Roseanne Barr ran a bizarre campaign for president, her former running mate says.
The characteristically brash TV star — now a supporter of President Trump, in real life and on the reboot of ‘90s sitcom “Roseanne” — ran as an anti-war socialist in 2012.
But before votes were cast, her vice presidential candidate Cindy Sheehan quit the campaign, sensing a rightward shift on Barr’s Twitter feed.
“LOL — what a cluster-fudge,” Sheehan told the Washington Examiner.
The women met just once and briefly during their candidacy, when they were nominated by the Peace and Freedom Party three months before the election.
The ticket lacked a campaign manager, though “Cynthia McKinney performed some kind of ethereal function as a consultant,” Sheehan recalled. McKinney, a former Georgia congresswoman defeated in her race for re-election after punching a Capitol police officer, was the Green Party’s 2008 nominee. (McKinney recently refused to say if she voted for Trump.)
The Barr-Sheehan ticket appeared on just three state ballots: California, Colorado, and Florida.
“I don’t think her run in 2012 was very serious. She refused to campaign and only made a few appearances in California where we were on the ballot,” Sheehan said. “Roseanne was mostly in Hawaii when we were running in California — it was weird.”
Barr, whose reboot of “Roseanne” drew a massive 18.2 million estimated viewers Tuesday, spoke with Sheehan about 10 times by phone, “mostly group calls with Cynthia and some party members. I don’t remember ever just she and I chatting.”
“She mostly connected with me by email, mostly through her daughter Becky whom I really liked,” Sheehan said.
“Even before I left the campaign, I was not kept in the loop,” said Sheehan, a peace activist who famously camped outside President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch to protest the Iraq War.
Barr sought and received the Peace and Freedom Party’s nomination less than a month after losing the Green Party nomination to Jill Stein, a relatively unknown doctor from Massachusetts. Barr proceeded to campaign almost exclusively using social media, with little actual campaign infrastructure or organization.
Sheehan’s departure came too late for her name to be removed from ballots. The pair placed sixth nationally, behind the two major parties and candidates from the Libertarian, Green, and Constitution parties.
“I left the campaign in disgust over many of her tweets, which I judged to be extremely right wing. I think, since then, my action has proven to be justified,” Sheehan said, adding she has no insight into Barr’s future political aspirations, as they have not spoken since 2012. Sheehan has criticized Barr’s comments on Israel and nuclear weapons on her blog.
“Before we ran together and Roseanne did her right-wing shift, I thought she was great and progressive and she supported me fully when I ran against [then-House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi. I never would have gotten into this with her if I knew her right-wing bent,” she said.
Ultimately, Sheehan said, “I voted for us that year. I had a struggle though, I almost voted for Jill Stein.” Out of 129 million votes cast nationwide, about 67,000 others chose to vote Barr.
