A few days ago I announced I’m running as a socialist candidate for President of the US in the 2016 elections. You live as long as me you don’t kid yourself about what’s possible. Some things are just excluded–like being POTUS or winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I can live with that. But it will be mainly an educational campaign to counterpose socialist ideas to the blithering idiocies & criminality of the two capitalist parties.

I’d like to announce my running mate as Vice President: Tyrone Hubbard is from a small town in Alabama & graduated from college about a year ago. He’s knowledgeable & presents our ideas with the passion they deserve. There’s nothing platonic about his commitment to a humane society.

A couple of people enquired why I asked Tyrone to be my running mate. One person wondered why I didn’t ask someone with more tenure as a socialist. The answer isn’t complicated & in some ways was more visceral than cognitive.

I’ve been active a long time & have seen a lot of young people come & go. I am always drawn to the inspired & open-minded & put off by smart-alecks, know-it-alls, cynics. If you are going to commit to social transformation you have to be able to learn, willing to question, & absolutely intolerant of those who try to make others feel small. But mostly you have to be able to feel & to understand the power of these ideas to make the world suitable for human beings to live & love in.

I admire Tyrone’s spirit as a young socialist. There’s no other way to put it. He’s knowledgeable because he takes ideas seriously. But he doesn’t flaunt his intellectualism to intimidate others. He respects theory & learning to understand how to change the world. I probably could have found somebody who would quote chapter & verse of Marx & Engels & do textual comparisons with Lukacs & Althusser. I respect theory a lot. But I don’t like showoffs. And I don’t like people who would rather talk Zizek than the problems of working people in this society.

I don’t think I could have found a better side-kick to collaborate with & I am grateful Tyrone agreed.

We’re starting early because we don’t have squat & want to start scouting for opportunities across the country to speak on campuses, to immigrant rights, Palestinian solidarity, women’s, civil rights, LGBT, & antiwar groups, & on the radio. Call us crazy but we think we have something to say that people will want to hear.