When reading your article on Ken Pentel, the Green Party candidate for governor [“It Ain’t Easy Being Green,” September], I felt a deep sense of envy and awe for Minnesotans. Out here in California, we don’t have public policies which encourage desperately needed third parties to participate in government. Third-party candidates in California don’t have the blessing of public financing or candidate forums. Our current governor, a corrupt, corporate yes-man known as Gray “Rolling Blackouts” Davis, refuses to acknowledge that our third-party candidates even exist. Davis is so unpopular that he has agreed to only two debates with his equally repulsive Republican challenger, Bill Simon. One of these debates will be on Spanish language television at 12 in the afternoon on a weekday. Both major party candidates are so despised that their disapproval ratings are significantly higher than their approval ratings. Minnesotans should be proud that they live in a state that believes in democracy and allows people like Ken Pentel to exist.
Matthew Stewart
Palo Alto, CA
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