Emily Rooney and Jill Stein on Debate Exclusion
[Note: During a radio interview on WGBH’s Emily Rooney show, Jill Stein and Emily Rooney had a discussion of whether journalists should have the power to exclude third party candidates from televised debates. This is an important question that has a bearing on whether voters will hear ideas that come from outside the establishment parties. Rooney’s take on the question is also important because WGBH is a member of a media consortium that will be voting on which candidates to include in the 2010 gubernatorial debates. Transcript of the interview follows. - Ed]
ER: “I’m joined now by telephone from Jill Stein, who announced her candidacy for governor this morning. She’s running on the Green-Rainbow Party ticket, she’s a physician, lives in Wayland. She ran for governor in 2002 in the same party and placed third against Deval Patrick and Kerry Healy with about 3.4 percent of the vote. She also ran for secretary of the Commonwealth in 2006. So now, this makes six candidates for governor including Governor Patrick, Tim Cahill, Charlie Baker, Christie Mihos and Grace Ross, who is also running as a Democrat. Jill Stein, welcome!
JS: Good to be with you.
ER: So, what did you have to say this morning to your followers and gatherers about?
JS: That we need to bring the voices of ordinary people into the election and into the halls of power. We need to break the stranglehold of lobbyists and insiders and get Beacon Hill back to work for the families and the working people of the Commonwealth.
ER: This sounds exactly what, like what every other person running for governor has said, frankly, for [a chuckle] for the last two decades.
JS: I bet they weren’t talking, though, about lobbyists.
ER: [Speaking over Jill’s response.] [Unintelligible because of two voices at once.] … about lobbyists, and PAC groups, we’ve heard them mention them.
JS: Well, maybe …
ER: Governor Patrick certainly did.
JS: Well, he didn’t do a whole lot about them, put it that way. I didn’t see him not … I didn’t see him decline their campaign contributions. And I didn’t see him decline the money from those who hire them. So, you know, we’re really interested in getting past the influence peddling and the culture of influence. And you’re absolutely right: this is what one candidate after the other, one administration after the other, have said. They’ve talked about change, but really they’ve just been about rotating — it’s about a job rotation, it’s about moving it from those, from those powerful interests into the halls of government and then back out into the halls of the deep pockets that are funding political campaigns. So we’re really about breaking that cycle, and really getting down to the burning concerns of the public. We need jobs, we need good jobs, we need secure jobs that aren’t going to be offshored and outsourced and downsized. And good-wage jobs, not any old jobs, but jobs that can actually support a family and bring in a decent living. We’re going to be talking about health care, and how we can actually get to affordable, quality health care. And we’re going to be talking about tax relief, for working and middle-income families that are paying way more than their fair share.
ER: Talking to Jill Stein, who announced for governor this morning on the Green-Rainbow Party. Jill, I was talking to my sister, from Washington, D.C., this morning, and I was explaining that you were coming on, [that] you were one of six candidates running for governor, and that you had got 3.4 percent of the vote last time. She said to me, “Why is she bothering? Why is she doing this?” And I guess I’m going to ask you that question too, because a lot of what you’re saying rings, you know, has a familiar ring to it with other people who are running, that have more backing and, you know, the backing not only of the parties but financially. Why are you doing this?
JS: If you followed what happened after the governor’s race in 2008 [sic ][Note: Should be 2002.] — where, by the way, you know we really had to fight for every bit of coverage we got — and, in fact, when I was included in the debates I was actually voted winner of the NECN debate on the online viewer poll, and was,declared a major, if not, you know, winner of debates that I was in, so it’s not as though the public isn’t resonating. But there was a real effort to keep me out of the dialog at that time.
When I ran for state representative, I then came way up in the vote, and in fact finished second, ahead of a Republican. Would we have told Republicans, “Don’t bother running because, uh, you’re coming in third out of three? I don’t think we’d be saying that to Republicans. In my race for secretary I actually received over 351,000 votes — again, without having real coverage by the press until the end, until finally someone broke the ice and actually endorsed our campaign, and we then had a whole rash of endorsements, including from some major regional papers.
