Chief aim of minor party candidates: Raise issues

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Benicia voters who have watched televised forums recently might think that incumbent Barack Obama, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, are their only choices for president in the general election Nov. 6.

But the ballot has other candidates for the nation’s top office.

Independents, Libertarians, the Green Party and the Peace and Freedom Party also have entries in the presidential race.

And while they may have little to no chance of being elected, these minor-party candidates can succeed in one aim: bringing attention to issues.

Among those candidates, representing the American Independent Party in the presidential race is Thomas Hoefling and his running mate, Robert Ornelas.

In his candidate statement submitted to California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Hoefling said, “I believe we’re one nation under God.”

He said he also believes that “the first sworn duty of every officer of government, at every level, in every branch, is to protect the God-given, unalienable rights to life, liberty, and private property of every person within their jurisdiction, from creation to natural death.”

Hoefling said, “The God-given institution of one man-one woman marriage and the natural family must be protected. The Right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Our national sovereignty, security, and borders must be defended.”

He said the United States must adhere to its republican form of representative self-government, and the oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States must be fulfilled.

“It is time for ‘We the People’ to take our government back from those who are driving our once-free constitutional republic to destruction and bankruptcy,” he said. “We must start now, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, who are being robbed of their God-given, unalienable right to government by consent by this generation’s creation of debts that we ourselves cannot possibly repay.”

He said he is asking for voters’ support, “so that together, for the sake of our posterity, we may take a giant step toward the restoration of moral, constitutional government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Hoefling’s website is www.tomhoefling.com/.

Jill Stein is running for president on the Green Party ticket. Her vice presidential choice is Cheri Honkala.

“We can’t afford four more years of corporate rule in Washington,” Stein said in her statement to Bowen.

“We must act now to build a just society in which every worker earns decent wages, every person has quality health care, Social Security is an unwavering commitment, college student debt is eliminated, and our children inherit a healthy environment.”

Stein said nearly half of the American population lives in or near poverty. “Wages are stagnant. Unemployment is devastating communities. And the super-rich who collapsed the economy in 2008 are using the White House and Congress to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us. This is intolerable.”

She said she stands for a platform she called “a Green New Deal,” explaining it would create 25 million new jobs “and end the nightmare of unemployment in America.” Stein also promised to bring debt relief to college graduates, end Wall Street bailouts and replace “too big to fail” banks with public institutions.

“I will offer simple government mortgages to keep people facing foreclosure in their homes,” she said. “I will create green jobs to address pollution and climate change. And I will oppose trade agreements that destroy workers’ wages in America and move factories overseas.”

She said each vote she and Honkala receive “is a clear call for a new deal that replaces corporate corruption with the wise, caring, and accountable government we deserve. I urge you to learn about the Green New Deal and to join me at JillStein.org.”

The Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate is Gary Johnson, whose running mate is Judge James P. Gray.

“After having built a successful business, I entered public service by asking the people of New Mexico to give me an opportunity to bring common sense leadership to the Office of Governor,” Johnson said. “I pledged to reduce taxes, reduce the size of state government, and get government out of the way of job creation, individual freedom, and innovation.”

He was elected, then was re-elected to a second term.

“The size of state government was, in fact, reduced,” he said. “Tens of thousands of private sector jobs were created, and the state moved from operating in the red to having a billion-dollar surplus.”

Johnson said during his eight years as New Mexico’s governor, taxes were reduced 14 times and weren’t raised.

“I vetoed approximately 750 bills passed by the state legislature, in keeping with my determination to reduce the size and cost of state government,” he said. “When I left office, being term limited, New Mexico had a budget surplus and private sector job creation had increased substantially.”

He said the nation “desperately needs that same kind of leadership today.”

Johnson said, “Good government is easy when politics are put aside and common sense applied.

“I pledge to submit a balanced budget to Congress in 2013, to veto, as I did in New Mexico, any legislation that will result in deficit spending, and to create an environment of regulatory certainty that will allow the private sector to put Americans to work and let free people live their lives without fear of unnecessary government interference.”

His website is garyjohnson2012.com/.

The name recognition of the Peace and Freedom Party candidates rival that of the Democratic and Republican candidates.

Actress Roseanne Barr is running for president as that party’s candidate, and her running mate is war protester Cindy Sheehan, who began protesting in 2005 in Crawford, Texas, near then-President George W. Bush’s ranch, after her son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq the previous year.

