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This Presidential Candidate Thinks Trump and Clinton Are "Deadly Choices"

From Cosmopolitan

Jill Stein wants you to know there are options other than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump when it comes to picking a president this fall. The third-party candidate who's been getting the most attention so far is Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, but Stein is the face of another third party: the Green Party. Here's what you should know and her candidacy:

1. This isn't her first time running for president.

Stein was the Green Party's 2012 nominee for president as well, and garnered 470,000 votes. In 2000, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader saw more success with 2.8 million votes.

Stein is running on the Green Party's platforms of "ecological politics and social justice, peace and non-violence, local and regional self-management and grassroots democracy."

2. She's a doctor.

Stein is a practicing physician-turned-environmental-activist originally from Illinois. She has both her undergraduate degree and medical degree from Harvard University. Her first foray into politics was in 2002, when she ran unsuccessfully for governor of Massachusetts against Mitt Romney, according to her campaign website. (She ran again for governor in 2010.)

3. She thinks she can win over the "Bernie or bust" voters.

Stein believes "Bernie or bust" supporters will be drawn to the message of her party, which she says is "the one national party that does not accept corporate money, lobbyist money, or have a superPAC."

"We are here especially for the Bernie Sanders movement that does not want to go back into that dark night, into the Hillary Clinton campaign, that for so many people represents the opposite of what Bernie was building and what they were building," Stein recently told NPR. "We are here to provide the support for that campaign. I think so many people learned that you cannot have a revolutionary campaign inside of a counter-revolutionary party. So we are here as plan B for Bernie to ensure that this fight will go on."

4. She even invited Sanders to take her place on the ticket.

After Sanders lost the Democratic nomination, Stein offered him her place on the Green Party ticket, according to The Guardian. He didn't respond.

Sanders has endorsed Clinton and will be speaking in support of her at the DNC this week.

5. She has a lot in common with Sanders.

She's for a single-payer public health program, tuition-free public education, $15 minimum wage, and breaking up "too big to fail" banks. She also wants to legalize marijuana and "enact an emergency Green New Deal to turn the tide on climate change, revive the economy and make wars for oil obsolete." More on her platform here.

6. Some people are mad about her campaign.

Columnist Dan Savage criticized Stein's run on his podcast, Savage Lovecast, arguing that her run helps bolster Trump, because those Sanders votes could be going to help Clinton beat the Republican nominee. "You are essentially, if you're voting for Jill Stein, helping to potentially elect Donald J. Trump president of these United States," he said. "Which would be a catastrophe."

In fact, some say Nader's votes in 2000 caused a "spoiler effect," allowing George W. Bush to clinch the win over Al Gore. (Nader denies this.)

Stein's response? "Put it this way: I will feel horrible if Donald Trump is elected, I will feel horrible if Hillary Clinton is elected," she told NPR, "and I feel most horrible about a voting system that says: Here are two deadly choices, now pick your weapon of self-destruction."

7. And she's filed a federal complaint against both Clinton and Trump.

On Nov. 7, Stein registered a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had "illegally coordinated" with super PAC campaign funding groups, in violation of the laws set in place by the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. In her filing, Stein claims to provide:

A body of evidence indicating that the Clinton campaign has improperly coordinated activities with Super PACs such as Correct the Record, Priorities USA Action, and American Bridge 21st Century, while the Trump campaign has improperly coordinated activities with Super PACs such as Rebuilding America Now, Make America Number 1, and Great America PAC.

As Stein's website explains, this complaint is "just one step towards getting the big money out of politics so we can get the people back in."

8. But she'll be happy if the Green Party gets 5 percent of the national vote.

Reaching the 5 percent threshold would be a "true game-changer for American politics," Stein wrote for CNBC. It would mean the Green Party gains recognition as an official political party, and secure both federal funding and automatic ballot access in many states for the 2020 election. "With the material benefits that come with 5 percent of the popular vote," Stein added, "we will have unprecedented resources to continue building this movement for progressive change, shoring up power from below, and paving the way for a new, sorely needed politics of integrity and transformation."

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