ER: But the state has said your party doesn’t meet the threshold for recognition. You know I was listening to Jim Broudy the other day, coming in to work, and he said, that they included Joseph L. Kennedy in the debates for the NEC — I can’t remember which one — oh, it was the TKK debate. We had asked just Scott Brown and Martha Coakley alone. And Broudy said, you know, “I’m done including all of the candidates.” You know, “Next time I do this I’m just gonna have the major party candidates, because that’s going to serve the voters the best.” How do you respond to that?
JS: I guess I would say, so it’s one journalist who decides what the public gets to hear?
ER: No, not one. But he would make that argument.
JS: Well, I would say, you know, is it two or three journalists? You know, is it the role of journalists to …
ER: Well, yeah, we’re the editors, yeah.
JS: Well, if you look at the polls — and there’s been extensive polling done on this — what you’ll find is that voters want to hear a full and enriched debate, even if they’re not going to vote for the lesser candidates who are included. They really believe that it’s a much more meaningful debate. You get much more meaningful dialog, even from the main-party candidates, if they’re really being challenged from outside of the box. You know, it’s not as though, you know, things are working so well inside the box that we shouldn’t be introducing other voices here. And if you look what happened to Jesse Ventura, for example. You know, he was low in the polls until the people got to hear him, you know, and then, you know, he actually came up in the polls and won in a …
ER: [Speaking over JS’s voice] He was a famous name going in, as well.
JS: He didn’t have, at that point, many votes. You know, I’m . . .
ER: I think it’s safe to say that the people of Minnesota regretted that afterwards, too.
JS: Well, who are we … who are the journalists to tell us that that’s the case?
ER: Well, no, the voters told us that. He lost for reelection. [ Note: Actually Ventura didn‘t seek a second term.]
JS: Well, he may not have won, but does that mean nobody should enter into a race if you’re not going to win? You know, I think at this stage of the game, the really key issues are the issues. What the voters of Massachusetts really want to hear about is where are their jobs going to come from?
ER: Hmm.
JS: Are they going to get jobs? Are they going to get health care they can afford? And how are they going to deal with this incredible tax burden that’s coming down very unfairly on middle- and working families? That’s the debate we should be talking about. And then let’s see where things stand later. But I think this effort to rush to judgment, and to quickly close the gates, before the public has actually had a chance to hear, you know, the dialogue, is really not the kind of journalism that serves us really well. I think journalism is essential for a democracy, and it’s about creating a more open dialogue, not a more closed one. And as we know, with the more recent Supreme Court decision, there are so many strikes against open dialogue and democracy. You know, it would be really outrageous to think that corporations had a protected right to participate in elections, but candidates do not ? I don’t think any journalist would want to be in that position, of arguing that we further clamp down on our few vehicles for democratic discussion — given the really important things that we need to be talking about, given the failure, really, the failure of current policies to actually give us jobs. We really need to hear something outside of the Democrat-Republican revolving door. They all say they’re change, but they all come in … what kind of change have we actually seen? You know, not very much. We’ve seen a change of the label. We saw Governor Patrick come in and then pretty much adopt the administration and then most of the policies, you know, of his Republican predecessors. So we need to get out of this little box some would have us stay in, and not dare to challenge entrenched power. And unfortunately it’s pretty entrenched, among the insiders and political machines that are represented by the other candidates.
ER: All right … Jill Stein, newly in the race for governor from the Green-Rainbow Party. Jill, we will keep you in the loop. You know, you’re always welcome here on 89.7, and you’re welcome on Greater Boston, on Channel 2 and 7. And we’ll invite you on. Thanks for being with us today.
JS: I really appreciate it. I really look forward to talking with you.
Radio show: Jill Stein on the Emily Rooney WGBH radio show – 2/8/10 – scroll to 32:12
Comments on this entry are closed.