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| Home Front: Politix |
| Running for president--on a $1,000 budget |
| 2008-01-08 |
| When Granite State voters go to the polls Tuesday in the nation's first primary, there will be the names on the ballot everyone knows: Giuliani, Obama, Romney, etc. And there will be several, such as Marchuk, that ring familiar only to the candidates, their friends and their mothers. That's because New Hampshire has some of the easiest entrance requirements to get on its official ballots. You must meet the Constitutional qualifications to be president: U.S. born, at least 35 years old, U.S. resident for the last 14 years -- and pay $1,000. That's it. ----- Since becoming secretary of state in 1976, Gardner has seen his share of interesting fringe candidates. In the 1980 primary there was an Indian chief, Chief Burning Wood, who tried (unsuccessfully) to pay his registration fee in "500 dollars in wampum," a.k.a. 4-feet of rattlesnake skin. One man once filled out his application dressed like Abraham Lincoln. Another was denied the opportunity to run as Mark Twain: Candidates must use their legal names. Perhaps the most memorable attempt was in 1980, when a New Hampshire animal sanctuary tried to run a 475-pound gorilla, Colossus G. Benson, as a presidential candidate. Knowing the gorilla was too wild to walk in the statehouse and sign his filing forms, keepers kept him on a truck trailer in the parking lot and sent in a white-tuxedoed chimpanzee, who carried a note that declared Benson's candidacy. Not that the chimp was any better behaved. "These ceilings are high," Gardner said from his Concord office. "And he went up this pipe and ended up hanging on a light. -------- Then there is Vermin Supreme -- yes that's his legal, changed name -- of Massachusetts who is running for the fifth time. "I'm the only candidate that will fund time-travel research," said Supreme, who is very much in on the joke, and is sort of a merry prankster politician, often appearing in public with a boot on his head. "Of course I'm also in favor of a pony-based economy!" Yes! We have a |
| Posted by:Spot |
| #1 Ron Paul just got some new competition in New Hampshire. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2008-01-08 20:26 |