Outsider Green Wants Inside
BY DAN HARRIE
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Craig Axford is running for election as hard as he can, but he doesn't consider himself a politician.
"I pride myself on telling people what I actually think rather than what they want to hear," says the Green Party hopeful for Utah's 1st Congressional District.
Axford is upset that he is being shut out of most of the televised debates in the campaign because he doesn't register high enough in public-opinion polls. That is bad for voters, says the 33-year-old Salt Lake City resident, because the major-party candidates are similar on lots of issues.
"There's an entire perspective to the [political] left that is just completely ignored," he says.
At the top of the list of undebated issues is the possible invasion of Iraq. Axford opposes the plan and rejects the Bush administration's proposed policy of pre-emptive military action.
"I am very horrified about the policy this government seems to be adopting," Axford says. "We urge other countries not to attack their neighbors in the name of self-defense."
He also points to the different treatment being given to Iraq compared with North Korea, which recently admitted conducting a nuclear-weapons program. "The hypocrisy to me is just glaring."
Axford also takes strong stands in favor of a national health care plan, calling it "reprehensible and shameful" that some Americans are in a position of "choosing between prescription drugs and dinner."
The Green candidate is the only one of the three in the race who supports ballot Initiative 1, which would increase taxes on low-level radioactive waste being disposed of at the Envirocare facility in Tooele County. The measure also would ban "hotter" types of waste.
"Utah has historically been either downwind or a dumping ground for the last half century," Axford says, "and it's time we just said, 'Enough!' "
Courtesy of the SL Tribune
http://www2.sltrib.com/politics/Main/Story.asp?VOL=10222002&NUM=9433
