Michael McCues comments on CD 2 Race.

Since the CD-2 primary I have remained busy as a Green activist…

I attended the Neighborhood Council Action Summit where I urgently supported the Rate-Payer Advocate plank of our local platform.

I have attended the Congress of Neighborhood Councils where I made inroads with the BONC in fighting the questionable ethics exhibited by some of our NC's during the CD-2 race.

I have been contacting our representatives in Washington and Sacramento supporting other specific issues that are close to our most vital, progressive goals of Health Care Reform for all, and Wall Street reforms (as well as justice for the criminals working against our nation‘s best interests there). There were several arrests made this past week, including many hedge fund managers and lawyers, so there is a little progress on that front.

Please know that just because I am no longer in the race for CD-2, it does not mean that I am inactive politically.

I continue to serve on the Board of the Studio City Neighborhood Council, and as the Chair of the Environmental Affairs Committee and as a voting member of the Government Affairs Committee for the SCNC.

I have been active in the CD-2 race by taking meetings with the run-off candidates, Christine Essel and Paul Krekorian.

I will continue to use whatever influence I have with them both to help them understand the Key Values that I continue to support and was talking about all through the Town Hall debate process.

By the way…Paul Krekorian clearly stated to me that I was the only candidate in the CD-2 race who presented a full, specific platform. Christine Essel acknowledged this as well and expressed her admiration as well.

I thanked them for their respect and continue to encourage both of the CD-2 candidates to embrace the 10 Key Values and to use these values in their decision- making process, whatever the outcome of the race.

Paul, by the way, recently joined Christine Essel in supporting Instant Run-Off Elections (which are an election reform that our campaign supported and) that create a major savings for our taxpayers. More about IRV later…

Since the primary, Christine Essel endorsed the Fair Election measure that is coming up on the state ballot in 2010, and I hope that Paul Krekorian will follow suit on this election reform as well. I will ask him this week. We need (Clean Money) Fair Elections in the City of Los Angeles as well.

I am still listening to both CD-2 candidates and am seeking specific platforms and commitments on the issues of Clean Money/Fair Elections reform, a Rate-Payer advocate, a Collections Sheriff, commitment to clean air and enforcement of our environmental laws, fair water usage policies, etc…

I will be attending as many debates and CD-2 candidate meetings as my schedule allows and urge all of our supporters and voters to do the same. We must increase voter turnout for this special election!

I will publish another update after the election for CD-2. I wish both Christine and Paul the best of luck in the CD-2 election on Dec. 8th!

In your service,
Michael McCue
Green Party Candidate for CD-2
Board Member – Studio City Neighborhood Council
Chair – Environmental Affairs Committee
Member – Government Affairs Committee

A p.s. from Michael.....

Dear Phil,

I tried to submit a blog comment on the Mayor Sam website (in response to the other comments) but for some reason my computer wouldn’t allow me to fill out the application properly….don’t know what’s wrong…

Because of the vitriol of some of the statements, I thought I would respond…could you please post my response and insert it with the other blog comments? I hope that isn’t an imposition for you. (Be sure to sign my name and show my email address.)

Here is my statement…

It seems proper for me to respond to some of the comments made here in order to set the record straight…

First—no one is impressed by anonymous comments, myself included.

Any writers submitting comments that they are uncomfortable signing their name to, should not even bother to do so. Anonymous comments carry no weight with any thinking person. Especially the ones that utilize insults, hate-speech and that are, or seem to be, inspired by the backwards thinking of the authors. These comments are childish rubbish.

Second--Calling Phil “stupid,” “slow” and “writing at an eighth-grade level” is ridiculous nonsense. If this is true, then the writers themselves are truly the stupid ones for wasting their time reading it in the first place. These comments attempting to degrade the website host tell much more about the writers themselves than they do about Phil. This is also nonsense.

Third--Calling professional women “streetwalkers” and using the “s” word and the “f” word is sexist and foul. This is the 21^st century. Language like this is not socially acceptable.

If you wouldn’t say it in public, then don’t say it in writing. Anonymous comments of this type are the height of boorishness.

