Roseanne Barr speaks about her reality show "Roseanne's Nuts" during the Lifetime channel portion of the Press Tour for the Television Critics Association in Beverly Hills, California
Thursday night, this year’s longest reality series welcomed another guest star: Roseanne Barr.
The comedian and actress announced on Twitter that she was throwing her hat in the ring to be the Green Party’s nominee for President. (Again — she also declared her intentions before, including on The Tonight Show last August). “I am running for Green Party nominee for POTUS. I am an official candidate. I am4 the Greening of America&the world,” she tweeted.
Then she delivered a rapid-fire campaign wish list to her 95,000+ followers that included, among other things, promoting the Green Party, forgiving all student loans, credit card, and homeowner debt and establishing a small-business safety net.
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She also recognized that her celebrity would immediately garner her some attention. “I will barnstorm American living rooms,” she said in a Green Party candidate questionnaire, as relayed by the Associated Press. “Mainstream media will be unable to ignore me, but more importantly they will be unable to overlook the needs of average Americans in the run-up to the 2012 election.”
Barr appears to be right about the media not ignoring her. (We’re guilty, after all.) She also reportedly wants to appear on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (who doesn’t?), and savvily tweeted a very unscientific TMZ opinion poll humorously showing her deadlocked with President Obama and ten points ahead of Mitt Romney in voter support.
Despite it all, Barr may not even get the Green Party’s nomination. According to Green Party Watch, a party website, Barr’s current support among the faithful lags behind Jill Stein, a party organizer since 2000. Barr appeared to address this in a tweet also: “I run in support of The Green Party& probably of Jill Stein-hopefully I can be of service by speaking on media about a viable choice4 voters.”
Overall, NewsFeed finds candidates like Barr be a welcome relief. Occupying a space somewhere between Jimmy “The Rent is Too Damn High” McMillan and the constant threat of a Donald Trump candidacy, famous folks can bring media attention to the issues they care about and distract a bit from the glare on Mitt, Newt and Obama.
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