Only way for Green Party to get into debate: Get arrested (VIDEO)

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein pulled one of the oldest third-party candidate, get-noticed-on-debate-night stunts: Get arrested.

Yes, Stein — who we interviewed during her Green Party debate against Roseanne Barr (yes, THAT Roseanne Barr) in San Francisco — got arrested Tuesday outside along with her running mate….. if you can name her running mate without looking, you are a Political Geek Hero in our book. (Answer: Cheri Honkala.)

Stein’s beef: She’s on 85 percent of ballots on Election Day and qualified for $100,000 in federal matching funds as a genuine presidential candidate. So why isn’t she on stage with the other two guys?

Stein, a Harvard-trained physician, called Tuesday’s debate a “mockumentary” and said “We are here to bring the courage of those excluded from our politics to this mock debate, this mockery of democracy.”

Random aside: Mockery of Democracy=Good band name.

For Californians, this recalls Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin — then a Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate against Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican Rep. Tom Campbell in 2000 — getting arrested before a TV debate in San Francisco. Or Ralph Nader, the 2000 Green Party prez candidate not being allowed into a presidential debate — even though he had a ticket to the event.

Here’s some video of the arrest, courtesy of the Long Island Report. Our favorite part is when Stein and Honkala have to spell their names for the TV reporters in attendance. Ryan and Biden didn’t have to do that…well, not for MOST of the TV reporters.

Joe Garofoli