After four months on the road, Dr. Jill Stein is positive.

"There is incredible need for deep change," Stein reports. "And this campaign is the only one to offer it."

A member of the lesser-known Green Party, Stein, 65, declared her intention to run for president (for the second time) at the end of June. She is a seasoned veteran of the electoral process, having run for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and for president of the United States in 2012. Despite her experience, however, most Americans have never heard of her.

As a third-party candidate, Stein commands less attention and smaller stages than her mainstream opponents. But the third woman to enter the presidential race is not content to watch from the sidelines. Determined to let voters know both what power they hold in this historic election and that, no, the Green Party is not "only about the environment," Stein was happy to make time to chat. For the record, she is very pleased to meet you.

Tell us about how you got involved in politics and with the Green Party, in particular.

I got involved as a mother and a medical doctor. I had been, for a while, very alarmed about the public health calamities that I was witnessing as a new doctor and a mother of young kids. There were these new epidemics of asthma and cancer and autism and diabetes and obesity. And I said to myself, 'Hey, our genes didn't change overnight.' You know, my generation didn't grow up with this.

I got to work with community groups to try to fix some of the drivers of these public health epidemics—everything from poverty to pollution and bad food and unemployment and homelessness and all that—and worked very hard to get our elected officials to fix them, because it's not rocket science to fix these problems. And I realized that reform was not going to come through the Democratic Party.

Around that time, I was recruited by the Greens, who said to me, "Just keep doing what you're doing, but call it an electoral campaign and make it a campaign for governor." I was sort of dragged into electoral politics, having found that nothing else was working—why not try that? I was 50 before I actually resorted to electoral politics, having learned the hard way that fighting as members of our communities, as parents, as healthcare providers would not move our government to do the right thing.

The bottom line is I'm now practicing political medicine. Instead of clinical medicine, I'm doing political medicine, because we've got to fix our sick political system in order to fix the things that are literally killing us. I realized that we had to confront the political system, because we've got solutions, but our elected officials are standing in the way. Not only are they not helping us, but they're actually driving the problem.

But how are Green Party candidates different from the kinds of politicians that you're talking about?

The Green Party is full of everyday people who are not wheelers and dealers, who are not power players and big egos, which are the people who tend to occupy most elections and political offices. Greens tend to be people who realize we have to be in there playing this game in order to save our lives and our jobs and our planet and our children and our schools. The Green Party, in some ways, is the reluctant party. We're not politicians in the greasy, backroom way that has dominated politics. We're not here because we want to grab power. We're here because we want our families and our children and our parents to have the secure and sustainable lives that we deserve and that are really within our reach.

On a more personal level, what do you think makes you stand out from the many, many others who have also decided to run for president?

I am the one and only national candidate that is not powered by corporate money. [Other parties] can flood the field with as many corporate surrogates as they want, but that will still be true. The Green Party is the only national party that's not poisoned by corporate money. We have the unique ability to speak for everyday things that people are hungering for—jobs, ending student debt. We're the only campaign that says that the solution here is not to just extend your debt-payment schedule. The solution is to get rid of the debt. We did that for the bankers who caused the problem. Why in the world are we not doing it for the students who have been the unjust victim of this problem? Generational justice is a term that we've coined, really, to talk about the raw deal that young people are inheriting right now. As a mother, I know this is not okay. It's why I get out of bed every morning.

How significant is it that three women are running for president from three different parties?

It's a great sign. It's a sign of a transformation moment, and it's transformational because women are standing up like never before.

But I don't have great confidence in the other women candidates to stand up on a real agenda for women. They may talk the talk, but I haven't seen them walk the walk. When you're being funded by Monsanto and the big banks, and when you support the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and when you hire 100 public relations people to coach you in how to talk in a way that resonates with the new social consciousness, that doesn't do it. It's important not to get fooled by the talk. We really need to go for the walk. You need to look not only at gender or skin color. You really need to look at the track record of the candidates. All things considered, there are very few women who run and win, because big money tends not to like what women are about. The political system is very tilted against us, so it's important to look at women who have excelled in that system to see what they had to sacrifice in order to buy their way into power. You don't necessarily want people who have been succeeding in the old system when you realize that our lives depend on changing the system.

You've talked before about the Green New Deal—a throwback to the New Deal that President Roosevelt enacted during his presidency. What is the Green New Deal? Why do we need it?

The Green New Deal is an emergency solution to two big crises. One is the crisis of the economy, which is actually not getting better, and the other is the crisis of the climate. And it solves them together—not one ahead of the other. It recognizes that we don't have to choose between jobs and the environment; we can only solve these things together. I must say that it's a point of view that women inherently understand and give voice to. These things are integrated.

The Green New Deal calls for putting everyone to work now [in order to] green the economy. It calls for the right to a job at living wages, and it guarantees us an economy that runs on 100% wind, water, and sun by 2030. It means building an energy-efficient public transportation system that runs on clean, renewable energy. It means creating a food system, which is local, sustainable, organic that promotes wonderful and nourishing plant-based food. And of course, it means getting rid of pollution by greening energy.

And if you do the right things here, you save so much money that it more than pays off of transitioning to the green economy. It's very clear that there are enormous health savings to be had here. Our healthcare budget, which is really a sick-care budget more than a healthcare budget, costs us $3 trillion a year. It's widely understood that 75% of our sick-care expenses would be prevented if people had a way to get exercise, were free from pollution and the enormous impact of polluted air, and had a food system that didn't make food too expensive for ordinary mortals to be able to afford.

What is the hardest part about running as a third-party candidate?

It's getting to the microphone, which is why this is so wonderful.

When I was first tricked into running for office…against Mitt Romney and the Democratic State Treasurer in Massachusetts, [the Green Party] agitated our way into a debate. They tried to lock us out, but we got in. In that debate, which was held in a TV studio—just the candidates and a moderator, I gave voice to all those things that everyday people want. I talked about a right to quality education and a human right to healthcare. I talked about cutting the military budget and putting that money into real security here at home and promoting living wages.

Those ideas went over like lead balloons inside the debate room. But when we emerged, I was mobbed by the press, and they said to me that I had won the debate on the instant online viewer poll, which turned my worldview absolutely on its head. I realized that people of conscience are not the lunatic fringe. We represent common American values. When people have a chance to hear these values and the practical solutions that we have the ability to put forward, people mobilize for that.

It's getting to the microphone that is the challenge. Once you're there, the rest is history.

What have you learned from your last presidential run and from previous campaigns for public office?

I guess what I've learned is that people are so far ahead of our elected officials, and people are so ready to go. We're considered the lunatic fringe inside of the debate hall—among the candidates and the moderator. Our ideas are considered not even worthy of rebuttal. But outside, they win the debate. The world actually could work, and there are enough of us out there that could make this happen. There are 40 million young people who are in debt right now. If those 40 million millennials decided to come out and vote to end student debt and make higher education free next November, they could do that. They have the power in their hands to do it, because 40-million [people] in a three-way race is enough to win the race. We really do have the power. We not only have the solutions, but we actually have the vision and the power to transform our lives and our future.

What we don't have, I think, is the confidence. Does this ring a bell for women? We haven't had the confidence to actually stand up for ourselves. We have the ability to do this, and we have nothing to lose but our chains. We should not be intimidated into political silence. We need courage. That will guide our way forward. Whether we win the office or just win the day by moving these ideas forward, it's a win-win for us to stand up and be heard loud and strong. We needn't be satisfied with solutions around the margins. We need an economy that works for people—not for profit.

Mattie Kahn Mattie Kahn is a writer who lives in New York.

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