by J. Myrle Fuller - October 3, 2016
Who is Ajamu Baraka?
Ajamu Baraka is the Green Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States. A quick assessment of
his dossier on Wikipedia shows he's a professional activist originally from Chicago who holds anti-capitalist, anti-white, anti-free trade, anti-law enforcement views, empathy toward Islamic terrorists such as Boko Haram, a penchant for conspiracy theory, and revolutionary aspirations. He's quite radical even by Green Party standards, and the Greens make Bernie Sanders look like a Republican in comparison.
He also happens to share a name very similar to that of current President Barack Obama, and it appears that the Green Party may be using that similarity in name to field Baraka as a dummy candidate—a name on the ballot meant to deceive voters into casting their vote for someone else.
This wouldn't be unprecedented. In 2010, the Green Party ran a slate of candidates in New York's elections. Their candidate for state Comptroller was Julia Willebrand, a party loyalist. Willebrand's name happened to rhyme with that of Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who was also up for election for U.S. Senate (the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton when she became secretary of state). Willebrand's candidacy wasn't seriously promoted, yet she outperformed the others on the Green Party slate by nearly double: while gubernatorial candidate and party founder Howie Hawkins got just over 59,000 votes, Willebrand managed over 104,000. It is no stretch to presume that a good chunk of the 45,000 extra votes Willebrand received were from people thinking they were casting a vote for Gillibrand.
Now, the Greens find themselves placing on a ballot a man with a similar name to that of Obama, who, despite being term-limited, could probably get re-elected again if he were eligible (alas). If the Greens learned anything from the Willebrand incident, it would not be out of the realm of plausibility to assume that the party deliberately chose Ajamu Baraka as their nominee hoping that it might confuse low-information voters into thinking they were voting for an Obama third term—and Obama's name is far better known than that of Gillibrand. Further lending credence to this theory is that Baraka was not a Green Party member before being selected as the party's nominee.
Most of the Green Party's activism this election cycle has centered mainly on their Presidential candidate, Jill Stein. Baraka and his radical views are not getting much attention, possibly deliberately to avoid alienating the white hippie voters that serve as the Greens' base. Yet the choice of Ajamu Baraka as their prospective Vice President may net them as many votes, if not more, than months of campaigning and millions in spending. The Greens are currently polling at about 3-4%, not much higher than Ralph Nader pulled in 2000, and need all the help they can get boosting that number to credibility.
Do the Greens think their voters are stupid? If history is any indication, they may be right.
©2016 J. Myrle Fuller. Licensed to the Briefing Room.
