Roseanne Barr (Photo: Getty)

In late January, the comedienne and former sitcom star Roseanne Barr declared her intention to run for president on the Green Party line. Ms. Barr's Green Party bid ultimately proved unsuccessful after Massachusetts doctor Jill Stein secured the party's nomination at its convention in July. Now, Ms. Barr is continuing her quest for the White House as a candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan as her running mate. However, Ms. Barr may not have tied up all the loose ends associated with her first campaign.

Anita Stewart, who said she served as Press Secretary Ms. Barr's Green Party bid, told Politicker she is owed $4,300 for her work on the campaign. Ms. Stewart claimed she has spent nearly the past three months fighting to get the money Ms. Barr agreed to pay her and said the delay in payment has caused her immense hardships. She said the situation is especially egregious given the fact Ms. Barr has made millions through her comedy and TV career and ranked as the second-highest-paid woman in showbiz (behind only Oprah Winfrey) during the final two years of her eponymous sitcom in the late nineties.

"Right now, I'm living below poverty level wages," Ms. Stewart said adding that she has been unable to take care of medical expenses and has had trouble maintaining her car, which she needs to travel to and from work in the small town where she lives about fifty miles outside of Tampa, Florida.

Ms. Stewart described herself as a longtime activist who worked on Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign and serves as an elected official on the Hillsborough County Soil and Water Conservation Board. She said she started working on Ms. Barr's presidential campaign in the last week of March and was introduced to Ms. Barr by former congresswoman and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, who was also working on the campaign and knew Ms. Stewart from their work with the Greens.

On April 5, Ms. Stewart said she sent Joan Christian, the campaign's treasurer, a job description that outlined her duties and stipulated her pay at $2,000 per month to be paid bi-weekly, if possible. Ms. Stewart gave a copy of this email to us. It said she would be responsible for "campaign website consulting," social media, "press and media requests," fundraising and "media research," among other tasks, and that she would work for approximately eight to twelve hours each day on behalf of the campaign. According to Ms. Stewart, the campaign "verbally agreed" to this arrangement.

"They verbally agreed that they were going to pay me," said Ms. Stewart. "That was the understanding, and because of the verbal agreement, and what I had emailed them and the fact that they had that in their possession, I had no questions about--I had no doubt that I was going to get paid, so I started to do the work."

According to financial disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Ms. Stewart was paid $1,000 on April 1 for "social media" and another $700 June 1 for "press release. At the end of June, Ms. Stewart said she stopped working because she had not been paid the remaining $4,300 for the three months of work.

Ms. Stewart provided us with an invoice she sent to the campaign on July 5. She said she re-sent the invoice one week later after not receiving a response to her first message. Ms. Stewart forwarded us another email she said she received from Ms. Barr after sending the invoice a second time. In that email, Ms. Barr offered to pay Ms. Stewart $1,500 and claimed it was her understanding Ms. Stewart had agreed to raise the funds for her own salary.

"cynthia said u got 1700 for the first month and u were told that u would need to raise the rest yourself, which did not happen-I am willing to pay you 1500 more-since its not my fault that no money was raised-thanks," Ms. Barr wrote.

Ms. Stewart told us she never agreed to raise the money needed for her pay. She also claimed Ms. Barr promised to put $50,000 of her own money into the campaign and only contributed half of that amount. According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, Ms. Barr gave her campaign a $25,000 loan and raised just under $9,000. Ms. Stewart provided us with an email outlining her grievances entitled "Final Thoughts on the Campaign" that she said she sent to Ms. McKinney, Ms. Christian and other campaign staffers on July 17, three days after Ms. Barr lost the Green Party nomination.

"I was not a volunteer receiving a stipend and that was never the agreement. Roseanne was supposed to have $50,000 in her campaign account but only put in half of that. Now I am being blamed by Roseanne for funds not being raised during the campaign. How is that?" Ms. Stewart wrote. "I was Campaign Media and Press/Press Secretary, not a full time fundraiser. I agreed to assist with fundraising on the social networks but I never agreed to be the sole person doing that job."

Nine days later, Ms. Stewart said she wrote another message to Ms. Barr and other campaign staffers in which she noted she had not received any response to her messages about payment and alluded to the possibility she might "seek legal counsel." Ms. Stewart gave us a pair of responses she said she received from Ms. Barr in which the comedienne-slash-candidate accused her of extortion.

"I was going to pay u but your threats have ended it. My lawyers will contact yours. Let us know who is representing you. As you agreed and failed to raise your own money, good luck!" Ms. Barr wrote. "I am also going to pursue a defamation suit against you and alert the police that you are attempting to extort money from me, despite an agreement to raise your own funding which you failed to do."

