David Cobb
David Keith Cobb (b. 1963, San Leon, Texas) is an American lawyer and activist and the current presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS).
During the 1980s, Cobb maintained a successful private practice as an attorney in Houston, Texas and campaigned for the Democratic Presidential candidacies of Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown. As a result of his experiences, however, Cobb became disenchanted with the Democratic Party and declined to campaign for them any further. Instead, he turned his activism to the issues of democracy and corporations, appearing at lectures, seminars, and workshops throughout the U.S. with various citizens' groups to promote his view that corporations have become unelected governing institutions and that a nonviolent democratic revolution is needed in response.
In 2000, Green Presidential candidate Ralph Nader asked Cobb to organize his campaign in Texas, and Cobb closed his law practice to do so. He coordinated a successful ballot access drive in the state. Concurrently, Cobb became the GPUS's General Counsel.
In 2002, Cobb ran for Attorney General of Texas on the Green ticket and used his candidacy to "barnstorm" in areas of Texas with little Green representation. He was unsuccessful in the election, but the Green Party of Texas grew dramatically during his campaign from four local chapters to 26. The next year, Cobb was tabbed as a possible Presidential candidate by a Green committee, and he accepted the challenge, taking an indefinite leave of absence as General Counsel.
With the announcement in late December 2003 that Nader would not seek the nomination of the Green Party for President in 2004, Cobb began to be considered by some Greens as the front-runner for the party's nomination. On January 13, 2004, David Cobb won the first Green primary in the nation, that of the District of Columbia, beating local activist Sheila Bilyeu and several write-in candidates and gaining the early lead in the race for the nomination. Nader eventually announced an indepedent campaign for president and sought the "endorsement" rather than the "nomination" of the Green Party. Shortly before the Green convention in June, 2004, Nader selected Green Party member Peter Camejo as his running mate. Despite these efforts on Nader's part, on June 26, the convention selected Cobb as its presidential candidate. The party also nominated Pat LaMarche as its candidate for vice-president.
Cobb has stated his intention to run a campaign focused on building the Green Party and to pursue a "safe states" or "smart states" strategy focused on states that traditionally vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate with a significant plurality, also referred to in campaign literature as "neglected states" because the Democratic and Republican candidates traditionally spend put most of their campaign energy into more competitive "swing states." While some of Cobb's erstwhile supporters are urging swing state residents to vote for Democrat John Kerry, others are encouraging votes for Cobb and LaMarche in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The candidates themselves use the phrase "vote your conscience."
