Cynthia McKinney, former Democratic Congresswoman of Georgia, maintains her lead in the Green Party Presidential Candidate race with her win in Wisconsin this last weekend. Kent Mesplay came in second with 10 percent. Both of these candidates spent time campaigning in the state and that appears to have made the difference.
The state has 24 delegates out of the total 836 national delegates. Wisconsin Greens will allot 19 delegates to Cynthia McKinney, two to Kent Mesplay, one to Ralph Nader, another to Kat Swift. One delegate will remain uncommitted for the first round.
Ralph Nader is not expected to seek the Green Party nomination nor is he qualified by the by-laws of many states which have recently stipulated that the candidate must be a member of the party. His delegates, if they show up at this summer's convention, will be allowed to cast their vote for Nader in the first round and vote for other candidates still in the running in the second and third rounds.
Mesplay is hopeful that he can pick up Nader delegates in the second round. However, many of Nader's appointed delegates have indicated that they will have a difficult time justifying the personal expenditure for a trip to Chicago where the Green Party Convention will be held, when they already know their candidate will not be in the running.
A competition is what makes a Convention interesting for the delegates who scratch out who their nominee will be. It is also interesting to the press, so the decline in delegates which had been promised to Nader may have impact on the attention the press is willing to spare on the Green Party.
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