The Bob Kinsey Interview
By Scott Bershof
Photos by Gloria Johnston
Swing Vote: Historically, third party candidates don't do too well. Why is it going to be different this time around?
Kinsey: I can't say it is going to be different this time around but I expect, given all this Tea Party stuff and general dissatisfaction with Republicans and Democrats, voters are starting to get it. We've been hoping using some alternative means of reaching out to voters, we can create a situation where people are willing to vote for me. When I ran against Marilyn Musgrave in 2004 and there was no Democrat running at the time, I ran for four months -- just me versus Musgrave -- then the Democrats put somebody in. At first, the first four months, people came up to me with tears in their eyes, thanking me for running. Then when they drug Stan Matsunaka out of the woodwork to run again, people came up to me again with tears in their eyes saying I can't vote for you because Matsunaka is the winner possibility.
Look what's happened. You elect a Democrat, you get a blockade in the Middle East. You elect a Republican, you get a War on Terror. You elect a Democrat, you get an increase in the war in Afghanistan. At least these people who have questions about that whole business should be waiting to have someone to vote for. The Middle East has been a major focus of the Green Party -- what's wrong with American foreign policy and oil and corporations running our system. If the voters finally get it, that Democrats and Republicans are running the same show, maybe people will have to vote for someone else and will now have someone else to vote for.
Swing Vote: A lot of the time the third party candidate, while hoping they'll have a chance to win, don't necessarily see themselves as having a realistic chance to win but are trying to send a message to reframe the debate. Are you trying to send a message?
Kinsey: We're trying to send a message that things are really messed up. It's not just, 'Let's get the economy back on, it's like it was before.' The oil spill is just a fantastically horrifying example of how we have to change the way human beings do business on this planet if they have any hope of keeping the planet alive to be a life support system. We are threatening the planet. The oil spill -- people are starting to realize what it could do to the entire ocean, not just the Gulf of Mexico. The power our technology has over the biosphere is threatening the possibility of life. Green Party: seventh generation thinking. You make decisions thinking of the welfare of seven generations down the pike -- not just short-term, quarterly profits. We've got to change. That statement has to be made.
Swing Vote: You obviously didn't want to run as a Republican or a Democrat. What are your main gripes with each party?
Kinsey: If you look at the healthcare debate, sixty percent of the people being polled said they were in favor of single-payer and it didn't even make it on the table in the House or the Senate. Why? Because the healthcare corporations and big pharma kept it off the table because they've turned the healthcare system into a giant vacuum cleaner to suck wealth into their pockets and the CEO's pockets.
That's the way politics is happening and whether it's Democrats or Republicans, you get the same results. You elect Republicans, you get a military industrial complex foreign policy, lots of fear, 'It's a dangerous world out there,' lots of foreign intervention. In Colorado Springs, there is a debate in the Gazette about the fact they're going to be starting a helicopter unit to function down there with the training system in Fort Carson. Of course, Pinon Canyon, which the military is trying to expand to an area at least the size of Connecticut, so they can train troops to be functional in the kind of conditions, which are Middle Eastern conditions in that area. People celebrate that we're going to get more military spending and at the same time, they are pandered to by politicians who say we're going cut your taxes. How can you continue to expand the military budget and at the same time be opposed to increases in taxes? You get the Democrats and Republicans saying we're going to reduce taxes. They're not telling the American people the way things are. The Democrats and the Republicans bailed out the banks and not the homeowners. Both Democrats and Republicans bow down to corporate America. Maybe the progressive wing of the Democratic party, which was the Democratic party at one time, will find a way to put spine back in the Democrats. Obama talked about hope and change, he's really Republican-like in terms of where he's taking a stance. He approved drilling in the gulf, offshore drilling. Now he's taken another look at that but I doubt he'll take a very hard look. Who did he appoint to fix the problems on the Wall Street? Wall Street Bankers -- there is Paulson, Bernake -- they're all players. They wanted to do away with regulation. Both Democrats and Republicans bought into doing away with regulation.
