I’ll sum up the major-party candidates for you: normal and boring. To find the compelling candidates, you’ll have to travel a little outside your political comfort zone. If you’re debating the mediocrity of the Democratic candidates or teaching yourself to spell Giuliani’s name properly, you’re wasting your time. I perused the 60-page list of all candidates who have filed with the Federal Election Commission (and haven’t dropped out yet) and found some candidates you might care about — but probably not vote for.
Donald K. Allen (Independent)
Forget the rest of the presidential candidate swill, this guy’s the only one with a stance on puppy mills! He’s so endearing and eloquent for a veterinarian. “The suffering inherent in puppy mills… the mother dog … living her entire life in a rabbit hutch … Her misery would be vindicated,” he writes. Just give him the Pulitzer already.
But unconditional love is for puppies only; for humans, there’s compulsory military or civilian service (but just for “people graduating from high school with no direction to their lives,” which isn’t an offensive or subjective standard).
His interests then veer toward the weirdly voyeuristic. From a page about the Lincoln Bedroom: “I will ask each branch of our Armed Forces, on a rotating basis, to select a married Purple Heart recipient to spend a Saturday night in the Lincoln Bedroom, including dinner in the White House.”
Mental images of veterans doing it in the Lincoln Bedroom shouldn’t distract you from being ever vigilant in tracking those dirty Arabs: “Keep your eyes wide open for young Middle Eastern men and women. What is really wrong with that? How does that infringe upon your civil liberties?”
What’s wrong with that? Oh, Donald, let me count the ways.
Dr. Hugh Cort (Republican)
Bombs end wars, but mainstream Republicans are too soft to acknowledge this. Despite McCain’s sacrilegious condemnation of torture, you know as well as I do that the GOP will stand for nothing less than Going Overboard with Power. Cort understands this: He “advocates a 48-hour bombing campaign in Iran… [to] take away Iran’s nuclear facilities before they get nuclear weapons and start World War III and kill a billion people.”
You might think Cort is crazy, but he’s not crazy. He’s a physician who practices psychiatric medicine, so he would know crazy. Bombing Iran is actually a good idea — heck, “a FOX News military analyst” told him so!
What’s not a good idea: gays. “Not even Sodom and Gomorrah had the nerve to call the homosexual relationship marriage, and look what happened to them,” he said. A rain of “burning sulfur … from the Lord out of the heavens?” No thanks.
John Taylor Bowles (National Socialist Order)
My favorite classtime activity — no, not listening to lecture, silly — is to survey and mock silently the Internet-browsing habits of everyone in front of me with a laptop. To fellow enthusiasts of this game who were sitting behind me in Harris 107 as I lingered on the white-supremacist Bowles for President page a bit too long, I say: it was for research!
The homepage greets you with headlines such as “White People Should Not Be Treated Like Second Class Citizens” and “Invest in a White People’s Victory.” The website is 1997-vintage Internet magic at its finest: Scroll down for animated GIFs (a spinning U.S. emblazoned with a swastika) and tricks ripped out of an HTML primer.
Bowles has the distinction of having been a “Political prisoner of the State of Maryland from 1985-1992.” My Google sleuthing turned up one reference to his prison time for “political activism.”
Bonus: If you donate $100 to his campaign, you get an autographed picture of Bowles. It could double as a police most-wanted poster for this loon.
James H. McCall (Independent)
This guy is pretty tame. Oh except for this gem on border control, which wins the award for “Most Crazy-Ass Idea Not Coming From a Nazi:”
All … security personnel or citizens, who disobey the law by … aiding, abetting or covering up illegal entry, will go to jail, where for the next 10 to 20 years, they shall harvest lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, strawberries, cucumbers, etc.
He’s also the most lucid in outlining his goals: “I wish to develop options (choices), where and when they currently do not exist and to purposefully deliberate said options as to benefit versus cost.” I might agree, Mr. McCall, if I had a clue about what the hell you’re saying.
Paul Russell Rosenberger (Independent)
Tired of politicians running for political office? You’ll love Rosenberger’s qualifications. He’s a doctor (impressive, eh?) … of metaphysics in the Christian Science Church. Oh.
Hold up — before I join Christopher Hitchens’ merry band of atheists in flinging words like cult (sorry, Romney) at this guy’s beliefs, let’s look at the exhaustive list of his religious affiliations: “Christian Science, Jewish, Catholic, Mormon.” Wow, now that’s truly a man for all of the people.
To top off this inclusiveness, his favorite music includes “romance” and “love songs,” and under activities he has “flower arranging.” I’m swooning already. But getting along doesn’t have a long shelf life in Washington — I wonder if his having owned a pest-control company come in handy when dealing with pesky politicians.
It does concern me, though, that he’d like to “become a citizen of every country” before he dies. Including all the ones harboring terrorists, Mr. Rosenberger? I thought you were a patriot, but apparently you’re America-hating scum, just like all the other candidates. What a useless election.