Lexington's Stein Launches Green Party Presidential Bid

A Massachusetts woman is seeking the Green Party's nomination for president, vowing to challenge President Obama from the left on jobs, foreclosures and health care.

Jill Stein, a medical doctor and former candidate for governor from Lexington, said protests like the Occupy Wall Street movement reflect a deep dissatisfaction with Obama.

Stein is proposing what she's calling a Green New Deal to provide public jobs for the unemployed. She said the party hopes to be on the ballot in 45 states.

"The jobs that it creates will build a stable, renewable energy economy that provides real national security and makes wars for oil obsolete," she said Monday.

Most recently Stein finished a distant fourth in the 2010 governor's race as a candidate for the Green/Rainbow Party.

She's not the only candidate seeking the nomination. Kent Mesplay, a Green Party leader in California, has also announced his candidacy.

Neither is well-known nationally, but Democrats are leery of a replay of 2000, when many believe Green Party candidate Ralph Nader siphoned enough votes from Al Gore to help Republican George W. Bush win.

Stein says third-party candidates put unheard-of issues into the political mainstream.

"It is a victory for us to be in this campaign, whether we get 2 percent of the vote, or 22 percent of the vote, or 52 percent of the vote," she said.

With reporting by The Associated Press and the WBUR Newsroom