Before her marriage to Patrick Sheehan, when she was known as Cindy Lee Miller, she was a youth minister for eight years at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Vacaville, and supervised an after-school program for at-risk middle school pupils in the same city. Her marriage ended in 2005.

In her statement to Bowen, Barr said she is running for president “because the so-called ‘two-party system’ in this country prevents our government from representing the people and allows it to represent big money instead.

“I stand for the rights and interests of working people over the narrow interest of private profit.”

Barr said most Americans want access to health care and education to be available to everyone.

“Access should not be decided by the profit of insurance companies and other private institutions,” she said. “But the politicians in our government currently serve their donors instead of voters.”

She said she hopes voters will look beyond the Democratic and Republican parties.

“I want people to vote outside the box that perpetuates wars, gives our public funds to the banks, and destroys our economy and environment,” she said.

“We have to start building alternatives now, instead of submitting — time after time — to the threat of a ‘greater evil.’ Remember that both evils have been doing the same evils once in office.”

She said socialism isn’t just for “Wall Street, military contractors or Congress anymore, but all Americans!”

She said that through her television show, “I reached ordinary people with messages of empowerment and resistance through fun and humor.

“As a candidate, I am again reaching people to ask them to vote outside the dominant parties and start building alternatives that represent the people,” she said.

“The Peace and Freedom Party has been one of those alternatives for 45 years,” she said, but she said those who support it “support a new wave of politics beyond the tired old game.”

Her website is roseanneforpresident2012.org/.

Obama and Romney, of course, are the best-known candidates for president.

The incumbent was elected four years ago and is seeking a second and final term. His running mate is Vice President Joe Biden.

“Over the last few decades, middle-class security had been slipping away for families who worked hard and played by the rules,” Obama said in his candidate statement.

“Wages stagnated while costs soared. Fewer employers offered retirement and health benefits. College tuition costs skyrocketed. Then the Wall Street and housing market crashes cost 8.8 million jobs and sent the economy into a deep recession.”

He said he took immediate action to put Americans back to work, “stopping the bleeding and reversing the trend.” He said he also began laying the foundation for recovery that has “strong roots and a job-creating economy that’s built to last.”

He called 2012 “a make-or-break moment for the middle class.” If middle-income Americans are to succeed, he said, it will happen when hard work pays off, responsibility is rewarded “and everybody plays by the same rules, does their fair share and has a fair shot at success.”

He said his plan invests in “education, innovation, infrastructure and energy,” and asks the wealthiest to pay their fair share again to help create American jobs and responsibly reduce the deficit in a balanced way.

“We can’t afford to go back to the same failed policies that crashed our economy and devastated the middle class,” he said. “We have to move forward.”

Obama’s website is www.barackobama.com/.

GOP candidate Romney said, “I’m running for president to get America back to work, protect our national security, and ensure our country remains the leader of the free world.”

He said he has spent most of his life in the private sector, where he has started or rebuilt more than 100 companies, including Staples, Bright Horizons and The Sports Authority.

In 1999, he was asked to intervene when the coordinating committee of the organization planning the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, was on the verge of collapse following corruption and bribery allegations.

The committee’s budget was $379 million in debt. “I was asked to take over,” Romney said. “I revamped the organization’s leadership, trimmed the budget, and restored public confidence. In the end, we staged one of the most successful games of all time.”

He said in his single term as governor of Massachusetts, he cut taxes 19 times and balanced the budget four years in a row.

“I cut red tape for small businesses, signed into law job-creating incentives, and fought to bring businesses to the state,” he said. “By the end of my term, the state had amassed a $2 billion rainy-day fund.”

Romney’s vice presidential running mate is Paul Ryan. He said he and Ryan would repeal the national health care law, eliminate regulations that destroy jobs, open markets for American exports and “unlock America’s energy resources.”

He promised to reduce taxes “and bring an end to runaway spending and borrowing in Washington.

“We’ll make the federal government simpler, smaller, and smarter. We’ll reverse defense cuts of the past three-plus years, rebuild our military, and ensure that this century will be another American Century,” he said.

“Together we can create an ‘Opportunity Society’ where hard work, education, and risk-taking allow people to achieve their dreams,” Romney said.

Romney’s website is www.mittromney.com/.

The election is Nov. 6, though vote by mail has begun. Besides the president, Benicia voters will be asked to elect one U.S. senator, a U.S. representative, a state senator, a state Assemblymember, a Solano Community College bond issue and member of its board of trustees, and 11 ballot measures.