Susan Page

USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Four years ago, Jill Stein made a splash at the presidential debate at Hofstra University on Long Island. Not on stage, where the Green Party presidential candidate wasn't permitted to participate, but outside, where she protested her exclusion and was arrested for disorderly conduct when she tried to enter the hall against a police officer's orders.

Now the first presidential debate is once again set for Hofstra, in less than six weeks. Will Stein be there again?

"I will be there," she told Capital Download on Thursday, saying she is "absolutely" ready to be arrested again. Last time, she and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, were handcuffed to metal chairs for eight hours, then released once the debate was over. This time, though, she hopes to have an ally on stage helping her get a formal invitation. Some analysts speculate that Republican Donald Trump could find it in his political interests to avoid a one-on-one standoff with Democrat Hillary Clinton, perhaps by insisting the debates be opened to Stein and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson.

2016 general election debate schedule

"We're urging Donald Trump to follow in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan, do the Reaganesque thing, because Ronald Reagan agreed to debate John Anderson when Jimmy Carter actually refused," Stein told USA TODAY's weekly video newsmaker series. In 1980, Reagan insisted that Anderson, an independent candidate, be included in the debates. When President Carter refused, Reagan and Anderson held a debate of their own. (Near the end of the campaign, Carter and Reagan also debated.) "It was the Republican who stood up for basic principles of democracy."

That said, she hasn't gotten a response from the Trump campaign or the Clinton campaign to her open letter urging them to "do the right thing" and allow her and Johnson to join the debate.

"A majority of voters are saying they really want other voices and other choices," Stein says, noting that the Libertarian Party and the Green Party are on almost every state ballot. "Americans not only have a right to vote. We have a right to know who we can vote for."

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Given voters' dismay over their choice between the major-party nominees —Clinton and Trump each has a negative rating higher than any of their predecessors — common sense says this should be a banner year for third-party contenders such as Stein, a retired physician, and Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico. They are doing better than they did as third-party nominees in 2012, when Johnson finished at 1%, Stein at less than one-half of 1%.

But their current standing of 10% for Johnson and 4% for Stein in a nationwide Pew Research Center Poll released Thursday is well short of the 15% threshold set by the Commission on Presidential Debates for participation in those events, not to mention the support needed to actually garner electoral votes in November.

Don't count her out, Stein insists. "We don't have to split the vote; we could potentially flip the vote" by winning the support of all of the 43 million Americans who owe student loans. She would forgive the loans, part of what she calls the "true, progressive, radical policies of change" the country needs to protect the environment, expand health and education benefits, and curtail corporate power.

She rejects the idea that Clinton would be preferable to Trump as president, if they are the realistic options. "I will feel terrible if Donald gets elected, and I'll also feel terrible if Hillary is elected," she says. She denies having any concern that she would peel away liberal votes and in the process boost the billionaire businessman, even though Clinton's policies are more in line with her views.

Indeed, in June, she posted on Twitter the results of an online survey she took called "ISideWith," which matches a voter's policy views with a presidential candidate. Voter Jill Stein agreed with candidate Jill Stein 100% — no surprise there — and with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 99%. But she also agreed with Clinton by 91%, compared with just 41% agreement with Trump.

That would matter "if you thought that what Hillary says is what Hillary will do, but actually Hillary has a track record," she says, criticizing the former secretary of State for past positions she has taken on trade deals and Wall Street regulation. Stein blasted Clinton's choice of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as running mate — "a Wall Street kind of centrist," she scoffs — and former Colorado senator Ken Salazar as head of her transition team. She accuses Salazar, who served as Interior secretary during President Obama's first term, of being "in the pocket of the fossil-fuel industry."

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Stein, 66 and fierce, is convinced she's gaining political traction. "There are a lot of unhappy campers out there," she says, arguing that Clinton is moving to the political center in a way that will cost her votes on the left.

"Hillary was forced to take progressive positions because she was being challenged by Bernie Sanders, but once Bernie was out of the way, the door was really kind of closed on that chapter," Stein says, criticizing Clinton's attempt to appeal to Republicans disenchanted with Trump. "Hillary Clinton will be more of this Wall Street, neo-liberal policies that have thrown working Americans under the bus, off-shored our jobs, given away the store to Wall Street, locked a generation of young people into debt. It's not going to solve the crisis of Donald Trump."