Why should people vote for you?

I am the only candidate who is pro-choice, pro-single-payer, pro-labor, and pro-Green. I am the only candidate who wants to stop U.S. support of Israel till there is a peace deal, and stop the U.S. wars in the middle east. We should support the troops by bringing them home, where we can use the saved tax dollars putting them to work building this country.

How do I work? The successful struggle to keep Wal-Mart out of Charlevoix is a typical example: (a) I do my homework, and (b) I involve myself with large masses of people.

Other examples are my work with the anti-war movement, the striking nurses in Petoskey, opponents of the Coast Guard's 2006 plan to conduct live fire exercises in the lakes and opponents of horizontal fracking.

In November 2005, responding to one of my guest commentaries in the Petoskey News-Review, incumbent Congressman Bart Stupak changed his stance on the Iraq war. Before, on his website he had favored continuing it until "order and secuirty are restored." Now he was saying support the troops by "fund[ing] the equipment to keep them safe and the benefits promised. I also feel that it is time for the president to articulate a plan for troop withdrawal over the coming year."

These examples to show the method by which successful government can function. When citizens work together for a common goal, anything is possible.

Why aren't you a Republican or a Democrat, like most people?

First, here in Charlevoix we don't have a functioning two-party system. The Democrats backed an independent candidate against me in 2005-06, but they did not put up anyone in their own name. They have not run county-wide candidates since I moved to Charlevoix in 2000.

Second, to be effective politically and in office, I believe it is not sufficient simply to act on one's beliefs and values. Even with integrity and honesty, one person by himself or herself can try to bring about significant changes in society, but change requires a group effort of like-minded people. That is what a political party is, or should be.

Third, even if Greens are not elected in large numbers along with me, we can still be effective. Bernie Sanders, the like-minded socialist senator from Vermont, was a respected House and Senate member for 20 years. While still the mayor of Burlington and running for governor, my band opened for him in 1986 at a talk he gave in Detroit.

Fourth, the Green Party program most closely mirrors my own ideas. The Republican and Democratic Party principles are less well-defined, and to the extent I grasp them I tend to disagree.

The racist opinions of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are well known.

So are the vacillations of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton on fracking and TPP. Clinton allies on the Party platform committee beat back efforts by allies of Bernie Sanders to have the Party oppose fracking and TPP, even though Clinton now says she opposes TPP. A top lobbyist for the pro-frack American Petroleum Instatute said of Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine, “He’s the best we could have hoped for.” She has picked fracking and TPP advocate Ken Salazar to lead her transition team into the White House.

Concerning also are her untruthful answers to questions about classified emails on her personal server, her promotion of furious and biased Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to the position of "surrogate for my campaign nationally," and her wish that the US had rigged Palestinian elections in 2006.

I had my own taste of big-business politics in Charlevoix in 2002. The Charlevoix Courier reported that Republicans opened a local headquarters in Charlevoix. Chuck Yob a member of the Republican National Committee for 18 years was on hand, helping candidates celebrate.

Well and good. But in giving reasons why voters should elect the Republican for secretary of state, the Courier reported Yob said "She is running against a man who is a black attorney from Detroit."

The story ran alongside a picture of local party candidates. If Yob didn't really say what he was quoted as saying, he could have written for a correction. He didn't.

I co-wrote a letter to editor protesting Yob's pitch, and the silence of the Republican candidates who stood around while he pitched it.

A political campaign should be an enlightening process, where candidates put forth their qualifications and positions. I do not agree with appeals like that one. They are one reason I have chosen the Green Party.

Why did the Green Party nominate you in a meeting instead of in an open primary election as the Republicans and Democrats did? Is that backroom politics?

The Green Party at present is small, and it is just not practical to work through a primary. Our nominating meeting was at a regular statewide convention in Lansing in July. When the Green Party grows, we will have primaries in Michigan, as it does today in California.

How can the Green Party ever hope to succeed in a two-party winner-take-all system?

What is needed is structural change, whereby a majority candidate can be selected. This can be done with instant runoff voting (IRV). Under IRV, in an election like this one where four candidates are on the ballot, voters would mark down their first, second, and third choices. If no candidate gets an absolute majority, results are recounted with the bottom-most choice discarded, and the votes which were alloted to it re-distributed according to the second choice indicated on each of those ballots. If there is still no majority, then third choices are used. The process is easy to implement with machine voting.