When she said she needed to be distracted, to get a job of her own, I told her to get a job of her own, and she did, volunteering at a local public-radio station downtown.

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Jill Stein as a person I respect and appreciate, but when I too the trouble to seek her out at one of her local fund-raisers, she was a deer in the headlights.

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It was January 2008 and I had given her a call after spotting a letter she had written to the local newspaper.

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So I told her about a man I used to employ in eastern Zaire as a local guide and translator.

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"When I arrived at the address I saw that holes had been cut into the garden and the lady, kindly helped by her neighbours and a local joiner, had already gone to great efforts to have some of the floorboards and concrete in her conservatory uplifted, " she said.

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When asked about anti-Semitism she said: "I simply did not understand it, " and she denounced members of her own constituency association who excluded Jews from the local golf club.

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