As the dust settled on the first televised debate for this year’s gubernatorial contest in Massachusetts, one clear truth emerged. There was one candidate, and only one, who could legitimately be called “the people’s candidate.”

While Scott Brown positioned himself as the people’s candidate in his January special election victory, a late surge of campaign cash and get-out-the-vote efforts from Wall Street executives and lobbyists and other special interests surely put his campaign over the top. Capitalizing on the Democratic Party machine’s condescending sense of entitlement to the late Senator Kennedy’s seat, Brown asserted that it was “the people’s seat”, and rode his truck right into the leadership vacuum that the Democratic Party has helped to create. But Brown’s slick posturing does not make for genuine leadership. And as economic and ecological meltdown continues, that leadership vacuum continues to grow.

Enter Jill Stein. Mother, medical doctor, public health advocate, climate activist, and community leader. As the Green-Rainbow candidate for governor, Stein is running the kind of campaign that is easily marginalized and sidetracked. In this two-party political system, voters and pundits alike don’t know what to make of third-party political upstarts like the Libertarian Party and the Green Party (the Green-Rainbow Party is the Massachusetts affiliate of the Green Party of the U.S.). Even in Massachusetts, where 50% of registered voters are registered unenrolled, i.e. independent, there is a tendency to write off third-party candidates as a wasted or spoiled vote.  

Originally posted at DemocracyDays.com, cross-posted at Blue Mass Group.

Nobody symbolizes the interests of organized money to corrupt the political process in Massachusetts, to generally subvert the will of the people, and in one notorious instance, to squash the Clean Elections Law, more clearly than disgraced former House Speaker Tom Finneran.

And nobody symbolizes the struggle for clean, corruption-free elections in Massachusetts more clearly than Jill Stein, the Green-Rainbow Party candidate for governor in 2002 and now in 2010.

Now, Finneran is daring you to tip the balance towards democracy.

When I blogged about the Suffolk Poll results, I was focused on the negative numbers. Yes, the 8% was astounding (representing a greater than 50% surge from one poll to the next). But the un-likability of the 3 suits blessed by the corporate media was what caught my attention. That's Jill's opening for sure.  

But the more I thought about it, the more I focused on Jill's likability as borne out in the numbers. To this point, my optimism for Stein's chances has been based on her demonstrated ability to speak up for everyday people in a clearheaded, passionate, and visionary manner. Her debate appearances in 2002 — well, the 2 they allowed her into — were powerfully persuasive. She'd make a point, you'd think "why didn't I ever think of that?!", and then you'd go and tell your friends. She was speaking truth to power, but not in some theoretical vacuum. There was real power in each word she used, the power to transform. But that's all subjective.  

Now in May 2010, a full 5 months+ before election day, I'm looking at this latest poll result.. and realizing what it really means…  BEFORE we even get to see her make a case for herself as the best candidate for We, The People.