Cornel West's announement today  he was ditching the Greens to run independent has me scratching my head, to say the least.

I said, a couple of months ago, when West decided to run as a Green, and not with Nick Brana's sleazy Movement for a People's Party, that he seemed to be head and shoulders above other filed, announced but not yet official, and other would-be Green candidates. 

Now, more on last week's announcement. 

First, he doesn't have RFK Jr's money to pay for signature gatherers. (All states allow it; I extrapolated from a Ballotpedia piece about paid signature gatherers for initiatives, and that's incorrect.) Second, while he has some name recognition, he doesn't have the same as RFK for where he can't afford signatures. Nor, AFAIK, does he have Bob's degree of experience, from Kennedy as head of Waterkeepers, attorney with NRDC, etc.on initiative-type ballot access petitions. 

(I volunteered to help with a GP petition in the Metromess approximately 20 years ago. Purely on my own, with another person already on a clipboard at a mall. Never asked at the time if Republicans were paying anybody.)

And, even with people eligible to be paid in all 50 states, the principle holds. Cornel West does't have RFK Jr's money. And, per Republicans helping Greens in the past, West is enough of a wild card as an independent, I don't know that that many GOP/conservative checks get written for this.

He DOES, though appear to have cluelessness about the ballot access process. Independent Political Report, at the top link, quotes from an email he sent backers:

West also stated that the Constitution “provides for Independent candidates to gain ballot access in all states” and confirmed that he was pursuing ballot access as an independent candidate unaffiliated with any other organization.

Really? Yea, I along with other commenters at IPR, are laughing about that. The Constitution "provides" nothing here, and other than establishing the Electoral College and how and when its votes are counted, says nothing else about presidential elections beyond age of eligibility and elimination of religious tests.

I expect that West will get on less than half of the 50 states' ballots.

He doubled down on that general idea the time of the announcement, in this tweet:

People are hungry for change. They want good policies over partisan politics. We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people. I'm running as an Independent candidate for President of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true… pic.twitter.com/34FFQARTEe

— Cornel West (@CornelWest) October 5, 2023

Again, really?

As for his campaign? At the time, IPR asked if Jill Stein is following him. She said that day that she wasn't:

BREAKING - Stein & Baraka wish Dr. West well, affirm support for a strong Green campaign

Boston - Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, previously advisors to the West campaign, today wished Cornel West well in his upcoming independent presidential campaign, in the following joint…

— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) October 5, 2023

Full link to long Tweet here. This is going to implode, and if this was Peter Daou's idea, not just West's, I question his judgment, too.

As for him being head and shoulders above other Greens? Stein and Ajamu Baraka recognize that and are beating the bush for new candidates, per that Tweet.

I'll have more on Cornel in a week.