PRESS RELEASES FROM

PEOPLE FOR JESSE VENTURA: DRAFT JESSE PAC


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 14, 2020

On Friday, July 7th, Green Party anti-corruption activists filed a formal complaint with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC), claiming that conflicts of interest within US Green Party have impeded a fair presidential primary for candidates, led to abuse of state and national resources to benefit some candidates over others, and violated the party’s Affiliation Rule by allowing its nominee, Howie Hawkins, to run with both Green Party and Socialist Party ballot lines.  The Affiliation Rule prohibits candidates from running as a Green Party candidate at the same time they are a member or candidate of another party [Exhibit 2].  As recently as June 14th, the Presidential Campaign Support Committee (PCSC) altered the conflict of interest guidelines rather than conform to ethical standards of conduct [Exhibit 1.1, 1.2].  Incredibly, required delegate totals were reduced from over 200 delegates to 173, allowing Hawkins to win [Exhibit 18].

Richard Idriss, a representative of the Draft Jesse campaign that experienced this corruption first hand, said, “We joined with a growing chorus of Green Party members and candidates who were sickened by the blatant misuse of state and national resources of the party to tilt the primary race in favor of one candidate, Howie Hawkins. Individuals who are supposed to be neutral and work for ballot access and media coverage for all candidates should not also be on the payroll of one of the political campaigns! Insiders should not pick the Green Party nominee - as a grassroots party, the voters should. That can only happen if the candidates receive equal exposure.”

Presidential candidate Chad Wilson, who raised numerous concerns throughout the 2020 primary, said, “It’s disgusting for Green Party leadership to rig the process in order to prevent candidates from being on ballots, debate stages, forums and party functions. Our party will never become viable if our behavior mirrors the DNC.”

Helpful Links:  
FEC complaint
Explanation of slides on “Convo Couch”, Sunday, July 12th

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 17, 2020

Major events unfolded in the latter half of last week which have significantly influenced the course of the Green Party primary in favor of Governor Jesse Ventura. The Governor has now won enough delegates in the primary to allow him the opportunity to address the national convention, and he has reaffirmed his intent to run for President in the fall, with some clarification.

We now know that the Governor is aware of the misinformation spread by some Green Party insiders regarding his ability to successfully obtain their presidential nomination. Governor Ventura has indicated across several interview appearances last week that he will rescind his endorsement of any presidential candidate, as no one shares his values, and instead write himself in during the November election. He has encouraged his supporters to do the same, and has said if he wins the office he will take the job. How could he not? The Governor has put the Green Party on notice - either draft Jesse Ventura or lose the support of the massive grassroots movement that has risen to support him.

As results trickled in from the Green primaries in Indiana, Connecticut, and Maine respectively over this past weekend, we received news that Jesse Ventura had accumulated enough votes to win delegates in each state. With a minimum of these three delegates, Governor Ventura is now allowed to speak on the floor of the Green Party National Convention in July and make his case directly to the delegates and other candidates for why a Ventura nomination serves the best interests of both the Party and the American people.

The movement to draft Governor Ventura is poised to make waves at the Green Party National Convention. The People for Jesse continue to press forward in our efforts to gather signatures on our petition. We’ve already far surpassed Howie Hawkins, current front runner in the primary, in terms of popular support and continue to build upon our lead every day. We should easily approach and surpass, in signatures, the amount of total votes across the whole primary by the time of the convention, demonstrating to the Green Party our ability to massively increase voter turnout in the Fall.

We will continue to keep you abreast of our progress in drafting Governor Ventura to help lead a political revolution and take our country back for the unrepresented majority.

Stay vigilant.


Draft Jesse 2020, Press Team

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 1, 2020

As America burns and our citizens are dying at the hands of the government, it is time we elect a true leader. We are reaching out to you again to update you on our efforts to draft Jesse Ventura as the Green party Presidential nominee. On Sunday, the Governor was on George Galloway’s Mother of All Talkshows discussing the Minnesota protests when he divulged some information which we think exposes just how critical our Draft campaign is to preserving the Governor’s ability to win the Green party’s nomination.

Governor Ventura clarified that he chose not to run because the Greens could not explain a viable pathway for him to attain the nomination. We now KNOW they haven’t told the Governor the full story. We’ve outlined three different paths to the nomination that are still viable for the Governor at this present moment – we’re working toward all of them.

We also realize the Governor has said he would re-evaluate his position if a contested convention could secure him the nomination. Our direct experience with the now-defunct We Want Jesse group leads us to believe that the Green party members who sought to run the Governor’s primary campaign were bad actors (such as one party insider who we witnessed first-hand use a fake alias to pose as a volunteer for the We Want Jesse PAC) who, it now appears, only wanted to use Ventura’s name recognition to register voters for the party, and raise money for themselves, rather than actually work toward earning him the nomination.

