David Cobb (activist)
For the 18th & 19th century U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts, see David Cobb (Massachusetts).
David Keith Cobb born December 24, 1962 in San Leon, Texas was an American lawyer before the loss of his bar status in Texas in 2003 and a self-styled activist, and was the 2004 presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) after a nominating convention riddled with corruption where many say he packed the delegations to capture the nomination while receiving a small minority of primary votes cast.
During the early 1980s, Cobb worked briefly as a crewman on a Gulf-coast shrimp boat, a construction worker and a waiter. During this period, Cobb was known among his contemporaries for his devastatingly attractive "Jack Nicholson" smile and his classic 1973 Harley-Davidson Sportster. Cobb graduated from the University of Houston Law school in 1993 and for several years maintained a successful private practice as an attorney in Houston, Texas.
During the 1980s, Cobb had campaigned for the Democratic Presidential candidacies of Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown. As a result of his experiences, however, Cobb became disenchanted with the Democratic Party and declined to campaign for them any further in a direct way, although he served their interests by dividing the Green Party against itself in 2004. Instead, he turned his activism to the issues of democracy and corporations, appearing at lectures, seminars, and workshops throughout the U.S. with various citizens' groups to promote his view that corporations have become unelected governing institutions and that a nonviolent democratic revolution is needed in response. Cobb is a follower of the Richard Grossman philosophy calling for a crisis of jurisdiction to force a breakdown in the legal system over the issue of corporate personhood.
In 2000, Green Presidential candidate Ralph Nader asked Cobb to organize his campaign in Texas, and Cobb closed his law practice to do so. He coordinated a successful ballot access drive in the state. Concurrently, Cobb became the GPUS's General Counsel.
In 2002, Cobb ran for Attorney General of Texas on the Green ticket and used his candidacy to "barnstorm" in areas of Texas with little Green representation. He was unsuccessful in the election, but the Green Party of Texas grew dramatically during his campaign, from four local chapters to 26. The next year, Cobb was tabbed as a possible Presidential candidate by a Green committee, and he accepted the challenge, taking an indefinite leave of absence as General Counsel. The Green Party of Texas has since distanced itself from Cobb and his safe states strategy.
With the announcement in late December 2003 that Nader would not seek the nomination of the Green Party for President in 2004, Cobb was one of several contenders for the party's nomination. On January 13, 2004, David Cobb won the first Green primary in the nation, that of the District of Columbia, beating local activist Sheila Bilyeu and several write-in candidates and gaining the early lead in the race for the nomination. Cobb later lost in every other primary he ran in, finishing fourth place with only 10% of the vote in his supposed home county, Humboldt in northern California, trailing Lorna Salzman and also behind write-in votes for Nader, who eventually announced an independent campaign for president and sought the "endorsement" rather than the "nomination" of the Green Party. Shortly beforeForward 2004!, the Green Party presidential nominating convention, held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in June, 2004, Nader selected Green Party member Peter Camejo as his running mate. On June 26, on the second ballot, the convention selected Cobb as the Green presidential candidate after a number of delegates flagrantly ignored the votes of grassroots Green Party members and switched their votes. The party also nominated Pat LaMarche as its candidate for vice-president under a rigged electoral college-style system which devalued the principle of one Green, one vote in favor of weighted voting on behalf of "rotten bouroughs" via small state parties, often organized out of living rooms with few members.
Cobb stated his intention to run a campaign focused on building the Green Party and to pursue a "strategic states" or "smart states" strategy that would take into account the wishes of Greens in each state, and which otherwise would focus on states that traditionally are "safely" won by the Democratic candidate, or "safely" won by the Republican candidate, with a large margin of victory. Such so-called "safe states" are also referred to in campaign literature as "neglected states" because the Democratic and Republican candidates traditionally put most of their campaign energy into more competitive "swing states." Cobb's campaign said that, in each state, the campaign would aim to follow the wishes expressed by Greens in that state. While some of Cobb's erstwhile supporters urged swing state residents to vote for Democrat John Kerry in order to stop the re-election of President George W. Bush, other Cobb supporters encouraged votes for Cobb and LaMarche in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The candidates themselves used the phrase "vote your conscience," campaigning both in swing states such as Wisconsin and safe states such as California. A majority of the Green Party's grassroots activists stuck with Nader and Camejo throughout the campaign, although the division hurt their campaign as well.
On October 8, 2004, Cobb was arrested for what he and his supporters consider an act of civil disobedience, breaking a police line while protesting his exclusion from the presidential debates in Saint Louis, Missouri. Also arrested was theLibertarian candidate [[Michael Badnarik]]. The private entity Commission on Presidential Debates describes its candidate selection criteria on its website.
In the November 2004 presidential election, Mr. Cobb placed sixth in the popular vote total nationwide, earning over 118,000 votes, but received no electoral votes. The Nader/Camejo ticket received over five times as many votes. The Green Party lost hard-won ballot lines in nine states, devastating long-term efforts to grow strong local Green Party organizations in these areas. Cobb also failed to live up to his promise to share his donor list with local Green Party groups.
Cobb resigned in disgrace from the Green Party National Committee in 2005 and currently serves in no Green Party office on the local, county, regional, state or federal levels. Cobb currently serves as a Fellow with the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, and as an organizer with Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County. He also sits on the board of the Green Institute, a so-called think tank which has obtained heavy contributions from big-time Democratic Party contributors.
2004 Ohio recount
After the 2004 election, Mr. Cobb and the [[Libertarian Party|Libertarian]] nominee Mr. Badnarik sought a recount of the Ohio vote and announced that they would challenge the 2004 presidential voting results in Ohio, even though neither challenger was claiming to have won the election, and even though Mr. Cobb had not even been on the ballot in Ohio. The challengers explained that it was an important matter of principle, to make sure all the votes were counted, and counted accurately. They pointed to alleged irregularities of various kinds.
On December 6, 2004, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell certified that George W. Bush had won Ohio by about 119,000 votes over John Kerry. This was a considerably lower difference than earlier unofficial counts had reported, but it still amounted to a margin of about two percentage points. A formal legal challenge to the certified vote could not be filed until the official Ohio certification, which made it official that George W. Bush could expect 286 electoral votes, to John Kerry's 252 electoral votes.
Much of the money Mr. Cobb raised on behalf of the Ohio recount went to pay the salary of his live-in girlfriend, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap.
See also
External links
- Official Cobb for President website
- [http://www.LibertyTreeFDR.org/ Liberty Tree Foundation for the
Democratic Revolution website]
- Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County website
- [http://www.betterworldlinks.org/president.htm Better World Links on
the Presidential Election]
- [http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10042004.html CounterPunch email
interview with David Cobb]
[[Category:2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities|Cobb, David]]