The Green Party’s Jill Stein knows one of her presidential rivals pretty well, having run against him for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. Apparently, it was a good experience, because when I ask what that race taught her about Mitt Romney, she bursts out laughing.
“He will basically respond to his electorate,” she says wryly. Some people like that in a candidate, and Stein almost sounds like one of them. “As governor, it’s hard to find differences between him and Deval Patrick,” she says, referring to the Democrat in office now. “Having lived under Mitt Romney for four years, I’m not quaking in my boots any more than I am” at the prospect of President Obama’s reelection.
All of this reminds me uncomfortably of another October conversation I had with a Green Party hopeful, on Halloween 2000, while flying back to Washington from an Ohio campaign event with Ralph Nader. In my personal pantheon of frustrating interviews, that one was right up there with another during that same campaign, in which George W. Bush repeated one of a handful of answers, word for word, no matter what I asked him. Nader’s main point was that there was no real difference between Bush and Al Gore. If Bush were to be elected, he told me, a “bumbling Texas governor would galvanize the environmental community as never before.”
Stein calls Nader a man ahead of his time. I think of him more as a man who undid his own life’s work, but she counters that “we’re in a different moment” now, and that so many people have had it with “the politics of fear” that of the 225 million Americans registered to vote even in the historic election of 2008, just some 131 million actually bothered to cast a ballot.
Stein and her running mate, Pennsylvania anti-poverty advocate Cheri Honkala, are polling at about 2 percent. They will, however, be on about 85 percent of all ballots next month and have qualified for federal matching funds. Their real opportunity, Stein says, is with Americans under 30, who haven’t yet accepted the notion that “change” looks a lot like more of the same.
“I expected to be the usual persona non grata” during this campaign, she says, “and instead have gotten the red carpet.” When I ask where that’s happened, she mentions Western Illinois University, where she kicked off her campaign a year ago. She literally had to get herself arrested trying to enter last week’s presidential debate at Hofstra University to get noticed there, and will get to debate only other third-party candidates at an Internet debate that will be moderated Tuesday by Larry King in Chicago.
Nothing is easier than dismissing candidates who run against impossible odds; my least favorite thing about most political coverage is that the only real question we ever ask underdogs is why, oh why, they think they can win, as if we fear nothing quite so much as appearing to take a loser even semi-seriously. But Stein’s platform is, after all, considered ridiculous in a world in which the $2 billion that’s being spent on this presidential race is complained about but accepted.
A Harvard-educated physician from Lexington, Mass., Stein, 62, practiced internal medicine for 25 years, then got into what she sees as practicing “political medicine” as a way to treat the epidemics of asthma, diabetes, learning disabilities and cancer at a more preventive, policy level. She has never held office outside her town, yet thinks big in a country where there’s considerable pushback against Michelle Obama encouraging us to eat veggies.
Her platform includes Medicare for all and a “Green New Deal” that she says would cost less than the first stimulus package and put millions of Americans to work weatherizing homes and businesses, installing solar panels, building bike paths, upgrading public transit systems and constructing safe sidewalks. The only benefits would be lowering unemployment as well as our dependence on fossil fuels and making us healthier. Cuh-razy, right?
Though she insists she pulls evenly with R’s and D’s, I have a hard time imagining that just as many Republicans as Democrats want to repeal the Patriot Act or break up big banks — though if Obama loses the popular vote but wins in the electoral college, Republicans may rally around her plan to abolish it.
Stein also would end subsidies to agribusiness and redirect them to small farms that would stock local farmers markets; she would cut our military spending in half and use that money to invest in a free college education for everybody. Super, remarked my ever-so-practical husband: After the revolution, “we can all go to work on organic farms.”
After Tuesday’s presidential debate, moderator Candy Crowley similarly wrote off even asking a question about the future of the planet as a poor use of airtime: “I had that question for all of you climate-change people. We just, you know, again, we knew that the economy was still the main thing, so you knew you kind of wanted to go with the economy.”
Obama has disappointed many environmentalists, but he did get tougher on mercury emissions from power plants, improve fuel-economy standards, reduce the amount of soot that factories can release and regulate greenhouse gases for the first time. Which is not remotely akin to Romney’s periodic expressions of doubt about climate change and view that regulations are job-killing.
Unlike Obama and Romney, Nader and Stein really are samesies. Yet maybe this is a different moment, because where Nader struck me as intellectually dishonest, insisting that Bush and Gore were all but indistinguishable, Stein seems as sensible as cod liver oil. Like libertarians Ron and Rand Paul, she’s thinking long-term. In politics as in love, comedy and real estate, nothing is more important than timing — and after Obama expands fracking and greenlights the Keystone Pipeline, she predicts, voters will come around.
