Green Party Chooses Presidential Candidate

The Green Party held their convention in Baltimore this weekend -- and on Saturday they officially chose their nominees for president and vice-president. Going into the convention, the leading candidates for the presidential nomination were physician and long-time progressive-activist Dr. Jill Stein and comedian Roseanne Barr. Both candidates addressed the convention, but in the end it wasn't a very close contest. Stein easily won the approval of the delegates (193.5 to 72 out of a total of 294 delegates).

Before the convention, Stein had announced that her choice as her running mate was Cheri Honkala, a Philadelphia activist who has been fighting for the rights of the poor and homeless for the last quarter of a century. Stein told the convention, "We are the 99 percent, and this is the year we take our country back. . . Voting for either Wall Street candidate gives a mandate for four more years of corporate rule."

It's truly an uphill battle for these two excellent candidates. They only have about a million dollars to spend (a tiny fraction of what the Democrats and Republicans will each spend), although Stein did qualify for federal matching funds (the first Green Party candidate to ever do so). The party is not even on the ballot in a few states (I think they qualified in about 45 states for ballot inclusion). And they will probably be shut out of all the presidential debates (as will the Libertarians). It's neither democratic nor fair, but the media will probably bow to pressure from both major parties to exclude them (who know both the Greens and Libertarians have a more appealing political message).

I like the Stein-Honkala ticket a lot, and personally, I think this country would be a lot better off if they could get elected.