Ms. Stewart provided us with an email that she said she received from Ms. Barr's attorney, Sandy Fox, the following day. In that message, Mr. Fox included a Settlement Agreement and Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure Agreement.

"Please review the agreement and, if acceptable to you, please arrange to sign it. We will then arrange for our client to pay you the monies you claim are due, i.e., $4,300," he wrote.

Ms. Stewart said she asked for the agreement to be modified as it protected Ms. Barr from being sued by her, but didn't give her similar protection from Ms. Barr. She said Mr. Fox sent her a revised agreement a little over a month later, but she decided not to sign it because she objected to the $4,300 payment being termed a "settlement."

"They're calling it a settlement, these are my wages. I worked for these wages," said Ms. Stewart.

Ms. Stewart said she hasn't heard from Mr. Fox since he sent the second non-disclosure agreement and still hasn't received the money she is owed. She described the situation as especially troublesome since, throughout her career and especially during her White House run, Ms. Barr has characterized herself as a defender of the working poor. Based on her experience, Ms. Stewart believes Ms. Barr may be more interested in making a movie she is working on about her campaign experiences than in genuinely championing the causes she claims to be advocating for.

"I think Roseanne has forgotten where she comes from and I think we need to look at what this woman is worth and how she's playing the system," Ms. Stewart said. "She's taking campaign funds and contributions, but is she really running a real campaign, or is her bottom line and her agenda really all about this movie she's making? If that's the case, then she's really duped the people that are standing up for her, and voting for her and supporting her."

Ms. Stewart said she waited this long to come forward because she "wanted to protect" Ms. Barr. She said she decided to share her story now because her situation has still not been resolved and she is concerned a similar thing may happen to people who work with Ms. Barr's new Peace and Freedom Party campaign.

We reached out to Ms. Barr and her publicist, James Moore, for a response on this story. Mr. Moore responded with an email suggesting we get in touch with Ms. McKinney, Ms. Christian and Mr. Fox. We sent them all emails as well, however, as of this writing, we have yet to receive any responses.

Jill Stein. (Photo: Twitter)

This week, CNN/ORC released a new poll showing 2 percent of voters would vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein over President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Yesterday, Ms. Stein's campaign sent out a press release touting this "remarkable" result.

"People are starting to realize that they have a choice in the upcoming election, and that choice includes a presidential candidate who is not a pawn of Wall Street," Ms. Stein said. "Voters want a Green New Deal for America, and Cheri Honkala and I are offering that."

The poll showed 2 percent of registered voters and just 1 percent of likely voters would vote for Ms. Stein if all four candidates were on the ballot. Ms. Stein ranked last in the poll behind all of the other candidates, including Mr. Johnson, who polled at 4 percent among registered voters and 3 percent with likely voters.

Ms. Stein is a doctor who previously ran as the Green Party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2010 and in 2002 against Mr. Romney. Her running mate, Cheri Honkala, is the national coordinator for the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. Ms. Stein's press release boasted that she and Ms. Honkala expect "to be on the ballot in 40 states come November, with 85% of Americans seeing their names on the ballot."

In 2010, Ms. Stein got 1.43 percent of the vote in the Massachusetts governor's race. Four years earlier, she was picked by 3.49 percent of Bay State voters.  The Green Party's last presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney received 0.12 percent of the vote in the 2008 election.

Read Ms. Stein's full press release below.

"CNN Poll Shows Green Party's Jill Stein Climbing into the Race

Stein at remarkable 2% versus Obama, Romney, Johnson

In a new CNN/ORC poll released Monday afternoon, a remarkable 2% of registered voters said they would vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein over Barack Obama, Mitt Romney or Libertarian Gary Johnson for president of the United States. Based on the number of total voters in 2008, 2% of voters in the upcoming election could equal approximately 2.4 million people. The Jill Stein / Cheri Honkala ticket expects to be on the ballot in 40 states come November, with 85% of Americans seeing their names on the ballot.

Earlier this month the Stein campaign bought over $150,000 worth of airtime on cable TV nationally and in select markets across the country to run this controversial ad. In the ad Stein calls for a revolution and says that what we don't need is: "pandering irresponsible bullshit that passes itself off as campaigning. I can't believe I just said that, but that's how I feel," she says.

Stein, a medical doctor who once ran against Mitt Romney for Governor of Massachusetts, is proposing a Green New Deal for America that will create 25 million jobs, end unemployment, and transition our country to a green economy. Her proposals will also guarantee public higher education and Medicare for all, break up the big banks, and end corporate domination of elections.

