Putting People First: A Day with Dr. Jill Stein
by James Jordan
Just before we entered Bisbee, Arizona, Dr. Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination, was on the phone scheduling an interview. She was excited because it would be with a Tucson television station. She told us these local market exposures were so important because they are best able to get her message out to new ears beyond her more typical audience. The interview was set for 3 p.m., which should be easy to make just so long as we stuck with the itinerary we had planned for the day.
We were on our way across the border to Cananea, Sonora, a three-hour drive from our starting point of Tucson. We were going to meet with striking miners at the Buena Vista Copper Mine, and with families negatively affected by a huge chemical spill from the mine. After the interview was done, I would drive Jill to Phoenix for a 6:30 p.m. dinner. It was a tight itinerary, but not too tight, and we should be able to fit everything in.
Jill was in Arizona for a series of events in preparation for the state’s primary elections. The race is contested, and she was there to win votes. (Jill is running against Kent Mesplay, who her field director Adrián Boutureira described as a good man and a brother in the struggle. It’s kind of refreshing to hear that kind of talk given the polarities so prominent elsewhere in this campaign season!)