Jim (Con't): The Green Party is a third party in the United States. Jess and Ann are Greens. Betty and others are planning to vote Green. I'll start with Betty. You remain a Democrat, you're going to vote for the Green Party presidential candidate. Give me one reason why anyone else should.
Betty: The Green Party is on the ballot in 21 states. To maintain their position on the ballot, they need votes. To get on the ballot in new states, they need votes. I can't vote for a War Hawk like Barack. I have a vote and my using it on the Green Party helps the ballot access issue.
Jim: Alright. Jess, you didn't vote Green in 2004 or 2008. In both of those elections, you voted for Ralph Nader. This year?
Jess: I'll be voting Green. Ralph Nader was demonized for the 2000 election -- and no matter what bitchy Bob Somerby wants to whine, Nader didn't cost Al Gore the election. If Ralph were running this year, I'd consider voting for him just because I can't stand liars like Bob Somerby. Ralph's not running so the Green's have my vote.
Jim: Jill Stein became the Green Party's presidential nominee on Saturday. Wednesday, she announced her running mate. Trina covered it with "Time for some brave move," Ruth with "Roseanne Barr's sour grapes," C.I. with "Stein's choice is Honkala" and Elaine with "Big Day for the Green Party." Let me start with Ruth. Roseanne Barr. Explain it to us.
Ruth: Roseanne Barr is the comic and actress, very talented, I am a big fan. In an earlier roundtable, I expressed that I liked her as a candidate for president. I noted that Trina knew Jill Stein the candidate because she'd run for governor in Trina's state. Roseanne said she was running just to help the Green Party get attention and that Jill Stein would be the candidate and make a great one. Dr. Stein went on to win the delegates required, that made her the nominee. There was speculation that Roseanne would be her running mate. I want to bring Kat in here. In that earlier roundtable, Kat and I both wanted Roseanne to run for real. We would both have chosen her over Jill Stein at that point. Kat, Roseanne as running mate, your thoughts?
Kat: That would have been ridiculous. Not because Roseanne couldn't make a great vice president, she could. But having gone on the record that her run wasn't for real, if Stein had chosen her, it would have made Stein's run a question mark. I like Roseanne. But she eliminated herself.
Ruth: And I agree with Kat. So Wednesday, as I noted in my piece, Roseanne took to Twitter with one remark after another, announced she would not be at the Green Party convention and much more.
Jim: And what does this mean? Why was she mad?
Rebecca: She was mad, study the Twitter feed, because she wasn't picked. She was upset. I think she was upset that she wasn't picked for the running mate and I think she was upset that Jill Stein bested her in the delegate race.
Jim: And if the media follows this is it what? The media creating a catfight? The media doing what?
Elaine: No, it's not a catfight. I understand why you ask that and I'm glad that you self-check but that's not what's happened. Two people ran for the same slot and only one can get it. The one who didn't isn't happy. And? This has nothing to do with their gender. Just yesterday, CNN was reporting on Rick Santorum 'burying the hatchet' with Mitt Romney. That's two men. Their race was bitter and it took time for Santorum to come around. That's two men, why can't two women be the same? It might take Roseanne time to come around for Jill Stein. Then again, she may never come around.
Jim: You really think that's possible?
Elaine: Absolutely. She was implying that they were racists, the entire Green Party leadership. She was trashing the entire party in her Tweets on Wednesday. There's no real reason for her to make peace and I don't think it's a given that she will.
Jim: If she does, will it be news?
Stan: Yes. If she comes around, it should be big news. I'm with Elaine, I don't think she will come around. I think she's staked out ground that it's too hard to walk away from. When she floated racism, she made it really hard for her to have anything to do with the Green Party anytime soon. What I find especially interesting is that Amy Goodman discovered the Green Party on Friday's show.
Dona: Absolutely. Let's give credit where it's earned: That's Ava and C.I. While so many Green Party members were happy to take morsels from Amy Goodman, Ava and C.I., in their roles of media critics, called out the crap and slop Goodman's offered every four years for the Green Party.
Jess: Agreed. The party should have pushed back. Instead, they were happy to have their entire convention reduced to a brief headline in 2008.
Wally: While Goodman devoted a week to the Democratic Party's political convention and a week to the Republican's. And expanded each daily show during that week to two hours.
Dona: An hour, minus headlines. That's what Amy gave. And she wouldn't have done that if Ava and C.I. hadn't put on the pressure for the last four years.
Jess: Right. The Green Party should have been pressuring her. Should have been pressuring PBS as well. But they didn't. And they took what they got. Ava and C.I., two non-Greens, were more than happy to call out the imbalance and make demands. They roused a lot of people with their critique of how, in 2008, the GOP convention got 10 hours of coverage, the Democratic convention got 10 hours and the Green Party got a single headline for their entire coverage. About ten lines of text. That's all they got.
