Roseanne Barr, spurned by Greens, running for president as 'socialist'

Roseanne Barr — comedian, macadamia nut farmer, and golden-throated chanteuse of the “Star Spangled Banner” — is doing what several other Mormons are doing this election season, running for president.

At first blush, the prospect of her candidacy sounds like a bad joke. 

Stop laughing. She’s dead serious. 

Until last month, Barr had pinned her hopes on becoming the Green Party candidate and went so far as to try to recruit Willie Nelson as her running mate. 

But that was not to be. Barr, 59, placed a distant second at the Green convention to Harvard-educated physician Jill Stein. 

For a brief moment, speculation had Barr running as Stein’s Veep. Stein, looking for someone a little more mainstream, chose Philadelphia activist Cheri Honkala.

Spurned by the Greens, Barr shopped around and found the Peace and Freedom Party. They nominated her last week along with antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan (In previous years the Peace and Freedom Party’s presidential nominees have been Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, comedian Dick Gregory, Benjamin “Dr.” Spock, jailed Native American activist Leonard Peltier, and Ralph Nader).

The P&F Party describes itself as California's Feminist Socialist Political Party and “opposes capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism and elitism.”

Answering a Green Party questionnaire earlier this year, Barr says the issues closest to her heart were obliterating the two party system (she calls them the “two-headed beast”); ending corporate personhood; preventing the exportation of jobs to “countries with immoral, inadequate and nonexistent labor laws;” shutting down all U.S. military bases worldwide, and legalizing marijuana. 

On her Peace and Freedom platform she also says she will recognize Palestine, forgive all student loans, and allow third-parties the right to ballot access in all 50 states. 

What’s wrong with the two party system? 

“They blame each other for the fact that neither one of them has any real solutions,” she said on CNN. “They know they don’t have to because they got it all sewn up.”

Barr is one of several third-party candidates running for president this year. 

Along with Stein of the Green Party, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is representing the Libertarians, former Va. Congressman Virgil Goode is at the top of the conservative Constitution Party ballot, and former radio talk show host Stewart Alexander is heading the ticket for the Socialist Party USA. 

It’s unclear, however, if Barr will appear on any ballot. Unlike the Greens and the Libertarians, the Peace and Freedom party has not qualified in any state and will receive no federal matching funds. 

[ITALIC]— Sam Wood