Big Start to the Week for Bill Weld and Jill Stein

William Weld by Gage Skidmore on Flickr/Creative Commons and Jill Stein for President S17 by Paul Stein on Flickr/Creative Commons

Two of the state’s political exports who hope to upset the race for the presidency this year are having a big week.

Bill Weld, the former governor and current cheerleader for the MBTA’s North-South Rail Link, was expected to file the last of the required paperwork Monday to make sure he’ll be on the ballot in November alongside Libertarian Gary Johnson. He planned to meet with reporters outside Secretary of State William Galvin’s office in the mid-afternoon to talk about his vice presidential candidacy, and maybe throw a few more jabs at Republican nominee Donald Trump, whom he’s called a “malignant narcissist” with a “screw loose.”

Meanwhile, Jill Stein, the Lexington Green Party agitator and Democratic National Convention disruptor, locked down her party’s nomination over the weekend. In her speech, according to a report in WBUR, she courted supporters for Bernie Sanders, showcased a video chat with Julian Assange, and absorbed chants of “Jill not Hill!”

“I want to thank Bernie Sanders supporters who refused to let the political revolution die,” Stein said. “We have a tremendous opportunity before us. The American people are longing for a change. They are ready to do something different, and we have to be the vehicle for that difference.”

Whether either can siphon enough votes from the two major party candidates to make some kind of difference this election cycle remains to be seen. Recent polling has shown support for the third-party candidates edging upward but still in single digits.

But if you can’t stomach the nominees from either party, and if it makes you feel better to lodge your vote for a hometown hero in November, have at it.

Update: Monday, 4:32 p.m.:

Weld did in fact file his signatures, and the Johnson-Weld ticket be among options for voters in November. And as he told the Boston Globe today, he’s feeling pretty good, and hopes you to feel good about eschewing the two-party system, too.

“We have a path to run right up the middle and win the whole thing here. In fact, that’s what I think is going to happen,” he said, according to the Globe. “But Libertarians never tell other people what to do. So if anyone in the Commonwealth wants to waste their vote by casting it for Trump or Clinton, it’s okay with us.”