Recounts bring Stein publicity that eluded her on the trail
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Green Party candidate Jill Stein holds a press conference at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia after a hearing on the Green Party’s request for a statewide recount, Friday, Dec. 9, 2016. A federal judge allowed Wisconsin’s presidential recount to move forward Friday as a another federal judge in Pennsylvania planned to take the weekend to decide on a Green Party-backed request to recount paper ballots and examine election computer systems for signs of hacking.
Long before presidential recounts crossed her mind, trash dumping and mercury contamination pushed Jill Stein into politics.
Stein, a physician, joined a 1990s movement to shut down or better regulate mercury-polluting incinerators in Massachusetts. She authored papers on child neurological damage and spoke at public gatherings. She testified at hearings as a medical expert.
Massachusetts eventually enacted strict limits on mercury emissions, and a few incinerators closed. But Stein had begun to see the system as set up to block change, and when the Green Party recruited her to run for governor in 2002, she took the chance.
“I was part of a very frustrated public health initiative, and then the Green Party came to me and said, ‘Why don’t you run for office?’” Stein said in an October interview with The Associated Press. “I said, ‘Everything else is failing, I might as well try electoral politics.’”
She’s been trying ever since, running for president in 2012 and again this year, earning roughly 1.5 million votes. She lost the 2002 bid, as well as another run for governor in 2010, state representative in 2004 and Massachusetts secretary of state in 2006.
Stein is now gaining arguably more attention than she ever did on the campaign trail by pushing for recounts of the presidential contest in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. She has claimed, without concrete evidence, that the voting systems there are vulnerable to tampering and that a recount would reassure voters.
A judge in Michigan ended the recount this week, ruling Stein lacked standing. A recount is underway in Wisconsin, and a judge is set to rule Monday on whether one can begin in Pennsylvania. Stein said efforts to stop the recounts will only increase voters’ distrust in the system.
Her critics, including President-elect Donald Trump, charge she is running a scam to raise her profile and rake in money for another presidential run. She has raised more than $7 million to help cover the costs of the recounts, double what she raised for her presidential campaign.
Democrats have painted her as a spoiler stealing their votes. Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton would have won all three states, and the presidency, if all of Stein’s votes had gone to her instead. But Stein argues most of her voters would not have supported Clinton.
Stein denies she’s trying to boost her profile. Her website says donors will be surveyed to determine how to spend any leftover recount money.
“If I was thinking about me, I’m not sure I would be doing this now,” Stein told the AP this week. “Election integrity is a big Green value.”
Those who know Stein say she is sincerely passionate about her issues. But few believe being a perennial candidate is the best route, given her lack of electoral success and inability to form an organized campaign.
“She certainly would’ve been, in my mind, more effective staying in the arena of being an advocate for health issues,” said Joan Kulash, an activist with Stein on the incinerator campaigns.
When the Green Party recruited Stein for 2002, co-chairman Jonathan Leavitt thought he had found a winner. He believed Stein’s medical background and articulation made her perfect to woo voters fed up with the status quo but wary of supporting a third party.
Massachusetts had just passed a law that allowed candidates to qualify for public funds. But campaigns were required to show 6,000 small contributions in order to qualify, and Stein came up short. Leavitt, serving as a campaign manager, eventually left because he felt too many people were trying to direct the campaign.
A Boston news poll showed Stein performed strongly in a televised debate against Republican Mitt Romney, Democrat Shannon O’Brien and two other third-party candidates. Ultimately, she captured just 3.5 percent of the vote; Romney won.
“If we had stayed focused on the mechanics of the campaign, then we would’ve had a third-party campaign with a big budget,” Leavitt said. “We would’ve won that campaign with Jill Stein in Massachusetts.”
Stein, 66, argues winning isn’t the only mark of success. She describes Democrats and Republicans as driving America toward an existential crisis, and sees the Green Party’s struggle against powerful interests as a battle designed for her to lose. She argues that the media deliberately locks third-party candidates out of coverage and debates and that the two major parties practice fearmongering to maintain allegiances.
Her presidential platform centered on erasing student debt, reaching 100 percent clean energy by 2030 and cutting back U.S. involvement in international conflicts.
Stein received nearly 1 million more votes in 2016 than she did in 2012, which she considers a sign of growing displeasure with the status quo. She said she’s not sure whether she’ll run again.
“This is a David and Goliath struggle,” Stein told the AP this week. “David doesn’t get Goliath on the first shot.”
