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Hawkins says he'll run for Senate seat
By Mike Fish
Staff writer, Syracuse Post-Standard |
Longtime Green Party leader Howie Hawkins on Monday announced he is seeking his party's endorsement to run for U.S. Senate in November.
Hawkins, who last year ran for Syracuse mayor on the Green Party line, is one of several people seeking that party's backing. In the race for mayor, he finished last of three candidates, getting 1,551 votes, or 4.7 percent of the total.
There will be a Green Party designating committee meeting May 20 in Albany to select a candidate who will probably run in the fall.
Whoever is designated at that meeting will need to collect 15,000 signatures of registered voters to get on the November ballot. In 2002, Hawkins got more than 49,000 votes statewide when he ran for state comptroller.
In making his announcement outside the Federal Building, Hawkins blasted U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, describing her as "a consistent war hawk on the Iraq war" and as the person most responsible "for killing the single-payer national health insurance bill that had about 100 members of Congress as co-sponsors in 1993."
If he becomes the Green candidate, Hawkins said he intends to use his campaign "as a referendum on the war." He called for the end of the Iraq war now.
Saying 2.9 million New Yorkers are without health insurance, Hawkins said there should be Medicare for all.
Hawkins, who works for United Parcel Service, said he would transfer $350 billion from the military budget to "a crash program" to develop a clean energy system based on solar power, wind power and conservation.
"This is a better way to securing our future rather than militarizing our response and fighting resource wars, like Iraq and like the pending war in Iran," Hawkins said.
Mike Fish can be reached at 470-2197 or mfish@syracuse.com
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 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
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