This just in: Jill Stein, the 2024 Green Party candidate for president of the United States, is a nut. But, as her proposed running mate possibilities show, she’s not completely dim. She is, apparently, looking for a running mate from the Dearbornistan caucus, and that has to be making Kamala Harris’s campaign a little nervous.
NBC News reports that Stein has been looking for a vice presidential candidate to take advantage of the frustrations from Muslim and Arab Americans over Democratic Party support for Israel in its brutal war on Gaza.
Since the start of the war in October, President Biden has given unequivocal support to Israel, costing the Democratic Party support from Muslim and Arab Americans, who not only are a key part of its base but also make up a large number of voters in Michigan, a battleground state. Calls for a cease-fire have not brought one about, and the war has stretched for 10 months and caused a massive humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Michigan is key here. Green may not be able to siphon off enough Muslim voters in the Great Lakes State to hand the Trump/Vance ticket a win – but then again, she just might.
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Stein has a few specific candidates in mind.
Stein has spoken with three prominent Arab Americans as potential candidates: Abed Ayoub, the executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American comedian and activist; and Abdullah Hammoud, the Democratic mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, who, at age 34, is constitutionally ineligible to be vice president.
This is just too rich.
Jill Stein has about as much chance of being elected president of the United States as she does of spontaneously sprouting wings and flying to Saturn. This is, candidly, a vanity candidacy, with some graft from loony-left campaign donors thrown in as spice. But vanity candidates can actually make a difference; even after 24 years, Ralph Nader would be well advised not to show his face in any gathering of Democrat voters in Florida.
The fun thing about all this is that the influence may go well beyond American Muslims. Younger voters tend to express much less support for Israel than older Americans; in fact among the 18-29 cohort, according to a recent Pew survey, less than half expressed support for Israel in the current conflict. Among Democrats in that age group, almost half – 47 percent – actually support the “Palestinians” at present. These are people that Jill Stein may be able to peel away from the Democrats.
Those aren’t good numbers for the Harris/Walz campaign, no matter how fiercely Tim Walz slurped up spaghetti and drank wine in Vincenza in support of the cause.
Kamala Harris could fend off some of this, were she to campaign openly and take questions about the Israel-Hamas conflict, and if she wants to court that vote, express some unequivocal support. She won’t do this, of course. For one thing, Harris has no capacity for any of this; any attempt to put her on the spot and have her answer direct questions would be a disaster. For another, she has never taken any consistent stand on anything, ever, except for eroding the liberties of ordinary Americans.
Watch who Jill Stein picks. It is likely to be one of these three. Then watch Michigan. The game’s afoot, and things are getting even more interesting.
