Obama, of course, broke many of his promises. After mostly doing Wall Street’s bidding for three years and putting climate change on the backburner, he has in recent weeks paid more liberal-leaning attention to the issues that motivate protesters and environmentalists; in the latter case, his administration blocked, for the time being, the Keystone XL pipeline that was to bring tar sands oil from Canada to the US Gulf coast. On most issues, however, Obama has governed from the political right, including assertions of executive power – including a penchant for secrecy and antipathy to civil liberties – that are even more extreme than Bush’s. The Republicans, meanwhile, have moved much further to the right. They flaunt their love for the 1% and contempt for the environment (when it gets in the way of commerce, at any rate).

In such circumstances, one might imagine an opening for a third party that, among other things, believed in civil liberties; advocated genuine reform of the corporatism that now rules the economy and government; and pushed for an energy policy that sharply reduced America’s carbon footprint. The Greens’ platform endorses all three. But are their candidates plausible?

Certainly Barr, while by no means a dummy, is not. Even she agrees: if we are to believe this tweet, she expects Jill Stein to win the nomination at the party’s July convention in Baltimore. In other words, her campaign is a statement and not much more.