“We’ve got to shake things up”

Shamako Noble of the People’s Tribune interviews Andy Dawkins, Green Party candidate for Attorney General of Minnesota at the recent Green Party national gathering.
People’s Tribune: Why are you running as the Green Party candidate for Attorney General?
Andy Dawkins: I was in the State Legislature for fifteen years as a Democrat, but I’ve always been in favor of third parties, because we need to get more voices and more choices out there. In my district the Democrats kept voting for me by 80-90%. We were a poor district, so when I went to the Capitol, they told me, we’re not going to put money in your district because you’re going to win anyway. We’ll put it out in the suburbs where there’s a competitive race. Baloney. We need to get a third party started so we’re not taken for granted.
Folks can’t just organize, they’ve got to vote. We’ve got to pivot to the polling booth.  It’s all about having a message that people can identify with. People are crying out to have somebody running for office that’s saying the right stuff.
What really happens inside the beast is that big money makes every decision. When you’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that are in play, if the insurance companies don’t like your bill, it ain’t going to move, the bankers, the finance industry, the lenders, it’s up and down the line. Who gets to run, who gets elected, what gets enacted, who gets served by what gets enacted, is all moved by big money.
I’m up against two very weak opponents. I’ve got a Democratic incumbent who wants to run for governor in four years, so she wants the NRA on her side, she wants the fossil fuel industry on her side, she lets the pipelines go through, and lets the tar sands flow. She’s selling the precious minerals under our land, land that belongs to all of us, and selling them on the cheap to foreign corporations.
If I get my message out there, the voters are going to vote for me, they’re going to vote Green, and if the Green Party can begin to get legs here it can get legs everywhere. I am running as a Green Party candidate because we have a great message, but also because of the young people. I’ve got two kids, a senior and a sophomore at Central High School here. I try to talk politics there because politics is in my blood. It needs to be in everybody’s blood, we all need what will to make the world a better place. Without that, we’re empty. So when I tell the kids they’ve got to think about politics, they tell me, are you kidding? It’s all one corporate party, the Democrats and Republicans. And they’re right. So we’ve got to shake things up. If we win this race it’s all shaken up. I don’t know if that answers your question or not.