Roseanne Barr’s “anti-winning campaign” for the presidency
Green Party presidential candidate Roseanne Barr signs copies of her book “Roseannearchy.” Barr’s California headquarters are in her former hometown of El Segundo. Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images Entertainment
Roseanne Barr is running for President of the United States. Seriously.
The former El Segundo resident and TV star is vying for the Green Party nomination. If you are one of those people whose first reaction is that she is pulling some sort of publicity stunt, she has something to say.
“People who say I’m running for publicity, I guess they just have to say that because they are ignorant,” Barr told the Easy Reader. “If people can’t really read for themselves the issues I bring up that no other candidate is bringing up, then I kind of think they are sort of unreachable and stupid and so I don’t really want their support anyway.”
Barr calls this perspective her “anti-winning campaign.”
“I just want the American people to know what they are voting for. And how it all works to rob them blind,” Barr said.
Barr announced she was running for president last August on The Tonight Show, and not as a Republican or Democrat because “they both suck and they’re both a bunch of criminals.”
Barr faces off in the California Primary June 6 against two other opponents seeking the Green Party nomination. Barr has yet to win a primary. One of her opponents, Jill Stein, a physician and environmental health expert, has won all 18 primaries so far. Barr is hoping California turns out differently, but she clearly faces an uphill battle to win the nomination. The Green Party’s national convention is in Baltimore July 12-15.
In a debate last Saturday in San Francisco, Barr said bailing out the major banks in 2009 was “about the biggest heist in the history of the world and nothing has been done.” Instead of pretending it wasn’t thievery, Barr said, “We ought to take a nice look at the transfer of wealth upward and what that meant and how they did that and we should prosecute every single one of them and retrieve our money.
“We have laws that would allow that, but yet who knows what they say to the president… You can have all the ethics in the world, but once you get in there who knows what happens – who knows what kind of warnings they give you to get in line to serve Wall Street.”
Barr wants to end the U.S. system of war and wage “slavery” with a small and efficient government dedicated to protecting the environment and greening communities that would create 25 million green jobs. She calls feeding the needy a “common cause” society should undertake, proposes forgiving student loans, instituting a single-payer healthcare system, legalizing marijuana and nationalizing wealth of $100 million or more. She supports the Occupy Movement and “everything it signifies.”
She, like other Green candidates, opposes the Keystone pipeline plan and supports a ban on hydraulic fracturing for oil, or fracking.
During Saturday’s debate, Barr appealed to disaffected Democrats, calling for them to switch parties even if they plan to vote for President Obama. Barr said that if those voters left the Democratic Party and registered as Greens, it would send an unmistakable message of disapproval.
Barr often applauded Stein during Saturday’s very friendly debate, and Stein followed up Barr’s remark about switching parties by adding that a lot of Green Party supporters are intimidated to acknowledge their real party identification.
Although the Green Party has consistently put national candidates on the ballot, the highest ranking party member in elected office in the U.S. is Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.
In 2000, Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader received 2.9 million votes, and was accused by many Democrats of siphoning votes away from Al Gore.
This is the first political office Barr has ever run for, she said. She credits her family and modest upbringing for her political passion. Barr now lives on a $1.7 million, 46-acre macadamia nut farm in Hawaii. She has only raised $31,500 for her campaign through March 31, including a $25,000 loan to herself, according to federal campaign finance reports. Eric Weinrib of Brooklyn, N.Y., who listed his occupation as unemployed, is the only person to make a donation of more than $200 to her campaign with a $2,500 cash gift.
Barr remains very active on Twitter.
Barr called for a “new kind of stock market, not one based on war and death,” adding, “Everything disgusting and filthy originates right there on Wall Street.”
As for the political and economic elite, Barr said, “Eff ‘em. This system of patriarchy has got to go.”
Barr said the current political system is fixed and America needs to start over. She also sees a looming police state. “What is really going on in this country is they are totally locking everything down,” she said.
Although some might view her stance as anti-establishment, Barr believes her candidacy is an appealing middle road between the major parties. She said her stances are aligned with folks in her former hometown of El Segundo and elsewhere in middle America.
“I think they (El Segundo residents) are kind of anti-establishment themselves,” Barr told the Easy Reader. “And I think that if we start speaking to each other about solutions, rather than dividing, the faster we will stop people from picking our pockets.”
Third party politics is increasingly going to become more important in America, Barr said. She desires a “sane third party that is not a radical left or right party and has a growing voice in the electoral process.”
Barr, though no longer a homeowner in El Segundo, still owns property in the city, including Full Moon and High Tide Studios on Main Street, an editing and film studio overseen by her son Jake. That business also serves as her California campaign headquarters.
“I like El Segundo. I have friends and family there,” Barr said. “It’s a great place to live, a wonderful community of really good people and they’re very intelligent, for the most part. A lot of small business owners are there. To small business owners, I have a lot of support and a lot of things to say and I’d be proud to represent them.”
Barr knows she’s a long shot to win the White House, or even the Green Party nomination. Asked if she really thinks she can pull off an upset, she said, “I think anything is possible. Can an intelligent woman win in a really stupid, rigged system? We’ll find out.”