Cameron Knight

cknight@enquirer.com

Cincinnati hosted two female presidential candidates on Monday. Hours after Hillary Clinton took the stage at the NAACP convention, Green Party candidate Jill Stein addressed a crowd of about 75 people at a Clifton restaurant.

Her speech focused on "the good news" that Green Party policies were attainable. She spelled out how clean energy, student loan forgiveness, free higher education and safer streets were all possible by drastically reducing military spending, reallocating subsidies and creating a truth and reconciliation commission to address the "the living legacy of slavery."

Stein criticized both Clinton and Donald Trump. She said "invading other countries" has contributed to immigration problems and terrorism, and targeted Clinton for her military policies.

"It's not just Donald Trump that would create chaos around the world," Stein said. "What Trump talks about, Hillary has already done."

As Jill Stein was traveling from Bowling Green, Ohio, by car to Cincinnati, Clinton was pledging to enact criminal justice reform at the Duke Energy Center.

The NAACP invited both Clinton and Trump to speak at its 107th convention. When Trump declined to speak, Stein wrote an open letter to NAACP president and CEO Cornell Brooks offering to take his place.

"Please note that I would be deeply honored to be invited to speak at this year’s NAACP Convention," she wrote. "While Mr. Trump may not understand the importance of having an audience with your organization, I do."

The organization declined her offer.

Nathan Lane is a county committee member for the Green Party and explained that for him and other Green Party candidates the current election cycle isn't a two-way, but a four-way contest between Clinton, Trump, Stein and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

"The realistic goal in a four-way race is 26 percent of the vote and victory. Lincoln did it. It could happen – these are volatile times." Lane said. "At a minimum, I want to see them in the debates."

For many third-party supporters, getting access to the debates would be victory. The Presidential Commission requires a party to get 15 percent of the vote to be included in the next election cycle's debates. Parties that obtain at least five percent are eligible for other benefits.

Dorsey Stebbins of Forest Park stood at the corner of Clifton and Ludlow avenues holding a sign that asked, "Why vote for the least evil when you can vote Green?"

"There's very little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans at all because they recognize that big money is necessary to run, so both of them listen to the corporations," Stebbins said. "People talk about the government should be run like a business, and that's nonsense. Business's biggest thing is profit... human beings are the responsibility of government. Actually, we don't have a democracy right now because the corporations right our laws."

Stebbins said he began supporting the Green Party during Ralph Nader's campaign in 2000. At the time, Nader faced criticism for pulling votes away from Democratic candidate Al Gore, something Nader disputed.

To those who were concerned about throwing away a vote on the Green Party, Stein had a simple message.

"We need to stand up and vote for what we believe in, not against what we fear," she said.