20 responses to “Recounts bring Stein publicity that eluded her on the trail”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Not only gaining attention, but lining her pockets as well from the leftover donations she received for the recounts. Nice scam there Jill Stein.
I’d like to praise Jill Stein, she is a fighter, but the more I read about her, the more I feel I should pity her. She could have had a good practice and stick to medicine, but the Green Party grubered her into thinking she was a viable candidate, she wasn’t, but they keep building up her ego. Now the corrupt Democrats are using her to justify their harassing recounts, which they know will result in failure and here comes Jill, the willing stooge. I really pity her.
Nutty Mrs. Stein is trying to keep the fake news story of voter machine hacking alive with this ridiculous recount effort. She is giving false hope to the faithful that Donald Trump will not be inaugurated in six weeks. If she is so concerned with the electoral process she may want to begin by promoting voter ID.
IRT CEI, agree with your post. Ms Stein is gaining negative “Real” news and her statement that the funds she and her committee are raising will be used for “Recount” activities only will be watched very carefully. If she and her committee transfers a penny to her personal or campaign account, her political reputation will end.
Good riddance.
Stein is being used by the democrats and the left wing of the party. Is it a coincidence that she is mounting her recount effort only in states where Trump won but
edged out Hillary by not much. You have to wonder where all the millions came from to pay for the recount. She received more money to do the recount than she was able to
raise during her presidential campaign. Clearly there needs to be an investigation as to who actually gave her the money and how it ends up being spent.
There has been speculation that this effort is largely to fund her next presidential bid or to line her own pockets.
There need to be an investigation as to whether hackers change the results of these close races of course. Trump would have demanded no less if he had lost.
She gotten far too much publicity than she deserves…..she was never and probably never will be a viable candidate for office…..a distraction and a failed wannabe politician…..
The more media exposure she gets, the more she looks like the joke candidate she was.
We forget that we all benefit when we know that the system has been hacked by the Russians or anybody else. Not just Jill.
We all need to know that and we all benefit buy the search for interference in the election process.
The courts don’t know this and they don’t care.
Jill should appeal this decision to a higher Court.
I agree that we all benefit by trust in the process. So I’m sure you would agree with me that voter ID should be the bedrock by which we regain trust in the system. Interference in the election process? Bernie Sanders might want to jump on that since he was railroaded out of the process by the DNC to make room for an influence peddling incompetent candidate. A higher court? Maybe she should take it to the UN or the EU? I’m sure she would get favorable treatment from either of those bodies.
You can’t make the paranoid trust anything.
Yeah. But just why only Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania? Did the Russian cyber hackers just target only those states? Stein is a delusional fool. Rich now, but still delusional.
They may have hacked other states too.
All posters above rely on hate in their heart. None have a bonified gripe against the article of Jill Stein or its content. They all use opinions they grab from their fog colored glasses and voices they hear bouncing around in their vast empty noggin. Echo’$ of voices bought on by age and dementia. Most negative posters are those 60+ with no ohana and friends.
it’s easier to be negative, as you prove once again
Jus what we should expect from Westside. “empty noggin”, Nana should know. Starts with others having “hate in their heart”, then ends it with a hate filled tirade. “No family and no friends”, exactly Nana, must be cold in that cave.
So, SA, how about an update on the recount.
Saw a small paragraph where the Michigan Supreme Court has upheld the denial of the recount.
What is happening in Wisconsin? Last I heard Trump had increased his margin of victory. Certainly don’t want that to get much publicity, do you, SA?
What is happening in Pennsylvania?
Guess the liberals have succeeded in getting SA to look to the Russians, because the RECOUNT has died a quiet death.
This is fun to watch. Previously smug progressives flailing around for relevancy. They’ll explore any crackpot conspiracy theory but they will never admit the real reasons their “guy” lost. First mistake was alienating undereducated white guys and the middle class, second was Waldo’s unwillingness to be honest about anything, third was a one-sided dishonest media, fourth was a rejection of little Barry Hussein and his “fundamental transformation”. There are many other reasons for the stunning upset but space prevents me from listing them all. Now they have 4 years and very possibly 8, 12 or 16 years to sulk and wallow in self-pity. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!
Not a starlet seeking the limelight on donations from the silent or vocal minority when her hopes winning is nil? Wrestling with someone else’s money? Or earning additional income as a paid chairman of the party? Since she claim the party came to her, organizers only way to garner/line their pockets?