From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:
On February 6, Jill Stein spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to say she is exploring whether to seek the Green Party presidential nomination. That attracted a good amount of publicity. However, many of the stories had factual errors. The Bloomberg story misspelled Ralph Nader’s surname as “Nadar”. National Public Radio said if Stein runs, that would be only the second Green Party presidential run. Here is one of the more accurate stories. The Boston Globe story said she was on the ballot in 2012 in “more than 30 states”, which is true, but a better story would have been more precise, and would have said she was on in 36 states plus the District of Columbia. Here is a better story from The Times of Israel.
None of the news stories mentioned that the Green Party is already on the ballot for 2016 in states containing 55% of the national electorate, and this percentage will increase as the party completes more petition drives during 2015 and 2016.
True. It’s why I prefer the collaborative effort here to trying to do one by myself, even if I am giving up a little bit of creative control.
I haven’t been on there. Been taking a break from politics. But my problem with A3PR was i was the only one posting, which was fine at first. But I put up 5+ posts a day on there, everyday, and none of the other contributors did. I was fortunate if they posted 1 a week. Takes more than one person to run a third party news site.
Of course you still have A3PR also. You are free to post at both if you wish; we do not have a non-competition policy. I hadn’t seen any new articles there for a stretch, so I’ve quit checking.
Ah, well I shall keep that in mind then!
Joshua, you are still signed up to post articles here should you ever choose to do so.
Stein was also recently interviewed by VICE. This one may be worth posting as a separate article all it’s own.
http://www.vice.com/read/can-the-green-party-make-a-comeback-in-2016-209
Joshua Fauver and GwoA, good points.
Not to mention the interview that was done with ABC News that was also ran on YahooNews. Also, just three days ago she appeared on Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp on RT. (She appears starting at the 21:30 mark.) A good bit of publicity, I think, for a minor party candidate who’s announced an exploratory committee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syhz7DcP9c4
It’s also why I did not think he did a very good job in that debate, even though I agreed with him a lot more than I did with her.
Or GP convention. It’s a pipe dream.
I agree that Howie would make a great candidate for them. He’s a blue collar working man though, so flying all over the country as a presidential candidate may not fit his schedule, and there may be other reasons he has not chosen to go that route. But I agree he could be very effective if he did.
As far as votes in the presidential race versus votes in a heavily lopsided Governors race they are not really equivalent. Alt parties typically do better in state and downticket races than presidential, where the “wasted vote” hype is at its most intense.
Johnson’s body language and eye-rolling in the F&E debate is enough to convince anyone that a Johnson/Stein ticket is a fantasy. And it would never have a chance of being endorsed at any LP Convention.
Personally, I think Howie Hawkins is a far better and more effective debater than Jill Stein. He does not come across cold and reading; to the contrary, he is sincere and highly knowledgeable. And he has a great Southern drawl. 🙂
[For those who are not familiar with Howie, I recommend watching his performance in the Buffalo, NY debate from last fall.]
Let’s not forget that he got about half as many votes in just one state as Stein did in 26 (or however many she was on).
Howie for GP Presidential ticket 2016!
As for Stein’s debating skills….
If you watch the Free and Equal debate it’s clear Stein is not as eloquent as Rocky Anderson or as smooth and skilled as Gary Johnson as a speaker. But what she lacks in experience in politics and law she makes up for in (apparent) honesty, empathy and integrity. In the context of a 3rd party debate, authenticity matters. And while I like Gary Johnson’s persona personally, in debates he comes off as more of a politician than Jill Stein (more of a salesman, and less authentic and personable).
Stein is a very good spokesperson and has improved alot as a speaker since 2011.
The advantage to supporting her is she can be trusted to represent Green talking points in a principled and mature way.
The disadvantage is her relative obscurity compared with other former Green candidates like Nader and McKinney as well as other leftists in the media like Bernie Sanders.
I don’t think she’s terrible. I agree she ran a very fine GP campaign and is a good spokesperson for them. Not disagreeing with that at all. I think it’s probably good for the Greens that she’s running again, and she’s a notch above their prior two nominees without any doubt.
I was just saying realistically, she wouldn’t be on Sander’s list of potential running mates.
“And the dig at Stein is underserved.
Although I agree with Johnson much more than I do with Stein, I think she was the better debater in the head to head debate between them.”
I disagree. I think she didn’t do bad or anything, but not impressive and not, I think, better than Johnson. Johnson is much more personable and friendly. Stein seems cold and distant and professorial, when she does show emotion it tends to come across more as angry and strident. At times she was obviously looking down and reciting from prepared notes, which would have been in a scandal in its own right if it happened in the CPD debates.
She’s not at all a bad formal debater, in terms of semantic content and logically sound arguments, but political debates are at least half or more about personality and perception, not winning Oxford Rules. She comes up short there, IMO. Maybe that is just my bias talking, but I can think of plenty of other lefties and Greens I disagree with who I wouldn’t give the same assessment to, ones who I think could probably run circles around Johnson in a debate.
I don’t see why you think Jill Stein is so terrible. I think her campaign was very well run by GP standards and that she is one of their best spokespeople.
If Sanders did run third-party/ind. (he’s not), and even if he sought the Green nomination, he could and would do much better for a running mate than Jill Stein. Not saying that to bash her, it’s just true. She wouldn’t even be on his list of potential running mates, even if we limited it to people who haven’t held office as a Dem.
This is the first I have heard about it too.
And the dig at Stein is underserved.
Although I agree with Johnson much more than I do with Stein, I think she was the better debater in the head to head debate between them.
If such a rumor does exist (first I’ve heard of it), I imagine it comes from the fact that they have worked together on the OAI-CPD lawsuit, with promo images featuring the two of them, etc. But of course it’s not even remotely a possibility.
Does remind me of this anecdote, though: at the recent event in Milwaukee, Johnson said (paraphrasing from memory) – “If I was in the debates, I think support for the Libertarian Party would skyrocket. If the Greens were in the debates, I think support for them would plummet.” A pretty obvious dig at Stein, that got good laughs and applause.
Who’d be at the top of the ticket? Johnson presumably, since he got more votes and starts with better ballot access. But he wouldn’t run on anything like the issues in Jill Stein’s announcement. And if she wants to be at the top of the ticket why would Johnson accept? There are many other reasons why that would be a non-starter.
Anyone want to bet?
I’ll bet money against that happening right here and now.
I think that’s insanely doubtful, but I wouldn’t hate it TBH.
Anyone else heard the rumor that there are efforts for a Johnson/Stein fusion ticket in 2016? Wild speculation at this point, I think. But I have heard it mentioned from more than one (apparently independent) source in relation to the CPD (somewhere, someday) lawsuit.
This isn’t Europe. Progressive Democrats are afraid of helping Republicans to beat Democrats, and the numbers aren’t there for Warren, Sanders and Stein to actually win (if you mean the presidency or a plurality in congress) even if they did somehow combine forces, which is not going to happen. I’m not saying this because I disagree with your economic views, although I do. I would say the same of any fantasies about any equivalent coalition of Libertarians and quasi-libertarians in other parties actually winning as well.
Progressives need to make a Coalition – as done in Europe, b.t.w. – in order to win. Has Jill Stein spoken with Sen. Bernie Sanders ? With Sen. Warren ? How about a complete overthrow of the system by a Progressive Coalition actually WINNING?!