Melinda Henneberger is a Post political writer and anchors the paper’s She the People blog. Follow her on Twitter at @MelindaDC.
Too bad this country is not even in a place where people can listen to what Jill Stein is saying. We have a long way to evolve.
Speak for yourself there Bunky.
Are you crazy ? Or is the BDN ‘s headline ?
Both confirm John’s point.
A long, long way to evolve… but you can start here: jillstein.org and read what she and the Greens are about in their own words, not just this reporter’s.
Next, you can check off Jill Stein for President on Nov. 6. Change starts one step at a time. Stop voting for the lesser of two evils…
The sheeple are well trained. They herd into the D pen or the R pen without question or protest. It was no accident that there were only two people on that debate stage. That should bother every single American, but alas, it does not. BAAAAH! BAAAAH!
Not a sheep. A realist. Sadly, all the Green or Libertarian vote will do is jeopardize Obama’s re-election and create the possibility of the election of a much worse alternative.
The vast majority of Americans are not even aware of the fact that there are other people running for president other than Romney or Obama. I do not personally believe that this is by accident. While I am not sure who will win the White House, Obama or Romney, I know who will lose. The working men and women of America, aka the middle class. If you put on a pair of work boots these days, you do not have a single friend in Washington, or Augusta for that matter.
We could vote a bit smarter, no?
As long as we have this darn-blasted Electoral College system in place (Michaud, Pingree, want to work on that a bit, please?), Maine is very likely to go for Obama, and all 4 electoral votes go into his bin…
That recent stuff about the Second (Maine north, Michaud) Congressional district going to Romney–sounds like wishful thinking but please do check some RELIABLE polls in the few days before election (try: realclearpolitics.com ), and if in no danger of an Electoral vote going to Romney, then vote for who you REALLY want for a change, instead of the lesser of two evils.
Sheese, isn’t it about time we smarten up?
Jill Stein makes good sense, and like the Populists and Progressives of a century ago that’s why the two big business parties agree on keeping her and other bonafide candidates out of their “discussions of the issues and policy.” They’re big on smoke and mirrors – she isn’t.
“Having lived under Mitt Romney for four years, I’m not quaking in my boots any more than I am” at the prospect of President Obama’s reelection.
This is a very striking sentence coming from a Green Party candidate!
Greens are willing to criticize, and learn from their mistakes.
None of this the “party’s candidate” is my candidate.
Do Repubs and Dems do the same???
Vote for the best person for the job, not party-line.
I have even voted for Republicans–really!
I’m not enrolled in a political party, so I always vote the person. I think that in Maine at least, many Rs and Ds often vote the person as well. If they didn’t, moderates King, Collins and Snowe would never have won as convincingly as they often have in the past. So I have to ask, do you consider yourself a “Green” and is Jill Stein “your candidate?” :-) If so, why?
Because she represents these values as do I, so in this we coincide…
I will vote for at least one Dem locally, BTW.
For a very real different Presidential choice, please see: jillstein.org
and below:
10 KEY VALUES
1. Grassroots Democracy Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect his or her life and should not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations that expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.
2. Social Justice and Equal Opportunity All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law.
3. Ecological Wisdom Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature. We must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society that utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we must practice agriculture that replenishes the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity of natural systems.
4. Non-ViolenceIt is essential that we develop effective alternatives to society’s current patterns of violence. We will work to demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments. We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of others who are in helpless situations. We promote non-violent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.
5. DecentralizationCentralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system that is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that civil rights are protected for all citizens.
6. Community Based Economics Redesign our work structures to encourage employee ownership and workplace democracy. Develop new economic activities and institutions that will allow us to use our new technologies in ways that are humane, freeing, ecological and accountable, and responsive to communities. Establish some form of basic economic security, open to all. Move beyond the narrow “job ethic” to new definitions of “work,” jobs” and “income” that reflect the changing economy. Restructure our patterns of income distribution to reflect the wealth created by those outside the formal monetary economy: those who take responsibility for parenting, housekeeping, home gardens, community volunteer work, etc. Restrict the size and concentrated power of corporations without discouraging superior efficiency or technological innovation.
7. Feminism and Gender Equity We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.
8. Respect for Diversity We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines. We believe that the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms than our own and the preservation of biodiversity.
9. Personal and Global Responsibility We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal wellbeing and, at the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace, economic justice, and the health of the planet.
10. Future Focus And Sustainability Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or “unmaking” all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions. Make the quality of life, rather than open-ended economic growth, the focus of future thinking.
As governor Romney started running for president from the first day in office and did not spend any real time of effort on setting himself up for reelection. He left office with an approval rate that rivals Lepage’s for how bad it was. He would not have been reelected.
