAlan Jones is a Peabody Award Winner and Robert F. Kennedy Grand Prize Winner for his pioneering works “Ghetto Life 101” and “Remorse: the 14 Stories of Eric Morse”. He has strong name recognition, especially on the South Side and West Side of Chicago – recognition which would not easily reflect in polls.
• The Green Party is one of three major parties under Illinois law – just like the Democrats and Republicans. The Peoria Journal-Star recently editorialized that the debates need to be opened up, and pointedly said that as major party candidates, Greens should absolutely not be excluded.
• Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune recently wrote: “Of the five candidates for governor… Green Party nominee Rich Whitney was the best spoken, had the best command of the facts and, in my opinion, had the most sensible ideas for moving Illinois forward.”
To contact the League of Women Voters of Illinois:
Phone: 312-939-5935
Email: President Nancy Marcus – president@lwvil.org
Email: Executive Director Jan Czarnik – execdirector@lwvil.org
For WTTW Channel 11:
Call their main switchboard at 773-583-5000. Say that you want to leave a message that WTTW needs to DO THE RIGHT THING and invite Rich Whitney, LeAlan Jones, and other Green Party candidates to their Chicago Tonight forums. Make sure to leave your name and city/neighborhood as WTTW will be logging who has called and left messages.
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2 comments:
Thanks for your comment. While NIXLE promotes itself as community information or "radio" and has clever self-advertising, community residents don't want to be battered by announcements from City Hall.
Woodstock was certainly aware of that, when it considered its community alert system.
If a train jumps the tracks in Woodstock and a tanker car filled with ammonium is leaking, YES! those near the tracks want to know about it. If someone is over-parked on the Square, we don't want a NIXLE message.
I have never received even one alert message from the City of Woodstock Thanks, City Hall! (I'm not complaining.)
The jail press release on NIXLE? Purely a politically-motivated use of a tax-supported service. And I'd say that, even if I weren't running for Sheriff!
The CPD Sept. 18th NIXLE alert about the Walk might qualify, if it targeted local addresses to alert about the Walk's interference with traffic on Lake Shore Drive.
Re Supt. Jody Weis' talk, if he was addressing recent crime in a specific area of Chicago, then inform the immediately-local residents. That use is okay with me. Not City-wide, though.
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