Longtime Israel critic Cynthia McKinney is the Green Party nominee for president.
McKinney, whose father famously blamed the loss of her House of Representatives seat in 2002 on the “J-E-W-S,” was nominated at the party’s convention last month in Chicago. In her acceptance speech, published in a Washington alternative newspaper, she called for a new investigation of the 9/11 attacks and ending U.S. involvement in Iraq. She said that “if Green Party values were now reflected in U.S. public policy” there “would be peace in the Middle East based on self-determination, respect for human rights and justice.”
McKinney is remembered among Israel supporters for asking a Saudi prince for the $10 million in disaster relief he had pledged to the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, after then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had rejected the money because the prince had criticized U.S. support of Israel. She lost her Atlanta-area congressional seat in 2002 after five terms to a Democratic primary opponent, Denise Majette, who received support from pro-Israel donors.She won it back two years later after Majette unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate, but lost again in the primary in 2006.
McKinney, whose running mate Rosa Clemente is described in media reports as a “hip-hop activist,” received less than 1 percent of the vote nationally in a Gallup poll released Tuesday. Ralph Nader ran as the Green Party nominee in 2000 and is seen by many Democrats as costing Al Gore the election. Nader is running again this year as an independent, along with another former Georgia member of the House Representaives, Bob Barr, who is representing the Libertarian Party.
