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Dear Illinois Voters,

How often have you heard this: “I don’t care about the party. I just want to vote for the best candidate.”

Or this: “I’m tired of the Democrats and the Republicans. We just go back and forth and as soon as they get in office, they forget their promises and betray the people. Most of them are a bunch of crooks. I sure wish we had a good third party in this country.”

Illinois, this is your chance to vote for the best candidate and break up the Democratic-Republican stranglehold on our government!

Throughout this campaign, I have demonstrated that I am the best candidate for Governor. I am the only candidate in the race with an actual plan for solving the budget crisis in a way that improves the health of our schools, colleges and social services. I am the only candidate in the race with a comprehensive plan for generating quality job opportunities for all.

But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself:

Watch the debate between me, Pat Quinn and Bill Brady, right here. I am so confident that you will agree that I am the best candidate that I urge you to watch this debate before you vote, and please get your friends to watch it as well. If most voters would watch this debate, I would win this election.

If you don’t have as much time, then please watch my interview with WTTW’s Carol Marin here.

If you are kind of torn between voting for me or voting for Pat Quinn, then please watch my speech to the Green Party convention, here.  Let me make my case before you vote.

If you are more conservative minded and are thinking of voting for Bill Brady, then please read this article. [Why True Conservatives Should Vote For Me.] Let me make my case before you vote.

If you have fallen for the line that the so-called “independent” millionaire pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen is the best choice for Illinois, because he spent a lot of his own money promoting his name and uses the word “jobs” a lot, then please listen to my radio interview with WVON’s Cliff Kelly, here. Let me make my case before you vote.

If you agree that I am the best candidate and should be elected, then please make sure that you tell all of your Illinois voter friends, and direct them to this web page. Ask them to send it to all of their friends as well, and so on. Every little effort can spread and add up to a big difference.

In this race, you have an opportunity to finally break up the two-party duopoly in Illinois once and for all – and demonstrate that a good third party can win races, and that we don’t have to settle for voting “the lesser evil.”

Remember, I am running against four other candidates who each stand for the systematic destruction of the public sector in Illinois, including public schools, universities and services for the elderly, the disabled, children and others in need. The Democratic candidate has already been doing it and simply pretends that he hasn’t been. The Republican and the Libertarian promise to do more of it. And the so-called independent would do it by default, since he fails to address the issue of our regressive tax system and offers an incoherent budget plan with a lot of made-up numbers.

Among this group, only the most strained argument can be made that any one of them is a “lesser evil.” But even if you could discern a lesser evil, why would you want to vote for a lesser evil? If you keep voting a lesser evil, election after election, based on the false premise that the good candidate “can’t” win, the system only continues to grow more evil. By this logic, when do you ever vote for the public good?

This election, please vote for the greater good.  Please vote your hopes, and not your fears. Please vote for me, Rich Whitney, Green Party candidate for Governor.

Vote Green, Not the Machine! (In Chicago, Punch 19!)

The Mikva Challenge is a non-profit program created by former White House Counsel, Judge and U.S. Congressman Abner Mikva and his wife Zoe, a lifelong education activist. Its mission is to help low-income Chicago youth become meaningful actors in politics, honoring the Mikvas’ decades of inspiring young adults to embark on careers in public service and politics. A few weeks ago it held a candidates’ forum in which all the candidates for governor were invited to participate and address high-school students from throughout the greater Chicago area. After the forum, students were given an opportunity to sign up with and volunteer for the campaign of their choice. Green Party candidate Rich Whitney won that contest, recruiting far more students than any other candidate.

Chicago Public Television station WTTW is sponsoring a debate for the governor’s race on October 28, to be televised on its popular program, Chicago Tonight. So far, this taxpayer supported public television station has failed to invite Rich Whitney to participate, and has only invited the Democratic and Republican candidates, even though the Green Party is a legally established party in Illinois and Whitney is on the ballot. The Whitney for Governor campaign is involved in a public pressure campaign to get WTTW to do the right thing and invite Whitney. The Mikva volunteers staged a protest outside the WTTW studios on Friday, October 22nd.

In light of the budget crisis in Illinois, which is saddling future generations with growing debt, cutbacks to education and mass unemployment, it is these kids’ future that is most at stake in this race. Voters, and WTTW need to listen to what our young people have to say!

To join us on Thursday, see: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=168392893177148&index=1