Running mate Cheri Honkala is the National Coordinator for the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, one of the country's largest multi-racial, inter-generational movements led by the poor and homeless. Compelled by her own experience as a homeless, single mom, Honkala has spent nearly three decades working directly alongside the poor to build the movement to end poverty, and has organized tens of thousands of people to take action via marches, demonstrations and tent cities."

Illustration, by Drew Friedman

“I’m loving it,” said Roseanne Barr, recently announced presidential candidate. “I find that I can be more honest in politics than in Hollywood.”

Not that she’s ever been accused of demurring in either realm.

Seeking to run on the Green Party line, Ms. Barr’s presidential bid, she said, is primarily motivated by her dissatisfaction with both major political parties—in particular their candidates, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, whom she referred to as “total buffoons.”

“That’s what I say: I’m the only serious comedian in this race,” Ms. Barr added.

In a career spanning more than 40 years, including rollicking standup performances, a watershed sitcom and a memorable performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Ms. Barr has been at turns provocative, endearing, innovative and combative. As of February, she has turned her considerable personality toward the interests of the American electorate. In a pair of lengthy interviews with The Observer, she outlined not only her political aspirations, but the possibility of returning to television—and not necessarily in the way you would expect.

“I feel sorry for the American people who’ve been hoodwinked by both of these parties of nothing but criminals that sit in Congress there enriching themselves,” she began.

As it happens, legalization of marijuana is the first issue in the political platform posted on Ms. Barr’s website. She said she has a prescription to use the drug for glaucoma in California and vowed to smoke a joint at a public press conference if she is victorious in the Golden State’s Green Party primary this week.

“I don’t really smoke it, but I have a salve of it, you know, and if you rub it into your wrists, you don’t get high,” Ms. Barr said. “You’re not getting high but you feel release. I have salve and I have cookies.”

Other issues on Ms. Barr’s platform include ending the Federal Reserve, stopping “debt slavery” by “forgiving all school loans,” withdrawing military support for Israel and making war “obsolete.”

“Wars make the stock market go up and are fueled by profits. Where one puts their money is where one puts their energy,” Ms. Barr explains on her site. “The Military Industrial Complex is our shadow government.”

She also is concerned about preserving the environment, particularly water resources.

“Those that lead us have allowed the corporations to cross over the web of life and they have destroyed the genetic code,” she wrote. “They have befouled our food and water supply.”

She describes her economic policy—if that’s the right word—as a synthesis of free enterprise and the social safety net.

“We can have a really great world. We can have a world that was at peace and was prosperous and efficient and just ... I just think, wow. I think we’re really in that cosmic space where we can actually command our group will to make something change very quickly. I think we’re just so on the verge of that,” Ms. Barr said. “I just like to encourage people to jump off, man. Jump off and start thinking clearly.”

Cookies, indeed.

Another point Ms. Barr emphasized is that being a woman makes her a more insightful leader.

“This is a post-patriarchal age, and that’s what I represent; it’s a return to actual values of the Earth like growing food that we can eat. Not tomatoes made of fish skin,” Ms. Barr said. “We know how to get things done and we know how to get them done cheaply and efficiently.”

The problem with that notion, however, is that Ms. Barr’s main opponent, and the favorite for the Green Party nomination, is also a woman, Dr. Jill Stein, an academic and environmental activist who has been representing the Green Party in political campaigns at the local level since 2002, when she ran (against Romney) for governor of Massachusetts. Though Ms. Barr says she agrees on many things with Dr. Stein, she believes she is the better candidate—and took a shot at her opponent from the left, or at least from left field.

“I think I have far more to say than she does,” Ms. Barr said of Dr. Stein. “Some of the things that I say, they’re not out of a book and they’re not out of the party bible.”

For her part, Dr. Stein, declined to comment.

“They’re resisting me and the message that I’m bringing in a big way,” Mr. Barr doubled down. “To ask working people to show up and then go get their ballot notarized is nothing but voter suppression. That’s making me very angry, and I really beseech the Greens to be who they say they are and get their act together.”

Based on the most recent numbers provided by the Green Party, Dr. Stein is currently leading the race for the nomination with 143 party delegates compared to Ms. Barr’s 40. There are two other candidates, Kent Mesplay, who has 7.5 delegates, and Harvey Mikkelson, who has won just 1.5 delegates.

“I don’t know what the outcome will be. I know it’s a possibility that I could receive 99 percent of the vote. I also know that it’s a probability that I will not,” Ms. Barr admitted. “I’m just trying to encourage people to look at the whole picture, the whole big picture, and I want to bring up subject matter that isn’t covered in other presidential platforms.”

