Gary Johnson and Jill Stein battle in ‘other’ Presidential debate
Gary Johnson, as many of you may know, is the Libertarian Party nominee for president. Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate. Both candidates are in the ballots in enough states to mathematically reach the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to unseat Obama and become the next president of the United States.
However, neither will get the public campaign financing nor media exposure necessary to fairly compete with the nominees from the two major parties.
Wieland takes a video of potential Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in the party’s regional convention Sunday afternoon. The Green Party is a national political party that aims to solve climate change immediately. It also throws much support to the Occupy movement and advocates for human rights. Wieland has been a supporter of the party for more than 10 years now. March 2012 Photo/Ardee SN
NPR has a debate with Libertarian Presidential candidate Gov. Gary Johnson and Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein; audio and transcript at the NPR site.
These were the candidates’ opening and closing remarks.
Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party
“Country’s in deep doo-doo. Let’s stop the growing police state, let’s stop our military interventions, let’s balance the federal budget, let’s eliminate income tax, corporate tax, let’s abolish the IRS, let’s replace all that with one federal consumption tax — that will create tens of millions of jobs in a zero-corporate tax rate environment.”
Jill Stein, Green Party
“Well, we are in crisis. We’re loosing our jobs, decent wages, our homes, affordable health care and higher education; civil liberties are under attack and the climate’s in meltdown. The wealthy few are doing better than ever, and the political establishment’s making it worse, imposing austerity on everyday people while they squander trillions on wars, Wall Street bailouts and tax breaks for the wealthy.
“A vote for me is a vote for the solutions that we need for jobs, not corporate tax breaks, for health care as a human right, public higher education that’s free, ending student debt, and downsizing the military to pay for it.”
Gary Johnson at CPAC FL in Orlando, Florida. photo by Gage Skidmore
Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party
“Whether you vote for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, I’m going to offer up a couple predictions. One is we’re going to continue to have a heightened police state in this country. The other is that we’re going to find ourselves in a continued state of military intervention; we are at continuous war with everyone. And then, lastly, we’re going to find ourselves — regardless of which two of these guys gets elected — we’re going to find ourselves continuing to borrow and spend money in ways that are absolutely unsustainable and if we don’t get control of this, we are going to collapse as a country. We are not immune from the mathematics of continuing to borrow and print money to the tune of 43 cents out of every dollar we spend.”
Jill Stein, Green Party
“Well, I agree with Gary that we are really headed in the wrong direction – and in fact, we are accelerating in the wrong direction under both parties. And in fact, Barack Obama has basically embraced most of the key policies of George Bush on the bailouts for Wall Street, the layoffs for Main Street, the expanding free trade agreements that offshore our jobs and undermine wages at home; the expanding wars, the attack on our civil liberties, drill-baby-drill on the climate, you name it. We’re going in the wrong direction. We need a president — we need a political party, that is of, by and for the people. If you go into the voting booth, and you cast a vote for either Wall Street-sponsored candidate, you are giving them a mandate for four more years of the same.”