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If Romney becomes president he will bow to the tea party extremists to try to avoid a primary challenge at the end of 4 years.
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The Romney Stein knew was Romney version 2.7. We are up to at least version 9.4 by now.
Tyke – Nice job yesterday, encouraging the PPH e-nut galley to migrate to the BDN. I think they made a HUGE mistake, trying to force folks to post via facebook. Here’s hoping the BDN maintains the status quo!
The BDN is better at political reporting anyway. If you go to the PPH and KJ sites on election night you will be that they credit the BDN for their updates.
Our political infrastructure is geared to uphold what is
essentially an oppressive two-party system of government. There are many more
political sentiments among voters than can be effectively expressed by two
parties. Under a multi-party system the frequent political stand-offs in
Congress, as underscored by the record numbers of filibusters under Obama,
would evaporate. Parties would actually need to form alliances to get
legislation passed and lobbying would become infinitely more difficult with the
increased fluidity of partisan perspectives. In national elections multiple
parties would soon force a run-off system, so that presidents no longer can be
“elected” with less than 50% of the vote. Candidates like Jill Stein
may still not be elected but they would receive far more attention and could
easily become partners in political coalitions.
Hmmm. I’m not so sure that coalition parliamentary governments are all that successful. I do like the idea of run-off elections though.
You go Jill. Get as many Obama votes as you can. Hope your on the ballot in Ohio.
Hmmm. And what’s your real reason for advocating for her?
Didn’t I make it clear? Hopefully she will be the Ralph Nader that “helped” Bush. Or the Ross Perot that “helped” Clinton. Other than that…nothing.
ROMNEY / RYAN 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll be equally redundant. Danny One-Note. Again. And again …
I suggest you practice saying “President Romney”.
It could very well be that we will be saying President Romney.
The Rolling Stones sang a song nearly fifty years ago called the Harlem Shuffle. It starts out, “You move it to the left, and you go for yourself. You move it to the right, yeah, if it takes all night.” That about sums it up for candidate Romney. How can even conservatives believe in anything Romney says?
Maybe he is the candidate Grover Norquist had in mind when he said they didn’t need someone who could think. They only needed someone who could hold a pen.
Personally, I think that if Romney is elected, he will be the last Republican in the White House in my lifetime. I think he will prove to be the re-incarnation of Herbert Hoover.
The Who had a song from nearly the same era… referring to the left wing radicals selling their misguided wares to the innocent.
There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!
That was a great song from a superb rock album. I’m sure a lot of us remember it well just as we remember how things were just four years ago. George W. Bush and company had our economy reeling, and it looked like we might be headed into a second Great Depression. On top of that we were still deep into two wars, one of which had been started under total misrepresentations. If Mitt Romney should happen to be elected, many of the George Bush people will return to positions of power. That is why many of us “get on our knees and pray we don’t get fooled again.”
It may not have been a wonderful four years, but CNN hasn’t carried live coverage of American bombers lighting up the skies of Baghdad, and we haven’t seen the Dow Jones drop nearly 50%.
Having a little more fun with music, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Mitt Romney absent mindedly hums the Hokey Pokey. You know, “Put your right foot in…, put your left foot in…, and you turn yourself around. That’s what it’s all about.”
Its funny that some of the things you folks credit Obama (and some he claims himself) were actually done by George Bush…. Be that as it may… Many of us did not support all of the economic policies of Bush that is no reason to turn the economy over to a central planner type. It is obvious now that Obama and his team have no idea how to build an economy. It is no accident that every person on the Presidents economic policy team that built his current economic plan has resigned.
Not one of their collective predictions has come to pass.
I think that danshockey’s comment is permanently loaded into his copy and paste feature. Click-click-click, there I have made my contribution to Maine’s political discourse.
end subsidies to agribusiness and redirect them to small farms that would stock local farmers markets; ~~~~ writer
$30 billion is the number I have been able to find for Ag subsidies, 35% of that for the production of ethanol. It never made much sense to me to burn food in cars.
cut our military spending in half ~~~~ writer
Oh Good. Does anyone have the first clue the instability that would cause in the world?
Only reading the title of this article, she is crazy because the Green Party and its ideals are engaging in a nonsensical political process reflected in this quote: “Our current problem lies in the fact that multi-generational thinking is so little rewarded. Our economic and political systems as they have evolved in the Industrial Age reward a mono-generational mindset driven by short-term profits and election cycles.” (from pg. 520 of this reader: http://cnx.org/content/col11325/1.40/pdf)
I dunno, that sounds pretty spot-on to me.
Last February the Wall Street Journal ran a story saying that in 2010 (the year for which the most recent figures had just recently been released) of the approximately 2 trillion dollars that the US Federal government collected in tax revenue that year, just 11 % came from corporations. So out of 2 trillion dollars only about 25o billion (approx.) came from corporations. The rest came from individuals like you and I, and of course some richer folks too.