Should she not make it to the White House, she is more than willing to return to her day job—or at least to her job playing someone with a day job. During the final two years of her career as a the star of her eponymous show, Roseanne, Ms. Barr ranked as the second-highest-paid woman in showbiz (behind only Oprah Winfrey). The sitcom ran on ABC from 1988 until 1997 and, for its first seven seasons, held a spot in the top 10 on the Nielsen ratings charts. That’s a bankability the networks don’t soon forget

And though she’s done a couple of short-lived reality shows, including one entitled Roseanne’s Nuts, she may soon be reprising the form that made her career. Her latest effort is another sitcom, a pilot called Downwardly Mobile, in which she portrays the owner of a trailer park whose denizens include a “young Hispanic boy” adopted by the residents after his mother was deported and “a Wall Street couple that lost all their money.”

“It was about cooperation rather than competition, the key values that I hold dear and America needs,” Ms. Barr said emphatically. “I just wanted the American people to once again see themselves as heroic on television.”

Downwardly Mobile, which Ms. Barr wrote and executive produced, would reunite her with John Goodman, her husband on Roseanne. She says she “patterned each character” after the family she and Mr. Goodman headed on her successful sitcom. NBC picked up the pilot for Downwardly Mobile last fall, but according to Ms. Barr, the show was initially shelved because of her outspoken political views.

To hear her tell it, Downwardly Mobile tested well in California, but days before it was scheduled to be shown to audiences in New York, the conservative entertainment website Big Hollywood published an article based on leaked reports the show was testing poorly due to Ms. Barr being a “leftist.” Ms. Barr complained to NBC about the reported leak.

“I got really mad and I said, ‘Why would you release that information?’ And I was told, ‘We didn’t, that’s just a fake website,” she said. “Well, it turned out to be completely true.”

Once the show tested with audiences in New York, Ms. Barr says she was told it wouldn’t be picked up because network executives deemed it too “polarizing.”

“How they figure what is polarizing is blows my mind. It really has blown my mind,” she said. “I guess it went back to the sponsors on the East Coast and some of them are—they don’t like me no matter what I do and they don’t like the things I say, so it’s kind of like blacklisting or something. But the fact is that I still think it’s weird to blacklist, or whatever you want to call it, in Hollywood, someone who has a huge—whose show had a huge audience and still does after 20-something years.”

Downwardly Mobile may have foundered at first, but the pilot is apparently still alive, despite Ms. Barr’s fears of being blacklisted. During our first conversation with Ms. Barr, she said the show had been killed. When we spoke a few hours later, she told us NBC was giving it another chance as a potential midseason replacement.

“The Downwardly Mobile thing, I just kind of heard that it’s not completely dead,” said Ms. Barr. “Since I talked to you I got a phone call and I might be getting a chance to retool it, which I hope and pray I would get.”

But in her own estimation, even her television career has been a political effort, in many ways.

“I really hate to toot my own horn, but since I’m a woman I feel I have to,” she told The Observer. “I not only pushed the boundaries, I introduced the subject of gay characters on television,” said Ms. Barr, whose brother and sister are both gay. “That was at great peril to my own career and against all of my advisors. I brought the whole issue of gay to television.”

And just as her television career was politicized, she plans to bring her political career to the screen.

“I am making a movie of my campaign. I’m making a documentary of it for many reasons, and it is funny,” she said. “I am using the crew and the team of my friend Michael Moore, and I am documenting running for president and how hard it is.”

There’s another area of the political realm Ms. Barr says she could potentially get involved with—cable news punditry. Despite her obviously liberal leanings, Ms. Barr says she’d be interested in doing a show with Fox News.

“They’ve always been so fair and nice to me at Fox,” she elaborated. “I just don’t like Fox when it doesn’t get the complete fair and balance, but I do think they do try to, even though some of the people like Sean Hannity and stuff, the things they attack are just ridiculous. But yet, they have the right to do that. You can’t discount that people have the right to freedom of speech. I told Fox I’d sure like to have a show on there, because the people who watch Fox News are people like me also. So, it would be good to be really fair and balanced and have a nice left point of view on there.”

Ms. Barr told us she has been in talks with the network and, at one point, Fox News was ready to give her a show.

“They do talk to me about it … We’ve had beers and laughed about it and stuff. Offers have been made and I just didn’t get on with it because I was trying to just do that sitcom,” Ms. Barr said. “It could happen. Stranger things have happened. It could happen definitely.”

hwalker@observer.com

(Photo: Evergreen Chou for Congress)

Good government groups and Asian-American advocacy organizations are going to be hosting a candidate forum in a week and a half for New York's 6th Congressional District, and one name on the flier stands out a little: Green Party candidate Evergreen Chou.

