New support for Hawkins
News 10 Now (Time Warner Cable)
Bill Carey
October 30th, 2007
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- If you vote in elections in the Syracuse area, you know the name. Howie Hawkins has run for public office 11 times. Four of those races were attempts to gain a seat on the Syracuse common council. This year, he is back again, part of a field seeking two at large seats on the council. He admits being the standard bearer for the Green party an be tough.
"Row H. It's the 8th row down. All by myself. There's a lot of white space around me. I look like the union bug or an ink blotch, not the real candidate. Plus, if you're at all tall, you look down, the lever kind of blocks it, so you got to look down to find me," said Howie Hawkins, Councilor-At-Large Candidate.
This time around, though, Hawkins has some major support. An endorsement from the Syracuse Post-Standard which calls his a legitimate candidate with substantive ideas.
"I was pushing the living wage since the 90s. We now have a living wage ordinance, although I'd like to see it expanded. During the mayoral race, I pushed public power. There's now a feasibility study that the council voted through. And everybody's talking green industry, green technology now. So, these are issues that we've been able to raise and make progress on when we've been on the outside. Imagine what we could do on the inside," said Hawkins.
Hawkins says the big disadvantage is the habit people have of voting their party line in races where they don't know who is running. He says his job is to introduce himself to more voters between now and next Tuesday. He may not succeed this time, but he says sentiment is growing toward a true "people's party."
"I think that's where we're headed. It's just a question of how long it's going to take us to get there, because I think if you look at the polls on the majority of issues, the people are more with the Green Party than they are with the Democrats or Republicans. On the issues," said Hawkins.
On the issues, Hawkins says he deserves to join the common council in January.
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