And as many people are aware of, many of the largest American corporations pay little if any tax at all.
So we have this mega elephant in the room that no one in the main stream press will talk about. (While the WSJ did report it, and did actually point out it was a significant disparity, they certainly did not advocate for reducing the disparity.)
So think about it, so many corporations have lavish facilities with CEOs and upper management that live like kings and queens–but mostly kings. They use public infrastructure like highways, airports, shipping ports. They use the atmosphere and the oceans and rivers as disposal sites for their “regulated” emissions. They are the beneficiary of the cooperation and protection of the US Military around the globe. They use the vast bulk of common societal infrastructure and resources.
Now, these things in and of themselves may not be completely bad or undesirable. After all, theoretically at least, you or I could also form our own corporation and do what they are doing. Yes, theoretically, but that’s another discussion.
But, obviously, if corporations are only paying 11 percent of the revenue yet are using much, much more of the public infrastructure, not to mention direct subsidies and direct ‘defense’ expenditures, the general taxpaying public is the packhorse in this scheme. (The value of Defense contracts ALONE are more than $250 billion, that 11% corporate portion of total tax revenue!)
So my hat goes off to Jill Stein and candidates like her. Her candidacy is a living example and living celebration of all that is right about the United States of America.
If we do not exercise and practice democracy, we will not have democracy. And if you refuse to support truth-telling candidates like Jill Stein you should not be the least bit surprised that absolutely nothing of any real significance will change. Corporations do not collectively donate billions of dollars to candidates to encourage change, they donate to make sure the system stays the same and stays favorable to them.
So, you may think you are exercising democracy by participating in the pro-wrestling match of selecting CEO Obama or CEO Romney. But after this manufactured race is over you will still be shoulder to shoulder with your fellow Americans in that select set of packhorses paying 89% of America’s operating revenue.
Free yourself! Vote for an honest candidate and be an example of real democracy. You don’t have to agree with every position of a candidate you vote for. But if you somehow think that these major candidates are really on your side and are really advocating to give you and the next generation a fair shake, you should not be surprised when life gets tougher and not easier.
That’s a bit disengenous. Whilst the effective corporate tax rate results in a net return of between 11 and 16% from large companies, the tax base funded by employees of companies is a substantial portion of federal and state tax revenue. That revenue is what funds the world’s largest entitlement program–medicare and medicaid–and also the bizarre bit of accounting known as social security.
Lifestyles of business leaders is far, far easier to tone down than shameless politicians who perpetuate economic misery to hold on to the votes of those they claim they plan on lifting out of economic misery. Simply become a shareholder in a company and vote and attend annual meetings. You’d be surprised how accountable a board of directos can be to shareholders, especially when their economic future depends on average folk like you and me hold equity issues in their companies!
Corporations can easily ignore shareholders who are a tiny minority, compared to the vast majority who are in only for the dividends and stock gains.
Ummm They are all shareholders and get dividends and capital gains.
“…because where Nader struck me as intellectually dishonest, insisting that Bush and Gore were all but indistinguishable, Stein seems as sensible as cod liver oil.” How does the author of this article come to this conclusion after Steins’ “Having lived under Mitt Romney for four years, I’m not quaking in my boots any more than I am” at the prospect of President Obama’s reelection.’ remark? Sameness, or a backhanded compliment on past medical practice?5% of the voters in Maine voting for Gary Johnson will establish the Libertarian Party as a recognized Maine state party. 5% of Maine voters voting for Jill Stein will maintain the Green-Independent Party as a recognized Maine state party.
Gary Johnson is a very good alternative for those on the right disenfranchised by the Maine Republican party (Ron Paul supporters among others) who do not support the current president either or for those who recognize that Mitt Romney runs one way then the other just to get votes then governs as a liberal.
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On the other side Stein is a good choice for the folks on the left who have been disappointed by Obama’s centrist policies and his support for the corporate state. It is not a coincidence that the stock market has done better under Obama than just about any modern president. He is as pro business as they come.
Isn’t that ironic. Mitt Romney should be campaigning for Barack Obama’s re-election. I bet (well not $10,000) that Romney has been making more money during Obama’s presidency than he made while George Bush was president. Of course, if someone were to take me up on the bet, there would be no way to find out since Romney refuses to release his tax returns. After all the stock market tanked under Bush and recovered under Obama.
I really liked the Green Party Presidential candidate of a few years ago that said George Bush had 5k African American convicts shot in the head and dumped into the Post Katrina swollen waters of the Mississippi delta.
We’re not crazy. Only asleep. Hey Doc, anything to cure narcolepsy?