My father was a career military man and he would have washed your mouths out with soap for using such unacceptable, foul-mouthed language in a public space, (which a website is!). If you must resort to that type of language then you truly have nothing to say in the first place or are incapable of expressing it as an adult would.

The only blogger comment that I take seriously is Joseph Mailander’s when he said “it is more like a McCue infomercial.” Unfortunately, after re-reading the article—I am forced to agree with his critique.

The same thought struck me as well, and I was hesitant to even submit it for that reason, but I want Mr. Mailander to know that there was more to the original statement that was edited out—and it wasn’t censorship on Phil’s part. I agreed to let him edit my comments at his discretion. I think he did a good job—it was my skill as a writer that was lacking. Phil changed nothing.

I do apologize for the self-serving tone of the piece and ask Mr.M to understand that the main reason for my submission in the first place was an attempt to respond to the many people who have been pressuring me for an endorsement in the CD-2 race. After being eliminated, I didn’t think that anyone, (other than my volunteers and supporters), cared about my opinion. But I was wrong.

It appears that the race is a very close one and every endorsement counts—even the opinion of an “also-ran.”

The pressure has been relentless since the primary ended and I wanted to be sure that everyone knew where I stood in an effort to tap down the pressure. I hope Mr. M. will forgive me my inadequacies as a writer and hope he understands where I am coming from regarding endorsements.

But, again, these comments were extracted from a longer piece that actually was an update of my activities since the primary. This was the second update I’ve sent out so far. The updates are themed around the Ten Key Values of the Green Party, which I believe in, and the original updates, in their entirety can be seen at thewww.McCueforCD2.com website which is still available for a short time (and I apologize, Mr. M, for the self-serving plug…)...

Please know that I am endorsing positions on the issues—not the candidates.

The Key Values I talked about all through the Town Hall process are the planks of a progressive platform that I am still fighting for and hope to achieve…Clean Money (Fair) Elections, an independent Rate-Payer Advocate, a Collections Sheriff, fair water-usage rules (shared sacrifice), enforcement of Clean Air laws, enforcement of mandatory infra-structure reviews and upgrades, the 50% solution…these are the important issues that I am endorsing—not candidates.

If our city charter had a requirement that all candidates must be residents of their districts for at least (only) one year before the election—then neither of these run-off candidates would even be eligible to be in the race at all! That’s an election reform I support as well.

During the CD-2 campaign, our McCue for CD-2 volunteers were comprised of not only Greens, but Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents and others without category. This was a delightful surprise for me, but it started to make sense because I eventually realized that our supporters were focused on the platform I presented, not myself personally. It wasn’t about me at all.

The volunteers and supporters agreed with the issues I brought up and trusted my experience as an elected official and reformer with the courage to speak Truth to Power about these important issues.

That’s a responsibility that I take seriously. It was their curiosity about my post-election activities that prompted these updates in the first place. They were not intended to be self-serving.

And for those anonymous bloggers criticizing Phil on an inappropriate, personal basis--The Mayor Sam website is widely read among many city pols and you are polluting it with your foul, immature bile. I can only presume that these bloggers are from the “Party of NO!” or worse…the wingnuts, teabaggers and/or birtherswho are the same ones with no ideas and no solutions (and no clue)…and whose hate is inspired by their own warped frustrations.

I thank Phil for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with his readers and I thank him for all of the hard work that he puts into the Mayor Sam website. It must be an exhausting job and I respect his devotion to our city’s political scene.

In fact, my only critique of Phil’s website is that I don’t think he should permit anonymous comments at all--nor the foul-mouthed language. I would like to see Phil think more highly of what he has created and consider the positively-charged, solution-oriented discussion process that could be taking place at Mayor Sam.

Phil doesn’t agree with me on some issues, but he shows that he is fair by giving me a chance to express myself. I respect him for that.

So, any anonymous, foul-mouthed bloggers who wish to spew their vitriolic frustrations all over the Mayor Sam website…know this truth…You’ve got to name it to claim it!

Those who don’t sign their name are not naming it, nor claiming it—they are merely immature bullies or closeted cowards…whichever applies.

Michael McCue

(Former) Green Party Candidate for CD-2

myklmcq@aol.com