Brett Milam

bmilam@enquirer.com

Democracy looks like people gathered in Eden Park, according to Jill Stein, the Green Party's candidate for president.

About 100 people gathered at a rally Sunday afternoon at the Seasongood Pavilion and were "burning green," as Stein said, to hear a message not tethered to the Democratic Party. When Stein took the stage, most gathered as close as they could get with phones aloft and voices hollering approval.

The Massachusetts physician said she's now practicing "political medicine" since politics is the mother of all ills.

"We the people – who are being thrown under the bus – are finding each other," Stein said.

The speech was mostly a pitch to disenfranchised Bernie Sanders supporters left in the wake of his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president.

"The Democratic Party has a kill-switch for true progressives in their own ranks," Stein said. "So they will allow a Bernie Sanders to be seen and heard for only so long and they pull the kill-switch."

But Stein's message was also a pitch to "the people," specifically, young people.

Revolution, she said, won't be televised or happen inside the Democratic Party.

"Young people have always been the leading vanguard of social transformation," she said. "You are our future."

Stein pointed to the Civil Rights movement, Black Lives Matter, the immigrant rights movement, the climate justice movement, the anti-war movement, the women's movement and so on saying it is young people who are always there on the front lines.

"If we are lucky enough to turn the White House into a 'Green House' and make the world a better place, we're going to have a whole lot of work on our hands," Stein said. "I feel like everyone here is my best friend I've been looking for my whole life."

These friends didn't mind talking politics. Stein wasn't shy in her criticisms of corporate media and big oil. Nor was she sheepish in her plans to cut the military budget in half, cease weapons deals to Israel, make higher education free and transform the American economy to 100 percent clean energy by 2030.

Until then, the most "critical thing we can do," she said, is open up the debates.

"We need more choice, we need more voices," Stein said. "If you know that your life depends on solving the crisis of climate change, of solving the crisis of police violence and systemic racism... then you know that your life depends on democracy."

Reclaiming the promise of democracy means restoring true, open presidential debates, she said.

"The American people not only have the right to vote, but we have a right to know who we can vote for."

As of Thursday, Stein sits at 3.3 percent nationally in an average of nine national polls, according to Real Clear Politics. That's a bit more than her Ohio polling number of 2.4 percent.

To achieve the line designated by the Commission on Presidential Debates, she needs to reach 15 percent in an averaging of five national polls.

Stein was also the Green Party's candidate in the 2012 election, receiving just shy of 500,000 votes, or .36 percent of the popular vote.

In November, Stein and her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, will be on the Ohio ballot, along with Donald Trump, Clinton and the Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, although he'll be noted as an independent.

Other speakers included a representative from the Socialist Alternative. Shalom Keller, an army veteran running for Congress, and Joe DeMare, a challenger to Rob Portman and Ted Strickland for the Senate, also spoke.