Whitney (Green Party) makes his case in governor’s race

Whitney (Green Party) makes his case in governor’s race
By Gary Barlow
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 18, 2006



The things that distinguish Rich Whitney from the other two candidates for governor this fall would fill a pretty long list.

For starters, he’s the one without millions in corporate campaign contributions.

He’s the one who’s not airing a constant stream of negative TV ads.

He’s the only one who supports the right of gays and lesbians to marry.

He doesn’t have a campaign plane or even a campaign bus.

And—perhaps related to most of the above—he’s the only one who’s actually rising in the polls lately.

That’s right—in a new Chicago Tribune poll released Oct. 14, support for both Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and Republican Judy Baar Topinka was down from last month, while Whitney’s support rose four percentage points.

“I’m very pleased with that,” Whitney said in an interview the day the poll came out. “It’s continuing a gradual upward trend in the polls.”

Granted, Whitney, who’s campaigning on the Green Party’s first statewide slate of candidates, has a long way to go. Even with the rise in the Tribune poll, he’s still far behind the other two candidates at just 9 percent. But that’s a significant accomplishment for a candidate whose campaign doesn’t have the bucks to match TV ads with the Democrats and Republicans.

Instead, Whitney’s campaigning the old-fashioned way—driving around the state talking to voters face-to-face.

“We’re the Green Party,” he says. “We’re the ones really standing up for clean government.”

As the poll shows, it’s a message that’s resonating with more and more voters disgusted with the current state of Illinois politics. More than half of those polled by the Tribune said they’re dissatisfied with the choice of Blagojevich or Topinka, and that was before one of the governor’s closest friends and advisors—Tony Rezko—was indicted by the U.S. attorney last week on corruption charges related to his ties to state government.

Whitney says his campaign represents the change Illinois voters say they want.

“Politics today is dominated by big money,” Whitney says. “Democratic and Republican politicians are invested in this whole system. ÉThey cross the line to make bad decisions in their lust for money. I’m not part of that system.”

Throughout the campaign, Whitney’s struggled to reach voters. The Tribune poll showed that still only about a third of Illinois voters are familiar with him. That makes his rising poll numbers even more impressive—he’s gone from an almost negligible 2 percent earlier this year to 5 percent last month and 9 percent in the latest poll. It means that when he does reach voters, many are impressed.

“Our basic themes, besides the budget and education, are clean energy, clean government and a healthy economy,” Whitney says.

He says Illinois has to balance the budget honestly, and he blasts Blagojevich for raiding the state’s pension funds.

“If you look at what he has done to the budget, to pensionsÉit’s all about making future taxpayers pick up the tab,” Whitney says.

Whitney also wants to transform the state’s healthcare system by enacting single-payer, universal health coverage—the kind of system Canada and most Western countries have. Citing factories locating in Canada recently because companies there don’t have to pay for employees’ health insurance, Whitney says such a healthcare system would be a boon for Illinois businesses as well as the health of its citizens.

“Let Illinois be first,” Whitney says. “We can’t wait for the federal government. ÉIt’ll be a win-win situation for the state of Illinois.”

Energy is another issue Illinois should take the lead on, he says.

“We have to do more to create clean energy,” Whitney says. “It is not a pipedream to believe that we can get to that point to where every home in Illinois, certainly every farm, can be an energy producer, not just an energy consumer.”

Technological innovation such as that, he says, would create more jobs and a cleaner environment, as would boosting mass transit.

“To me, mass transit is a priority—it has to be,” he says. “Frankly, if we have a better infrastructure, it’s going to bring more jobs to the state.”

Those kinds of Green Party stands, Whitney says, represent the best prescription for a more robust economy in Illinois.

“These are positive ways to build our economy,” Whitney says. “I think Illinois can do something the other 49 states aren’t doing. Right now, what are Rod and Judy talking about—more tax breaks for big business? ÉIt’s a race to the bottom line. That’s why so many states are in financial trouble.”

Whitney applauds Blagojevich’s role in getting an amendment to the state’s Human Rights Act passed that protects GLBTs from discrimination in employment, housing, credit transactions and public accommodations. But he’d go further and push for equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.

“Part of my answer to the right is—they get all bent out of shape that this is somehow going to sully the sanctity of marriage,” Whitney says. “But what the state calls marriage has nothing to do with religion. It’s contract law—99 percent of our marriage law is about divorce, really. It’s about how property is combined and gets divided up. Believe me, there’s nothing sacred about that. ÉGay and lesbian people have the same right to that title of marriage under the law.”

The Carbondale attorney, who helped form the Illinois Green Party in 1999, has a ready answer for people who say they agree with him on most issues but fret that they’d be wasting their vote if they voted for him.

“History is not static,” Whitney says, debunking the idea that only the Democratic and Republican parties are going to endure. “There really isn’t much to lose. Even if I do take more votes from Blagojevich than from Topinka, which I’m not sure is the case, I say, ‘So what.’ I don’t see that we would really be worse off four years from now if she won. So why not vote for me? Why not break through this progressive glass ceiling? ÉThis may be the time when people do show that courage.”