Just as the 2020 Nominating Convention of the Georgia Green Party was convening, a Democrat operative showed up at the Convention venue in Bonaire Georgia to entice Jimmy Cooper to abandon his plans to seek the Green Party nomination for Georgia’s 8th Congressional District, and to instead accept pledges to cover the $5,220 qualifying fee, available if he were to qualify instead in the uncontested Democrat Primary, the first week of March.

In the 2018 election cycle, Jimmy Cooper showed stronger write-in results than any previous Georgia Green Party candidate except for its 2002 Gubernatorial nominee and the Presidential slates it has supported in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016.

‘Legislated off the ballot’, as the Party’s former Chairman Bruce Dixon, now deceased, often put it, the Georgia Green Party was left to run the two candidates of its 2018 slate as write-ins. Jimmy Cooper was undeterred by the ballot access barriers and proceeded with his Fall campaign. His work was visible in the write-in tabulation.

In a letter shared with the Georgia Party leadership, late Sunday night, Mr. Cooper wrote to thank the party for the nomination, stating, “I will do my best to make you all proud, and ideally win one for the Georgia Green Party.” He then proceeded to share the offer extended to him Saturday morning at the site of the Green Party’s Bonaire Convention: of a qualifying fee, a way to bypass the ballot access petition barriers imposed on Greens by the Democrats, a sure shot at the uncontested nomination, and the likely support of the Democrat party.

“If I had run as a Democrat, I may or may not have gotten elected. But it is not my intention to get elected just to be one progressive in a Congress made up and run by corporate owned politicians, collecting a paycheck and getting nothing done,” wrote Jimmy Cooper of Crawford County Georgia. “I am running to start a movement. I am running to change American politics and government. I do want to get elected, but I want my doing so to lead to real change.”

“We are proud to have nominated Jimmy for a second election cycle. He has shown in his humble and low-key way, a willingness to roll up his sleeves, to do the work and to engage with the working people of the 8th District, with the concerns they share with working people across this nation,” said Lithoinia resident Kweku Lumumba, Co-Chair of the Georgia Green Party.

“We are delighted with this expression of party loyalty exhibited with Jimmy’s declining the blue team offer,” said Denice Traina, of Augusta Georgia, co-chair with Mr. Lumumba of the state party. “This underscores the point we have raised time and again as we have litigated the Jim Crow ballot access barriers imposed on us by the Democrat Party. Greens are not just disaffected Democrats, we seek to offer the people of Georgia a completely new type of politics, grounded in integrity, committed to a just, sustainable and peaceful future for our children and ready to challenge the corruption undermining the promise of the rhetorical flourishes often attributed to this nation’s founders.”

Mr. Cooper wrote: “If a working-class American, not a millionaire, but someone who works for a living, and struggles just like most other Americans now, runs as a Green Party candidate, pays the qualifying fee, raises the required number of petition signatures and gets on the ballot, and WINS the election over an incumbent Republican, in an extremely gerrymandered red district in middle and southern Georgia, that is a game changer in American politics. It will show it can be done ANYWHERE, and will inspire others to do so.”

The Georgia Green Party is urging Greens from across the nation to step up and help meet the challenge of assembling a qualifying fee which represents nearly 15 weeks of this candidate’s take-home pay, excedes the gross monthly mean income in Georgia by roughly 7%, and which no doubt far exceeds that of the working people in Jimmy’s rural district.

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References:

http://georgiagreenparty.org/

See Jimmy Cooper’s campaign launch video:

Donate to Jimmy’s campaign

For immediate release

Monday, February 24th, 2020

For further information, please contact:

Kweku Lumumba, CoChair

770-895-7686, kweku@kosssa.com

Denice Traina, CoChair

706-951-2413, denicetraina@gmail.com

Jimmy Cooper, nominee for U.S. Congress, Georgia’s 8th District

404-877-2044, jimmycooper@mail.com