Though she has more public support than Independent gubernatorial candidate Barbara Johnson or Libertarian Carla Howell, her campaign manager says she’s been hurt by scant representation in the local media.

“When people hear Jill, they like her,” Keaney says. “Candidates like Dr. Stein don’t come around very often. She’s intelligent, she’s articulate, she’s knowledgeable about the issues.”

Bob Smith wanders into the office to announce that he has registered to vote for the first time in 30 years. He has no affiliation with the campaign but he stops by to present Stein and her staff with a support gift––aprons reading, “Don’t be afraid of work. Make work afraid of you.”

“Oh, I love him,” Gainer shouts after the campaign’s newfound supporter leaves.

Stein says her campaign’s success has burgeoned recently. She cites an online poll, based on potential voters’ responses to gubernatorial candidates’ public statements, in which she garnered 23 percent support, compared to 15 percent for O’Brien.

“Hope has kind of reached a critical mass,” she says. “We’re at a tipping point.”

She ran a “clean campaign” in accordance with the Clean Elections law, receiving most of her funding in small amounts from private citizens. She mounted her gubernatorial effort on resources totalling about $120,000. Romney and O’Brien each spent about $4 million in campaign funds.

“Whether we win the election or whether we have just established a credible third party that cannot be bought or sold, we have won,” she says.

In the case of defeat, she says, she plans to continue her activism from her position as a physician and instructor at Harvard Medical School, where she specializes in environmental health.

The staff and volunteers of the campaign headquarters gather handmade signs as they prepare to drive into Boston with Stein to rally support.

Gainer taps his desk and sings, “The media is not foolin’ me, ’cause I...” His voice trails off.

Outside, Stein climbs into a row of parked cars with her volunteers, carrying with her a box of take-out calzones and an old canvas knapsack.

The vehicles proceed through Somerville and Harvard Square on their way to their first polling site—the Jackson Mann School in Brighton.

The drivers struggle to remain together by following a white Volvo with an enormous green-and-white Jill Stein sign protruding from its roof. Car and sign together stand exactly 10 feet tall.

The Volvo toots its horn as it accelerates through Cambridge, headed toward Allston. Honks of support answer; a few pedestrians wave from the sidewalk.