Press Release: South Carolina Green Party Looks Forward to Senate Race

South Carolina Green Party Looks Forward to Senate Race

The South Carolina Green Party Convention nominated well-known Columbia progressive Tom Clements for the office of United States Senator on May 1st of this year.   Clements’ name will appear on the ballot against incumbent Jim DeMint in the November 2, 2010 election.

Tom brings a long history of personal involvement in politics through his activism against nuclear power and for environmental responsibility.

Incumbent Republican Senator Jim DeMint deserves a vigorous challenge for his lack of attention to the people of South Carolina.  His policies –  outright opposition to any substantive health care reform, a weakening of campaign finance rules, laxity in corporate controls, unbridled support for Wall Street greed, uncritical boosterism of the nuclear and oil industries and an unseemly enthusiasm for an interventionist foreign policy that has needlessly cost of American lives and dollars – harm rather than benefit the people of South Carolina.

Tom Clements is a candidate with a history of public service and employment with organizations that have made a direct, positive impact on the lives of South Carolinians.

Tom is currently the Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator for the US branch of Friends of the Earth in Columbia, South Carolina, a full-time position he has held since January 2008. He focuses on issues related to nuclear power and nuclear waste and is the public interest watchdog over the Department of Energy’s Savannah River site. Tom worked for 13 years as a nuclear campaigner with the Greenpeace International nuclear campaign and for three years was the executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, DC, where he worked on a host of issues related to proliferation of nuclear materials and technology. Tom won the Grassroots Activist of the Year award from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (an umbrella group of NGO’s working around Department Of Energy nuclear sites). In 2009 he also won the Thunder and Lightning activist award from the S.C. Progressive Network in 2009.

Tom has extensive foreign policy experience and has interacted with a host of governments at the United Nations in New York and Geneva and at embassies in Washington and abroad. Tom, who is fluent in Spanish, has served as a volunteer with the Red Cross, Peace Brigades International in Bogota, Colombia and the Peace Corps in Costa Rica.

In addition, Tom has been a volunteer with the Talking Books Program in Georgia. He worked as a carpenter and home renovation contractor for five years.

Tom has a Masters in Forest Resources from the University of Georgia and a BA from Emory University.

The Green Party pledges to run a clean, good-spirited campaign focused on challenging the do-nothing corporate politics of Jim DeMint by providing South Carolinians with a positive new approach to government. Tom Clements is interested in increasing popular involvement in government so that we can better safeguard our environment and the civil and social rights we all should enjoy. As Senator, Tom will work to open the books on the connections between government and business in South Carolina.  At a time when the entire world has come to look at our state as an example of what is wrong with American politics, a clean campaign on putting government at the service of the people can help move our state forward and help bring about solutions to the problems of homelessness, poverty, lack of health care, wars of aggression and the environment.

The South Carolina Green Party is a progressive political party working for the economic, social and political advancement of the people of our state.  The South Carolina Green Party has been a ballot qualified party in South Carolina since 2004.  Since becoming a ballot qualified party in South Carolina, the Green Party has run candidates for federal, state and local office.  Party steering committee member Eugene Platt is an elected member of the James Island Public Service District. Notable past campaigns include Arnold Karr’s 2006 run for State Superintendent of Education; James Dunn’s 2004 and 2006 runs for U.S. Representative from the 1st Congressional District; and Faye Walters for U.S. Representative in the 4th Congressional District in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2010.   The Greens have nominated Morgan Reeves as a fusion candidate for Governor in 2010.   A complete list of our 2010 candidates can be found here: https://scgreenparty.wordpress.com/our-2010-federal-candidates/

Contact:

SC Green Party Co-Chair: Gregg Jocoy

(803) 272-4752

Toll free: (877) 282-2236

scgreenpartypressoffice@gmail.com

Websites:

South Carolina Green Party: http://scgreenparty.org

Tom Clements for Senate: http://clementsforsenate.org

Tom Clements for U.S. Senate Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tom-Clements-for-US-Senate/128952760459672?ref=ts