VOTE 2010 – Green-Rainbow Party Gubernatorial Candidate Jill Stein

VOTE 2010 – Green-Rainbow Party Gubernatorial Candidate Jill Stein

Feb 22, 2010 – Video and transcript from WGGB ABC 40 / Fox 6 in Springfield

By Ray Hershel

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (abc40) — The field of candidates in this year’s Massachusetts gubernatorial election is a crowded one.

Incumbent Governor Deval Patrick is facing a tough re-election bid. He’s being challenged from the left and the right.

Among the candidates is Green-Rainbow Party Candidate Jill Stein, “I’m not a politician, and I’m not a part of the Beacon Hill system, I’m a medical doctor and a mother.”

Stein says part of the reason she’s running is disappointment with Deval Patrick, “I did not run against him in the last election, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and I think the questions have been answered, he really hasn’t solved our problems.”

Jill Stein says her first priority is jobs. She also says that health care costs can be controlled, “That’s basically going from a bureaucratic and wasteful system we have right now to a medicare for all type system that cuts the cost right off the board by streamlining the bureaucracy.”

Stein also says that bulk purchasing would cut the cost of pharmaceutical purchases.

On a proposal to cut the sales tax from 6.25% to 3%, Stein says yes, if waste is cut and efficiencies are put into place.

On casinos, she’s not ready to roll the dice, “The track record at this point is that there are enormous costs to casinos that are really off the books and costs to communities, the social problems, the bankruptcies, the addiction, and the violence.”

Stein says voters are restless and she hopes to tap into the kind of voter anger that helped elect Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, “If people have had enough of bailouts and layoffs, and payoffs, we’re the campaign for you and we’re going to turn politics on its head and make this a new day for a healthy, just, and secure future.”

Back in 2002 when Stein ran for governor she won about three and a half percent of the vote.

Besides Stein, the gubernatorial candidates include Incumbent Democratic Governor Deval Patrick, Democrat Grace Ross, Republicans Charles Baker and Christy Mihos as well as Independent Tim Cahill.