They need to end.

Pointing out what an idiot she is.

So keep it coming.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

Loved the Wonkette piece, btw. I'm also bored by all the Green partiers who would not only support such a candidate but somehow, bizarrely, hold her above ours.

She has the potential (minuscule, admittedly, but I am terrified) to contribute to electing Trump. She needs to drop out, endorse Hillary, and make a big deal of it. If not, she does not live in the real world.

If Bernie can, then so can she. I agree she is boring and a little wacky.

PLEASE don't compare her to Bernie.

Apples and oranges.

Oh, you mean if Bernie can endorse. Yes, and she should. In a rational world.

The fact that he's been a federally elected official is the first glaring stark difference.

Yoooge difference. If Stein were serious about actually, you know, accomplishing something other than getting in the spotlight now and then she'd run for state legislator, then congressional seat.

members currently in any state-legislature (the Vermont Progressive Party has 9, and the VPP is only active in Vermont). The only position she's won was the seat for the Lexington town meeting, and she won that with 539 votes.

Look at DeRay Mckesson, arguably one of the most well known BLM activists. In his Baltimore Mayoral run, he finished 6th with 2.5% of the vote. He has more than 100 times the number of twitter followers that his rival does, he's frequently in the media and has a generally favorable reputation, but what matters is if the people who show up to the primary in your area (and the general, in contested areas) think you're the best and most capable person to represent their interests.

Well, honestly a lot of it is also local networks, very specific pet issues ("Are in you in favor of or against this specific tax increase on this specific type of investment?&quot , and the personal ties that have been built up in the community (people might not be able to say where you stand, but they feel you're a good person). Not a great way to pick a leader, but that's what it is.

Anyway, I think most people see a Green party candidate and ignore them because they assume they aren't serious. And that's because the Green Party has spent the better part of two decades working hard to convince people they aren't serious, running Green candidates in tons of elections where they aren't even trying to win. In most of the US, you have a better chance winning if you belong to no party than if you belong to the Green Party.

seemingly lack commitment to elevated goals and don't invest the long, hard work needed to be serious about accomplishing them.

No matter whether or not they have any chance of winning. Some Green folks I've talked to seem to have the idea that as long as they're running, that's all that matters. They're giving the voters a choice, and if the voters don't pick them, then the voters have failed the country, not them. Because of this, they seem unfazed by the fact that they haven't accomplished anything in decades. Local third parties like the VPP or WFP have been much more successful, but those parties have put some focus on results, which the Greens seem entirely disinterested in.

The Green Party also doesn't seem to realize that the only reason they've been able to stay (mostly) ideologically pure is because they haven't had any success. It's not immune to intraparty battles (my understanding is that they're actually a bit of a mess internally, but no one pays attention), and if they started to get any kind of success they'd be overrun by people trying to capitalize on it. Look at what happened to the Reform Party (or even the Greens to some extent in 2004, from what I've heard).

Although I looked at the Green Party hopefully when forming to see if it was something I might join, it was showing signs that it would fail from the very beginning.

The real trick when organizing to accomplish goals out of the mainstream has to be to avoid attracting large numbers of personalities way out of the mainstream. That's no doubt a big reason private groups have accomplished infinitely more environmentally--they choose their people.

I haven't paid any attention to the inner workings of the Greens since the beginning, but I'd have bet the contents of my wallet without hesitation that they were dysfunctional. That's typical when extremist types get together. Even small issues become causes for major, impassioned disagreements, and the sustained cooperation needed to achieve big ones seldom happens.

Which is one of the reasons why I'm not big on "direct action" type stuff - it tends to attract people who are more interested in the action than in the underlying goals (Occupy seemed to get bogged down by a lot of these people, for example). Granted, there are also different kinds of problematic types that gravitate toward the boring stuff (look at the state parties, or HOA boards for examples). But that's a different kind of headache.

Back to the Greens - yeah, I was also interested in what they would do years ago. At the time I didn't get much of a good explanation for why it wasn't a good idea. It was mostly just people yelling that they were awful and going to get Bush elected.

I think it's more useful to explain to people that they can vote for more progressive candidates, but the place for that is the primary and the general is more of a runoff. The Democratic party shouldn't be thought of as a monolith, but rather as a coalition of various groups on the left (and at this point, center and center-right since the Repubs are off the cliff). Coalitions are necessary, and the nature of first past the post voting means that effective coalitions in our system are going to be intra-party rather than inter-party. Change can happen, but if a progressive candidate can't win a primary within the more progressive coalition (and polls seem to show that Democrats are much more progressive than the country at large), it doesn't make any sense to think they can win with a less progressive group in the general.

I think Sanders helped a lot by showing how change is possible within the system. I hope this will make a big difference - maybe not so much among the Greens, but maybe among a lot of the people who ignore primaries and think that they have no choices.

candidacy accomplished by revealing the strong desire for strong progressive solutions among Democrats, especially liberals, not just those farther left.

Some people are angry at him for what they felt was gross misrepresentation of who the people of the party are (myself included--egregious), but political scientists were not asking the right questions and were misleading candidates and the party badly about what its members wanted. Just think of 2014 when so many didn't bother to vote for candidates who were told that taking no position on principles, huddling in the middle of a featureless group, was their best chance for winning. That's over, one hopes, and Sanders did that for us. A huge contribution.

Fuck Jill Stein and her false equivalency bullshit.

She's trying to get elected just like all our other opponents. Why should she receive special treatment on a board whose mission is to elect Democrats? If it bothers/bores you to have us talk about an opposing party, then you might be part of the problem as opposed to the solution.

So why are so many here concerned with her well-being and her "good name" and reputation, CobaltBlue?

Too bad.

If there was a vaccine for stupidity, Stein would say it needs more study.

and forcing you to read critiques of Stein. Stop whining.

As do the Terms of Service violations by people trying to boost or defend her despite her not being a Democrat.
This ain't GreenPartyDumbassAntiVaxMoronsUnderground, after all.

If you are bored, there's a lot of work to do.

The "Leave Jill Stein Alone" crowd is assuming a bit of a higher profile around here lately.

Not on DU, at least.

We support Democrats here and oppose those who run against them.

old school(literally).

One that you have to be of a certain age to get. Kids these days have never seen that distinctive purple print, or felt the cool, slightly damp feeling pages of freshly mimeographed ditto sheets. And that smell.

We don't slam that moron enough here.

But I am currently terrified, and she's contributing to it.

... and wonder if they're at the right web site, and whether they'll be around for much longer.

between the Republican & Democratic parties make me want to tear the hair out of my head.

$7.25 an hour that there's 'no difference' between that & $12 or $15 an hour, or a union wage.

That alone is reason enough to vote for democrats in every election.

Of course, there's dozens of other significant reasons too.

Oh, such a perfect description of the perpetually blazed & outraged Green party chuckleheads.

She's a fucking idiot, and pray for the day one of her minions knocks on my door.

So all of this back-and-forth is a little silly :p

And it still is

... manager said on TV after 2000 that they wanted to hurt democrats and they did.

Fuckin disgusting

That was DEFINITELY worth the read!

I have a strong dislike for Jill Stein, but I don't know how any progressive could support a piece that includes the following:

But I dealt with the same issue when I was a Bernie supporter.

Definitely not bored, and I love Wonkette!