The Green Party candidate struggles to get media attention even as the media showers attention on Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.
Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein sounds a lot more like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and as the Sanders campaign winds down Stein’s hoping her revolutionary left-wing rhetoric and voter discontent with the political establishment will translate into unprecedented success for the Green Party in the general election. Dr. Stein is competing for voters that the Hillary campaign needs for a winning coalition and so it’s little surprise that she’s getting very little attention from the old-media. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, however, is getting lots of mainstream media attention, even making an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. He’s perceived of course as more of a threat to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Undeterred in the face of the media blackout, Dr. Stein is building a campaign messaging apparatus that bypasses the traditional gate-keepers by communicating directly with the public through social media. She’s even getting help from the hacktivist group Anonymous who, as part of #OpJillStein, released a video urging people to learn more about the Green Party presidential candidate.
Senator Sanders trounced Hillary with younger voters across the country, in part by playing on the political baggage the Clintons have accumulated over more than four decades in power. The good news for Stein is most of those younger voters don’t get their news from Meet the Press and don’t have the same painful memories of Ralph Nader. Dr. Stein has more than 120,000 followers on Twitter and more than 250,000 likes on her Facebook page and has seen significant growth in both her reach and engagement since Hillary was anointed the presumptive Democrat nominee on June 6, 2016.
By forcing Dr. Stein to build an independent messaging infrastructure, the old-media is inadvertently helping reinforce a narrative that Dr. Stein has made a central theme of her campaign.
Dustin Stockton is a political reporter for Breitbart News, a community liaison for Gun Owners of America, and a political strategist. Follow him on Twitter @DustinStockton or Facebook.