Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb is speaking at Millsaps today at 2:30 p.m.; expect some vague reportage after the appearance, but no liveblogging since Millsaps hasn’t installed any wireless Internet service yet. (Normally I teach Intro from 2:45 to 4 today, but I cancelled class so my students could attend if they chose to do so.)

As mentioned earlier, Green Party presidential nominee David Cobb appeared at Millsaps for about an hour; he spoke for about 20 minutes, then let audience members ask him questions for the remainder of the time. There was some local TV media in attendance from channels 3 and 13, at least.

I’ll have to say that even though Cobb’s political beliefs are quite opposed to mine in many ways, he’s a very effective speaker, and I think his personal story of growing up as a poor white kid on the Gulf Shore in Texas resonates well with audiences. Of course, he said a bunch of outlandish things (and I think his economic analysis of raising the minimum wage to a “living wage” is frankly laughable, and his “the Iraq War was for oil” analysis is far too simplistic), but I think he also talked with sophistication and depth about a lot of social and political issues—in fact, his discussion of voting reforms (proportional representation and IRV) was about the best I’ve ever seen or heard.

He also had some interesting things to say (in response to a question from me) about his ongoing semi-partnership with Michael Badnarik on the campaign trail; even though the LP and Greens differ on a lot of issues, I think it’s interesting that they both have worked together to achieve common goals—something you’d never see two major-party political candidates do. One thing I’d have been interested in seeing him talk about was how Ralph Nader’s candidacy was affecting his—how do you manage a campaign with another candidate with better name recognition doing essentially the same riff?

Anyway, while I have to say I found a lot of Cobb’s material worthy of eye-rolling, I enjoyed hearing him speak and I think a lot of Americans would be well-served to listen to what he and folks like Badnarik have to say; it’s certainly a breath of fresh air after the canned inanity of Kerry-Bush, and like Cobb said, a lot of the ideas we take for granted today in American politics (good or bad) came from minor parties and their supporters before they were “cool.”