Jill Stein’s campaign celebrated the opening of her campaign headquarters in Madison on Saturday after a victory in the Wisconsin Green Party’s nominating convention, in which she captured seven of the state’s nine delegates.
Stein, 62, is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and currently lives in Lexington, Mass. She has run for office on six occasions, most notably in 2002 for governor of Massachusetts against current GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Stein has won more than 60 percent of the vote in the first six state caucuses and primaries.
The Badger Herald sat down with Stein to discuss her run for the White House.
The Badger Herald: Can you start by explaining the process the Green Party uses for its primary election?
Jill Stein: The party goes through a process state by state where some states participate in a primary, while others have conventions and the rest have caucuses. The convention will be in mid-July, in Baltimore. By the time you get to the convention, you have your delegates assigned and you know where you stand.
BH: And what are you celebrating here tonight?
JS: We’re celebrating the opening of the office, but also our connection here with the uprising in Wisconsin. It’s not by coincidence that our headquarters of the campaign are here. What’s going on in Wisconsin is a microcosm for what is going on nationally and globally.
Wisconsin has opened the floodgates for what’s happening in the Occupy movement and in the democracy revolutions in the Middle East.
BH: Is a main part of your campaign going to be echoing those voices in the Occupy Movement?
JS: Yes, it’s a movement with a life of its own, and it really expresses many of the same issues the Green Party has been talking about for a decade now. I think we’re all in this together, and what the Green
Party does is bring that movement into the world of electoral politics.
If you have a movement that doesn’t have an electoral voice, it’s like it’s only halfway there. What independent politics does is formulate a demand that is alive and well in our streets and communities but needs a voice in the electoral mix.
BH: Can you speak to the role of a third party in these elections and why they may be important?
JS: Progressive parties have brought us many things we take for granted at the national level. These are things like the New Deal, Social Security, the eight-hour workday and a safe workplace.
A political vehicle for social movements has always been essential, and over the last 10 years we just haven’t seen it. We were told to be quiet, or you might have unforeseen consequences. We have 10 years experience of being quiet, and it doesn’t get us to where we need to go.
And none of this falls harder on anyone than the generation of college students who are up to their eyeballs in debt. They have been just another exploited constituency by a political establishment whose real guiding light is milking people for more profits. They’ve just been another cash cow for corporate America.
BH: While it might be easier for us to see the difference between you and a more conservative candidate, do you want to highlight some key differences between you and President Barack Obama?
JS: Well, let me start by saying President Obama hasn’t done squat about student loans. He has certain programs he’s talked about, but they haven’t scraped the surface of the problem.
We are very clear that we need to forgive student debt. We did it for the banks that have caused the problem that brought this crisis on us. The least we can do is the same for the students, who were actually doing the right thing when the bottom fell out of the economy.
