On March 29, 1980, I joined the thousands of Pittsburghers who jammed into Market Square to hear Ted Kennedy challenge Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party's nomination for President. It was a gutsy move to try to derail the candidacy of a sitting President, but Carter's four anemic years in the White House required a Progressive response and, at the time, Ted Kennedy seemed to be the most likely figure in American politics capable of pulling it off. I still recall the thrill of seeing and hearing Kennedy--the charisma was in full force that day as Ted challenged Carter to stop wrapping himself in the flag, exit the Rose Garden, and explain to the American people why he deserved a second chance.
The electricity of that moment was only surpassed later that Summer when Kennedy gave his "the dream shall never die" concession speech at the Democratic National convention.
Since then, few candidates running for the highest office in the land have inspired much more from me than cautious optimism. Most have invited ridicule. The rare exceptions have been the Barack Obama who ran for office in 2008 and the Bernie Sanders who ran for office in 2016. Yet both, in their own way, have proved to be disappointments.
This afternoon, in Colorado Springs, I saw Jill Stein speak before a SRO audience in the sanctuary of All Souls Unitarian Universalist church. What Stein lacks in Kennedyesque charisma she more than makes up for with her sharp intellect, her fine sense of moral outrage, her wit, and her earnestness.
When Bernie Sanders chose to abandon his campaign and endorse Hillary Clinton for President, he went from being the most interesting American politician on the national scene to being "Bernie Who?"
Forget him. For whatever reason, he lost his nerve and got off the bus.
Clinton and Trump are two disasters in the making. No one deserves the genuine Progressive's vote more than Jill Stein.
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