Email from Jill Stein, 4/2/10:

Dear friends and supporters,

Please join me in welcoming Rick Purcell as my Lieutenant Governor running mate! As my lieutenant governor, Rick will mobilize grassroots support across the state for our campaign for a healthy, secure green future. He’ll also galvanize opposition to the corrupt status quo at the root of the many crises we currently face. We’ll be joining Rick in his hometown of Holyoke this Saturday for an official announcement. See below for biographical information on Rick. Saturday’s event will also mark the kickoff of our signature gathering campaign. For those who have been anxious to get involved, now is the time! See below for details on the lieutenant Governor/signature drive kickoff event, including ways to get involved in signature collection if you can’t come on Saturday.

In other news, our campaign is eligible to receive public financing from the state this year. As you may know, public financing loosens the grip of wealthy special interests on our political system, and makes it possible for people powered campaigns like ours to compete statewide without being hijacked by deep-pocketed special interests. As a longtime advocate of public financing for political campaigns, it’s an honor to be asking you to help us qualify for matching funds. If our campaign raises the minimum required to qualify ($125,000), the state will match that amount and everything we raise over it DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR!! So if we can raise $250,000, we will be able to mount a half million dollar campaign! And Massachusetts politics will never be the same. Please be as generous as you can, and give today so that we can take advantage of yet another amazing opportunity.

Upwards,

Jill

About Rick Purcell

Richard P. “Rick” Purcell is a community activist and veterans advocate. He is a former Democrat who joined the Green-Rainbow Party in 2000. Purcell is currently a member of the party’s state committee.

Rick was chairman of the “Vote No” group opposing privatization of Holyoke’s wastewater treatment department. He is a member of Holyoke Citizens for Open Government and is active in Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Hampden County, Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts, and Volunteer for Life Choice Organ Donor Bank. In 1994 he donated a kidney to his sister

Rick served with the U.S Army in two tours of duty totaling about 10 years. Rick served in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq as a medic. He was also stationed in Korea and Germany. He is a past three-term commander of the American Legion War Memorial Post 25 in Holyoke and served on the executive board of the Hampden County American Legion. For a year he served as Hampden County commander of 28 American Legion posts.

He was born in Albuquerque, N.M., on December 21, 1959, one of five children of James R. and Doria Ann Redstone Purcell. He lived his first 14 years on an Indian reservation straddling the border of Apache County in Arizona and McKinley County in New Mexico. After his military duty, he joined his mother and brothers in Holyoke in 1974. He is a 1977 graduate of Chicopee Comprehensive High School. Rick has been employed at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield for 19 years, as a surgery clerk and ergonomics specialist.





Event Details:

If you cannot make it to the event on Saturday but would still like to volunteer for our signature drive, please e-mail Judith at jfoster@jillstein.org or please call (617) 299-6042.