While his candidacy itself has already been well-established, Mr. Chou stands out in some other ways. For example, the lead line on the profile on his campaign website states, "Evergreen is an OX for the People, a phrase that symbolized a honest politician." Another unique part reads, "Evergreen and his wife DayStar, have been married for 23 years."

Mr. Chou is a little bit of a perennial candidate, having run on the Green Party line for local offices in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. This year, however, the Green Party is slightly less marginalized than usual. This is because in the 2010 election, the party's gubernatorial candidate secured 50,000 votes, granting their party an automatic party like much like the Working Families Party or the Conservative Party.

The congressional district Mr. Chou is seeking to represent is fairly Democratic leaning, but if the Republican candidate, Councilman Dan Halloran, pulls out a victory, he might be helped by having extra candidates in the race to siphon off votes from whoever the Democratic nominee ultimately is.

Green Party logo (Photo: Twitter)

With the Green Party clearing the threshold of 50,000 votes in the 2010 gubernatorial election, they secured automatic ballot access through 2014, and judging from who's filed petitions to be on the ballot in congressional races this year in New York City and the rest of the state, it seems they're intending to take full advantage of the situation.

And, unlike the Conservative, Independence, and Working Families parties, which almost always endorse Democratic or Republican candidates, the Green Party is running their own slate of candidates, potentially impacting close races by siphoning liberal votes away from the Democrats.

In New York City, Democrats are hoping to defeat incumbent Republican Rep. Michael Grimm while Republicans are hoping to win a rather Democratic open seat in Queens, both races featuring Green Party candidates (Henry Bardel, Evergreen Chou). Meanwhile, Upstate, Greens have filed in the swing districts belonging to Congress Members Ann Marie Buerkle and Bill Owens (Ursula Rozum, Donald Hassig).

And if Republicans can build their case against Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, having Colia Clark on the ballot under the Green Party banner, as she was in 2010 when she collected 0.9% of the vote, will only help.

It's not clear if Green Party candidates filed in Reps. Tim Bishop, Carolyn McCarthy, and Louis Slaughter's districts, but all of those races could be potentially competitive as well.

(h/t Daily Kos Elections for the filing ledgers).

Ralph Nader (Getty)

Former Green Party candidate Ralph Nader wants Mike Bloomberg to jump into this year's Presidential race, because he believes New York City's billionaire Mayor is the ideal person to take on "the establishment" and "the corporate state."

Mr. Nader made his comments about the Mayor in a new video posted on Politico today. His call to draft Mayor Bloomberg isn't so much an endorsement as it is a desire to see a third party candidate emerge in this year's race.

"The two parties tend to get stuck in their ways and indentured to the same commercial interests. ... I think every election should have third party, fourth party, independent candidates. ... Because, first of all, both parties are not talking about corporate crime and what it does to consumers," Mr. Nader said.

So why does Mr. Nader think Mayor Bloomberg is the right person to take on the corporate establishment? Well, basically because Mayor Bloomberg runs a major media corporation and has lots of money:

"In area after area, you know, whether it's consumer fairness, single payer health insurance, full medicare for all, for example, cracking down on corporate crime, a really new kind of tax system, the two parties are too hooked into the establishment, the corporate state that they can't change. And so, if you ever put that agenda out in front of people it would be spectacular, especially if the candidate had enough money to reach those people. ... Let's say a Bloomberg runs, it would be a three way race in every sense of the term, because he could write a check for $500 million."

Mayor Bloomberg isn't the only person Mr. Nader wants in the race. He rattled off a list of other potential candidates he'd like to see run for President:

"I'd almost like to see anybody run, just to give the voters more choices. I'd like to see Bloomberg run, I'd like to see Jim Hightower run. I'd like to see Bill McKibben run, I'd like to see the champion of single payer, Dr. Quentin Young, run ... I'd like to see Ron Paul, or someone who is a libertarian Tea Party type run, because the Tea Party in a way reflected the conservative wing of the Republican Party that have been disrespected by the corporate wing."

Perhaps someone should tell Mr. Nader that Ron Paul is indeed already running for President as a Republican.

Though he's eager to see a third party candidate run for President, there is one person Mr. Nader definitely doesn't want on the campaign trail--Ralph Nader.

"I've done my alternative offerings in 2000, 2004 and 2008. ... It's time for someone else to step up," Mr. Nader said.

Watch the full video of Mr. Nader's interview below: