Cornel Wests candidacy on the Green Party line confuses some of his longtime political allies and friends while also alarming top Democrats and Black leaders. The political philosopher and proud agitator is tapping into his semicelebrity to attack Biden from the left where the president has never been fully embraced. West is also making a deliberately racebased argument accusing the Democratic establishment of treating the electorate like a plantation where you got ownership status in terms of which way you vote. Most top Democrats remain skeptical West will raise enough money to mount an extensive operation he jumped from the littleknown Peoples Party to the Greens after a rocky rollout. But his decision to run on a ballot line which Democrats blame for spoiling both the and elections has made his candidacy a running source of angst and increasingly a topic of private conversations among multiple Democratic leaders nationally and in battleground states. There are no sirens blaring but top Democrats in swing states have taken notice. I dont think times necessarily on our side. The longer these things hang out there the worse it tends to get said Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis who acknowledged that the conversation about West has so far been more among insiders than voters. For now Biden advisers remain hopeful that the presidents record and voters memories of when Jill Steins campaign won tens of thousands of votes in battlegroundStates Hillary Clinton lost will keep supporters from straying to West. Personal affection and respect for West a giant of the American left and pioneering political theorist has led many to try to avoid discussing their dismay over his run. Even media outlets and leftist commentators who have held him in high regard for decades are urging West to reconsider and in some notable cases run as a Democrat in a primary challenge to Biden. Multiple top former Sanders aides told they opposed the Green party run and dont understand what he is trying to accomplish through it. The most the senator himself has discussed the run was back in April saying People will do what they want to do. West was one of the early boosters of the modern Democratic Socialists of America in the early s and later as an honorary chair. But even prominent members asking for anonymity to speak critically about a man they admire questioned his timing and reading of the political moment. Hes missing the mark in ways either a threat to bringing the GOP back as a spoiler or if you don’t care about the GOP or you dont care about discipline to appeal to the far left. Some highprofile Sanders supporters though are moving Wests way though and remain a consistent Biden critic who has remained a consistent supporter of the vice presidential candidate. West has not spoken to the campaign in any formal capacity since the campaign began and has no plans to donate to his campaign and no idea that he would donate to Wests campaign since he began that he had no idea about his plans. He has been described as a moral calling though she is not currently working with the campaign and that he is not working with his friends but is not calling his friends about his plan to run for president. The Green Party is already trying to get on the ballot in many states with a presidential candidate the Greens are already there in and in got up to including the most competitive states.
Cornel West is running for the Green Party in New Hampshire. He is the son of former New Jersey Gov. Cornel West. West is also the grandson of Cornel West, who ran for president in 1968.