Early on, it seems, when the Green Party learned that Erin Fox and a few other party members wanted to contact the Governor to run, the Green Party then sent their own operative to woo the Governor and control any possible campaign effort so that he’d either not run or lose the nomination altogether. After all, as soon as word got out that people were organizing to get Governor Ventura to consider a run, this was the response of Green insiders. (Please note: these are high level GP officials who are now being investigated for their primary rigging and conflict of interest working for Howie Hawkins’ campaign.)

 There are three ways we can get Jesse into consideration at a contested Green National Convention in July: the first is securing enough delegates in the remaining primaries to deny Howie an outright majority on the first round of voting, second is to petition pledged delegates to change their first round vote to Governor Ventura, and the third is pressuring Howie Hawkins to suspend his campaign and release his pledged delegates on account of the numerous conflicts of interest which have served his campaign so well during this corrupt primary process. There are other groups working on this, as well as a potential lawsuit.

Regardless, despite such brazen corruption we are confident we have a viable path to securing Governor Ventura the nomination within the remaining weeks of the Green party primary. The party is still small despite its name recognition, and its members share values with much of the electorate. Putting Ventura at the top of the party ticket is the fastest way to build the party’s base and save it from the influence of the few corrupt members in the national party leadership.

While evidence suggests the primary process has been rigged by Hawkins insiders to this point, we can still secure a Ventura candidacy. The Green party establishment behaves like they are DNC-Lite, but they don’t have the numbers to stop us. Less than fifteen thousand votes have been cast across the entire primary thus far. It won’t take many votes for us to flip states and start earning the Governor delegates. The Greens cannot continue campaigning on the goal of reaching 5% to become a viable third option if they turn us away when we arrive at their gates en masse.

 It is time for a third party president. We are asking that statesman Jesse Ventura offer his leadership once again -- to help restore the heart and soul of our diverse and magnificent country.

We thank you and will continue to keep you apprised of our progress,
 
Stay Vigilant.

Draft Jesse 2020, Press Team

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 25, 2020

The People for Jesse Ventura: Draft Jesse PAC is a grassroots movement acting to secure Jesse Ventura the Green Party nomination for President. We are a people-powered effort of disaffected independents, former Democrats and Republicans, Greens and non-voters who are tired of the media backed Democratic and Republican establishment politicians manipulating the people and selling us short. In both 2012 and 2016 if “nobody” were an option on the ballot for the Presidency “they” would have won.

In 1999 Ventura shocked the political world by running for governor of Minnesota and winning as an independent campaign after entering with only three months left before election day, and on a budget of only $300,000. His unabashed willingness to speak truth to power brought a massive turnout of new, young, and less frequent voters to the polls, leading him to victory!

Media coverage of the grassroots funded movement to this point has done a disservice to the Governor’s comments at his May 8th press conference. Ventura’s comments were edited into media pieces to paint a picture that he had stopped all thoughts of running in the 2020 election; however, the Governor did clarify during his recent press conference that if there were a brokered convention in the Green party, he would be very willing to accept the nomination. These recent comments are in line with what Governor Ventura has previously stated: as a strategic move any presidential run of his would begin at a third party convention in June or July.

There is precedent for a candidate who did not campaign themselves receiving the Green party Presidential nomination. In 1996 Ralph Nader was drafted as the Green Party nominee thanks to the efforts of a draft PAC similar to our own, which led to various state Green parties choosing to allocate their delegates to him at the national convention. What is unique about Ventura is his broad appeal and ability to truly cross over party lines and unite voters from all demographics.

Currently, we face a time filled with unprecedented environmental and medical crises, with a government unwilling and unprepared to handle it.  Over 70% of all Americans support some form of Medicare for All, and we are in the midst of the worst pandemic and economic collapse in a century. We demand some form of action. The Green party platform, which Ventura has endorsed, pushes adopting Medicare for All as well as aggressive action to combat climate change through passage of a Green New Deal.

Governor Jesse Ventura is perfectly poised to lead a much needed third party with his broad populist appeal for those frustrated with the anemic responses of Washington to national and global crises. The 2020 election presents a turning point for the nation. Ventura is the best chance we have to revitalize the electorate, have a third party candidate participate in the debates, and win the Presidency in November.

Governor Ventura stated in his Google Talk “Before I put my butt on the line, this country better show me it’s worth it.”

We take this very seriously.

That is why we are driven to show Jesse Ventura that yes, now, in 2020, it’s absolutely worth it. It’s time for a political revolution, and we’re drafting Jesse Ventura to lead us to victory.  

We’re ready to make history together.  Join us!

We look forward to hearing from you,

Draft Jesse 2020, Press Team