Runs into Edwards chair David Bonior at Hamburg Inn

Strictly speaking, the Green Party doesn’t participate in the Iowa caucuses.  Nevertheless, their most likely candidate was in Iowa City Sunday, meeting supporters and making the ritual Hamburg Inn visit — where she saw a former congressional colleague.


David Bonior, John Edwards’ campaign chair, meets his former congressional colleague Cynthia McKinney, now running for president as a Green,at the Hamburg Inn in Iowa City.

Cynthia McKinney represented a Georgia district that went through several configurations from 1992 to 2002 and again in 2005-06.  She lost a home-district Democratic primary in 2002, won the seat back in 2004, then lost it again in 2006.  She’s now moved to California, re-registered as a Green, and is in the presidential exploratory stage.

“I got kicked out in 2002, got kicked out again in 2006 (because) I’m being held accountable to the wrong values,” McKinney told an audience of about 15 Green activists.  “If our elected representatives fail to be held accountable, we hold them accountable, or we change them, the way they changed me.  Katherine Harris was rewarded with a seat in Congress, and I was thrown out.”

“The people who don’t share my values are good at what they do, and they are determined to thwart people like us,”  she said. “I’ve been invited to the club many times, but the cost was not only my integrity, but my dignity.”McKinney said Greens, traditionally an environmentalist and largely white party, face a new challenge in reaching out to African Americans like herself.  “Every young black person I spoke to is open” to the idea of a third party, she said.  “We have to go deep into some neighborhoods where it’s hard to understand the accent — now I have a REAL Southern accent — we have to go to where the people are.”

McKinney devoted much of her talk at the Cottage in downtown Iowa City to the controversial elections of 2000 and 2004.  “In Florida (in 2000) the African American turnout was nearly 100%.  And their votes weren’t respected enough to be fought for” by the Democratic Party, she said.  “It was the black vote that created the Democratic majority, yet not one of those Senators elected because of the black vote raised their hand in objection,” McKinney said of challenges to the 2000 election.  She said discrimination against black voters was a bigger factor in Al Gore’s narrow Florida loss than Ralph Nader’s votes on the Green Party ticket.  “It has nothing to do with the Green Party, it has everything to do with who’s counting the vote.  There was a concerted effort to construct a convicted felon list, and the when a similar named person showed up to vote they couldn’t  And there were 90,000 names on that list,” she said.  “Those of us who researched this or were victimized by it, we’re outraged.”

“In most places my audience have been small on the Green side and large on the independent thinking side,” McKinney said.  She also noted that the Ron Paul movement is “wonderful for the Greens, because people are thinking independently.”

“We’re on the wrong track on just about every issue that concerns our way of life,” says McKinney, putting the war at the top of the list.

“The biggest snarer of your dollars is the Pentagon.” she said.  “I would significantly decrease the amount of money spent by the Pentagon.”  McKinney also pledged to roll back the  Patriot Act and other laws that challenge civil liberties, and to repeal the Bush tax cuts.  “I’ve supported every universal single payer health care plan,” said McKinney.  “People who rail against `socialized medicine’ in Canada and the UK have to explain why life expectancy is longer in Canada and the UK, why infant mortality is lower in Canada and the UK.”

McKinney wouldn’t nibble when asked what Greens should do on caucus night: “I’m not here to talk about the Democrats, I’m here to talk about the Greens.”  Green activist Ron Kinum of Iowa City said, “Dennis Kucinich is closer to the Greens.”

After finishing the talk at the Cottage, McKinney and the local Greens headed three blocks up the street to a classic Iowa caucus stop, the Hamburg Inn, to participate in the Coffee Bean Caucus.  In this famous caucus ritual, once featured on TV’s The West Wing, diners vote for president by dropping a coffee bean in a jar.  The Hamburg Inn had prepared a brand new Cynthia McKinney jar for her visit.

In an example of just how small Caucus World is, who should be sitting in the back corner at the Ronald Reagan table but David Bonior, John Edwards’ campaign manager.  Bonior was Democratic whip during most of McKinney’s time in Congress, and the two old colleagues spent a few minutes catching up.

Since McKinney is looking at running for president as a Green, that means she’d be running against Edwards, or whoever the Democrats nominate.  Still, Bonior had nice things to say about McKinney.  “She was very progressive in the House,” he said.  “I know she had a lot of issues with the party, and this is her choice.  Personally, our relationship’s always been good, and I wish her well.”

Bonior is upbeat about Edwards’ chances, though most recent polls show him running a close third behind Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. “We have a dead heat, but we have great support and enthusiasm,” he said.  “Our rural piece is strong, he’s on message, and we’re moving.”

Bonior says there’s little Democratic campaign activity in his native Michigan, where four of the top six candidates pulled their name off the Jan. 15 primary ballot.  Only Clinton, Dodd, Kucinich and Gravel remain.

As a University of Iowa graduate, Bonior is very familiar with the Hamburg Inn.  “I used to come in here after a six pack,” he said, adding “I know you’re going to use that line,” so of course I have to.  He was off to Clinton next, for an event with longtime Democratic activist Jean Pardee.

McKinney, meanwhile, was working the full house at the Hamburg — 11:30 Sunday is pretty much prime time — before dropping her coffee bean in her jar.  She’s at least the fifth presidential candidate to visit the Hamburg Inn so far this cycle, joining Joe Biden, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and John McCain.  Former President Bill Clinton also visited a couple weeks ago.