The weird and wacky who ran for the White House
Donald Trump seems almost normal compared to some of the other weirdos who have tried to make it to the White House.
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The US presidential primaries have begun: Those series of elections held in each US state where Republican and Democrat supporters begin the five-month process of nominating a candidate for the presidency. To win the nomination, a candidate must secure 50 per cent of the delegates plus one.
The journey to the White House is long; however, it’s never stopped anyone from trying.
One of the frontrunners in this year’s race for the Republican nomination is Donald Trump.
Despite his many quirks (his hair being one), his rants and bizarre policies that have made him look ridiculous to any sensible people outside the core of diehard conservatives he panders to, he is not the weirdest US presidential candidate ever to throw his hat in the ring.
There have been some strange people trying to make their way into the White House. Fortunately logic has mostly prevailed and kept them out.
One such eccentric was Homer Tomlinson, a former advertising man turned self-proclaimed bishop of his own Church of God.
Tomlinson’s policies included getting rid of taxes and introducing tithing — a medieval-era compulsory payment of 10 per cent of earnings to the church — and the appointment of a Secretary of Righteousness to the cabinet. He ran for president (needless to say, unsuccessfully) as candidate for his own Theocratic Party in 1952, 1960, 1964 and 1968.
After his failure at the first election, he proclaimed himself King of the World and travelled the globe, including a stopover in Sydney in 1959, staging coronation ceremonies for the press, wearing a gold crown.
His loss at the November 1968 election proved too much and he died in December.
Another who tried for the top job was Gabriel Green, a psychic who claimed to be receiving mind transmissions from aliens.
Greene claimed he had a PhD in physics from the prestigious University of California, Berkeley, but he actually studied photography at a business college. He made a living doing school photographs, but in the 1950s claimed to be a “contactee” — someone who had been contacted by aliens.
He founded the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America and ran in 1960 under the slogan “America needs a space age president” with fairly reasonable policies such as peace and “a passport to paradise on earth instead of oblivion”.
The problem was that Greene’s “leadership by enlightened direction” meant taking direction from the aliens in his head. In the end Americans didn’t trust the aliens and he lost the election. He would run again in 1972, this time for the Universal Party, but people trusted Richard Nixon more than they trusted a ufologist. He only garnered 200 votes.
Some of the strangest candidates of recent times have been people aiming to run for the American Green Party. Among them was Jello Biafra, best known as lead singer for the punk rock band the Dead Kennedys.
Biafra had campaigned for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, finishing fourth in a field of 10. In 2000 he competed unsuccessfully against Ralph Nader for the Green nomination for president. Biafra’s lack of success may have been partly due to the fact that he chose Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and activist on death row for killing a police officer, as his running mate.
But Biafra wasn’t the only rock star to aim for the White House.
Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh campaigned for US President, under the slogan “Free gas for everyone”.
Walsh also promised to make his hit song Life’s Been Good the new national anthem. Had he been lucky enough to get up, the constitution would have prevented him occupying the Oval Office; he was only 33 and the constitution specifies that the president must be at least 35.
He had another go in 1992, this time as vice-presidential running mate to the Reverend Goat Carson under the slogan “We want our money back”. He also wrote a new song, “Vote For Me”.
As an ultra-conservative Trump also has a lot to live up to with some truly loopy right-wing candidates.
John G Schmitz, the 1972 American Independent Party candidate, was far right of Nixon and once said: “I have no objection to President Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back.
Originally published as The weird and wacky who ran for the White House
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