Zeese says a yardstick for the U.S. economy, the gross national product, will grow by 400 percent during the 21st century, and that the main question our century faces is what to do with it.

Zeese offered a vision of sustainable, environmentally-sound business growth in the context of a national health care system that will provide each American with health care, while saving companies money. Healthcare today is “the most out of control cost for businesses,” Zeese said.

About twenty-five people sat in chairs in the well-lit meeting hall for a 45-minute speech, followed by a question-and-answer session. During the speech, Zeese portrayed his program as the opposite of today’s ever-growing defense-orientated economy. He called for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and criticized the “military-industrial complex” that U.S. President Eisenhower warned about long ago.

Zeese is running for the Green Party’s U.S. Senate nomination as well as for Libertarian and Populist Party nominations. A lawyer by training, Zeese currently is president of Common Sense for Drug Policy and director of Democracyrising.us. He also is a founder of TrueVoteMD, a group that works to get paper receipts for Maryland’s electronic voting machines. Right now these machines do not produce any paper trial that verifies how someone voted in the case of a recount. He has a campaign Web site at www.Kevinzeese.com.

“The biggest problem I have to face is getting people to vote what they believe in,” says Zeese. Then Zeese cited a recent poll that found 83 percent of surveyed Americans do not feel represented by their elected officials. =

Roper and Harris research groups report that citizens have an equally bleak outlook on corporate practices, according to The New York Times. A 2005 Roper poll conducted found 72 percent believe company malfeasance to be pandemic. In a November Harris poll, 90 percent said large companies have too much clout with the government. Zeese paints himself as a critic of corporate America's grip on government, but even if his campaign aligns with public sentiment, he has a lot of work to do to get his name out and convince people to vote for the Green Party.

On Kweisi Mfume, Democratic Party Senate primary candidate, Zeese says he will take a “wait and see” approach about how they compare. Mfume is the former president of the NAACP and a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. He is running in the Democratic Senate primary against current Rep. Ben Cardin of the Third District, professor Allan Lichtman, local businessperson Joshua Rales, Lisa Van Sustern, and socialist Baltimorean Bob Kaufman. Mfume has a Web site at www.mfumeforsenate.com/default.htm.

Zeese did distinguish himself from Mfume by noting that he supports a plan to guarantee health care for everyone; Mfume does not. Zeese criticized current Rep. Ben Cardin as beholden to corporate donors.

Kaufman campaign manager Mike Melick attended the Reese event. Kaufman’s position is that “the 90 percent of us who own less wealth than ½ percent at the top need to unite and take the country back,” said Melick. “Those who produce the wealth should control the wealth.”

Zeese will be participating in a Jan. 11 debate in Chevy Chase, Maryland that should feature most of the major primary candidates from all the parties. It will be sponsored by the National Organization for Women.

In the meantime, Zeese plans to meet and greet at house parties and continue fundraising; he is conducting a “Solutions Tour” in which he features various “solutions” to contemporary problems at stops around the state.