Not many New Yorkers likely know that three women are running for U.S. Senate in November.
Colia Clark is a veteran of the civil rights movement, and a former Democrat. Now she is a Green Party candidate running for Senate against incumbent Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Republican Wendy Long.
This is not Clark's first time running for Senate. In 2010, Clark ran for the senate seat now held by Democrat Charles Schumer.
Clark was recently in Syracuse promoting the Green Party's "freedom agenda." She is calling for constitutional amendments to ensure Americans a variety of rights. They include proposals on campaign spending, voting rights, and congressional war powers.
Clark says that Americans need more rights guaranteed to achieve economic and political security.
"We must now talk about forcing the states to ratify constitutional amendments around the right to an education, the right to vote. We must struggle for the right to jobs, the right to a decent living wage," Clark said.
Clark admits that third party candidates traditionally have a difficult time competing against the Republican and Democrat parties. But she contends that both the two major parties have not upheld civil liberties for Americans.
"The Green Party is here not as a salvation, but we are here to bring to the nation a new way of doing business," said Clark. "And a new way of doing business in politics as well as in the economic and the rest of the political economy."
Clark knows she has an uphill battle. Gillibrand had a sizable lead in polls conducted before the Republican candidate was decided in the June primary.
"Well fighting with a two party system is going to be the greatest obstacle because they have in place the infrastructure, and they have in place the propaganda machine and control of the mass media to more easily be able to put out their messages," said Clark.
In addition to Clark running for Senate, eight people are running for Congress as Green Party candidates in various districts across New York state. In central New York's 24th Congressional district, Ursula Rozem is the green party candidate.