Dona: So give credit to Ava and C.I. that the Green Party finally got an hour. It's still not equal to what the Dems and Republicans get. But it's a huge improvement. Hopefully, this will continue on Monday with the broadcast of Stein's acceptance speech.
Jim: Okay. Dr. Jill Stein chose someone else. Who did she choose, Isaiah?
Isaiah: Cheri Honkala. She's an anti-poverty advocate. She's been homeless. She was a single mother. She's currently the National Cooridnator of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. And to drop back to Roseanne, it needs to be noted, she hasn't stopped Tweeting.
Jim: Oh really? I wasn't aware of that. Anyone? Nope, just you, Isaiah. Tell us what's going on.
Isaiah: Prior to Jill Stein's being announced the candidate on Saturday, Roseanne was Tweeting for Stein to chose someone else as her running mate, specifically "Farheen" who I take to mean Farheen Hakeem.
Jim: Who is he or she?
Isaiah: She. She's from Minneapolis. She's been running for office since 2005, she's 36-years-old. She's currently running for the legislature in her state. I wish her well with that but I'm not seeing how she surpasses someone with a life long history of activism on poverty.
Ty: I don't --
Jim: What, Ty?
Ty: I think Roseanne's a great artist and I'm not trying to pick on her but I'm going to say this. Certain White people are people of color's biggest champion when they can use us as a club to hit someone else over the head with. I pulled up Farheen Hakeem. She's as unqualified as Rosa Clemente. One of the reasons I supported Nader in 2008 and not Cynthia McKinney was that idiot Rosa Clemente. Now Farheen Hakeem might be a nice person and might believe in all the right things. But Honkala's long history of activism is real work that people can point to and say, "Look what's she spent her life doing."
Jim:And you're saying there's a chance that Roseanne's fixating on her because it backs up her "They're racists!" claim and also makes it look like she's on noble ground. Cedric, your thoughts on that?
Cedric: Roseanne has a history of speaking out for people of color. Like anyone -- White, Black, what have you -- she can make comments and structure them so that she comes out pure and her opponents don't. That could be true here. It could be false. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt because of what she's done in the past. But I also agree that Honkala's the better pick.
Jim: Marcia, where you are standing on the ticket?
Marcia: Stein is my dream candidate. I need to find out where the Green Party stands in my state in terms of ballot issues. Is my vote really necessary? If so, I'll vote for Stein. If not? If the race looks close, I may end up voting for Mitt Romney. I'm not taking another four years of Barack Obama. If I'm going to boo and hiss the asshole in the White House at least let him be a Republican.
Wally: Or one who admits to being a Republican.
Marcia: Exactly. Barack's awful for the party. He makes Democrats compromise and accept things they never should. For the people he's killed in the Drone Wars, for everything he's done, he needs to be gone and the Democrats need to regroup and figure out what they stand for because since Barack's been in the White House, the Democratic Party stands for exactly what the Republican Party did when Bush was holed up in the White House.
Wally: I agree with Marcia. And that's why I've switched my voter registration back to Florida. I just bought a house there and I'm aware that Florida's going to be an important state. It's my home state, it's where I grew up and my mom and granddad live there.
Jim: So, like Marcia you could vote for Mitt Romney?
Wally: For the reasons that Marcia just gave, yes, I could. And to be clear, this is an argument that Betty's been advancing for some time. She's the one who got Marcia and I seriously thinking about this.
Jim: That's right. I forgot that. Betty, closing thoughts?
Betty: I hope this is going to be a serious run. In Jill Stein's acceptance speech Saturday, she didn't pull punches and she didn't act like she was a kid hoping to be seated at the adults' table. She called out Barack Obama, she called out Mitt Romney. If that's the kind of campaign she's going to run, I can support that. If not, I can either not vote or vote for Mitt Romney.
Jim: Okay. Ava, C.I. and Ann just finished their piece and have rejoined us. C.I. passed a note to me asking if Ann could speak for just a moment. So Ann's going to be our last word.
Ann: There's a candidate running that hasn't been mentioned: Roseanne Barr.
Jim: No, we covered that she lost the Green Party nomination.
Ann: Right, but she's launched an independent run. She's calling it the Green Tea Party movement.
Jim: We did not know that. Is it dealt with in the piece you wrote?
Ann: It is. We were going to focus on the convention in our report. But Roseanne's announcement meant we rewrote the piece. We think she's now the most important player on the field.
Jim: Alright. We all look forward to reading it. That's going to be it. This has been a rush transcript.