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The Fringe, Part 8

We intended to let our Fringe series lay dormant as the primaries and caucuses neared, but then a slim little book arrived in the mail, courtesy of a Fringer. We couldn't resist. So, welcome back to the presidential Twilight Zone.

Benjamin Richards is a self-proclaimed "guy from Iowa" who's running for president as an independent. His book, Ben '08 is probably the glossiest policy briefing a no-shot presidential candidate has ever produced. The book outlines Richards' "A to Z platform," which is a cute way of saying it's organized alphabetically. He runs through the usual policy pieces, including budget (balance it), climate change (fix it), and terrorism (stop it). The paragraph-long briefings are accompanied by quotes from Aristotle, Proust, and Agatha Christie.

Richards toes a fine line between being a serious, policy-based candidate and a jokester. His signature image is his goofy smirk behind a big thumps-up. He even Photoshopped himself into the Oval Office for the book's back cover. But when I spoke to him on the phone, he was, well, relatively normal.

Richards told me he commutes between Las Vegas (where his wife lives) and Iowa while working for a company that packages show tours across Asia. He's trying to attract support through the art of the rant. The long-winded video up on his Web site proves that he knows geography, but not much else.

Richards' problem—and a problem with Fringers in general—is that his policies are a collection of ideas without much detail. He's a mashup of the other candidates' positions, but there isn't much that separates his campaign from any other mainstream candidate's—besides the Benjamins (the dollar kind). It's a hump all fringe candidates (including, for example, Huckabee, Tancredo, and Gravel) have to overcome if they want to be viable.

Richards seems to recognize this. I asked him how his platform is different than the bigwigs. "I don't think it does diverge from them," he said, "I think more people with more ideas joining the discourse is a positive thing."

UPDATE Dec. 26 1:45 p.m.: Image scanned from Richards' book, Ben '08.

The Bullies of South Carolina

Henry Hewes, a New York Democrat, was also left off the Democratic ballot in South Carolina. Hewes paid the $2,500 filing fee and then waited for his candidacy to be approved by the party's executive council. But Carol Fowler, the chairwoman of the state party, told the New York Times that nobody had heard of him before, so he didn't get on the ballot. Eight mainstream Democrats—including Mike Gravel—did. 

Hewes wasn't going to win the primary. He probably wasn't even going to win a delegate. But if there's anything that American democracy should allow, it's delusions of grandeur. I've talked to quite a few fringe candidates for president, and they all share a common desire: to achieve the American dream. Granted, their American dreams include ridding the world of Zionists, drastically altering the Constitution, and restaging the Scopes trial, but they're American dreams nonetheless. Hewes wants to abolish Social Security, get our troops out of Iraq, and boost the minimum wage. Sounds pretty presidential to me.

I understand the need to have financial barriers in place to sift through the candidates who run on a lark. But New Hampshire charges only $1,000 (which covers all the costs) and runs a pretty impressive operation. If South Carolina wants to charge an extra $1,500, that's their prerogative.  

But on top of that, they add two unnecessary criteria. First, S.C. Dems want their presidential candidates to be nationally viable. Why does a candidate need national appeal? Are the state Democrats worried about becoming a national laughingstock? (The Colbert rejection suggests as much.) Joe Werner, the executive director of the state party, told me that having too many candidates becomes unwieldy. To be blunt, democracy can be a bit unwieldy at times. Deal with it.

Secondly, the candidate needs to have campaigned in South Carolina before they officially get on the Democratic ballot. What's the incentive for a fringe candidate to spend valuable resources on campaigning in the Palmetto State if they aren't even guaranteed a spot on the ballot? The guy has raised only about $10,000, according to Green Papers. A round trip flight from New York City to South Carolina would eat away 2 percent of Hewes' fund-raising.  

South Carolina Democrats' $2,500 filing fee already weeded out all but two fringe candidates—Hewes and Colbert. It prevented 10 of the long-shot Democrats who registered for the New Hampshire primary from registering in South Carolina. So why impose these extra hurdles? The $2,500 fee is enough. (The Democrats have to pay an extra $20,000 to put a candidate on a ballot, but Werner told me that the financial cost didn't factor into the council's decision.)

Henry Hewes is not Stephen Colbert. He was not running for president for publicity or to expose the inane quirks of the American presidential process. He was running for president to follow a dream and because he thought his ideas could fix the country. Unfortunately, South Carolina Democrats won't even let him try.

The Fringe, Part 7

This is the seventh entry in "The Fringe," a periodic look at the lesser-known candidates for president. Read the archives here.

Don't tell anybody, but John Blyth wants to become president so he can put himself out of business. Blyth, an independent candidate from Illinois, wants to make government-run health care mandatory for everybody in the country. He also owns a small insurance company. So, no privatized insurance, no business for him.

As noble as that may be, when I asked Blyth for more details about his health plan he said he couldn't tell me anything further because he thinks the mainstream candidates have been spying on his Web site and swiping his policy initiatives, Bill Belichick style.

But a look at his site makes those claims hard to believe. On many issues, Blyth hasn't made up his mind yet. On his "agenda" page, he writes in response to immigration, "When will congress act?" For gun control, he says, "In this country, what?" Gay marriage: "Non Issue, get busy congress." [sic] I didn't hear anything that sounded like that on Tuesday night.

Blyth says he deliberately kept his policy positions short on his Web site, so it would be a quick read. Perhaps, but it also makes him look rusty and unprepared. During our conversation, he said he wanted to send our troops to Africa to help fight genocide but couldn't pinpoint Sudan: "Where's all the genocide at down there? I forget the country."

Throughout the conversation, Blyth had few specifics whenever I asked for more information. Over and over again, he claimed he would let Congress decide policy—a far cry from the Bush administration—as long as they started acting more like federalists. "If you leave it up to the 50 states, you've got 50 different ways and you've got hodgepodge," he told me. To be fair, he does have some specifics. He knows he wants to begin a 15-month withdrawal from Iraq immediately, stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and veto any pork-barrel spending.

Blyth has time to refine these policy positions. Because he's running as an independent, voters won't see him on the ballot until November of 2008. That leaves ample time to look up Sudan on a map.

The Fringe, Part 6

This is the sixth entry in "The Fringe," a periodic look at the lesser-known candidates for president. Read the archives here.

The Fringe suffered its first rejection this week. On Tuesday I called Randy Crow, a North Carolina Democrat running for president, hoping to profile him for this series. But Crow said what none of the other Fringers have: he didn't want the press coverage. He told me that he doesn't like being the oddball fringe candidate that the mainstream media trots out to show how easy it is to run for president. He'd be willing to talk if I asked him for a quote on a policy-related story that I also asked the frontrunners about. Fair enough, I said.

But that doesn't mean Mr. Crow's website is off limits. Click over to it and you'll meet a conspiracy theorist who claims he's a descendent of Pocohontas, thinks the New York Times is in cahoots with the Bush administration, and thinks "zioni$m" is a major problem for the country.

Crow's biography is comprehensive, to say the least. He helped run his family business, owned a "high tech sewage plant," and is an avid reader. He's 61 and has already spent $70,000 on running for 13 different political offices. Also, people play "dirty tricks" on him:

In 1994 I started having some weird events of a dirty trick nature enter in my life. It took me five or six years to figure what was going on and even to this day what was and is going on is a little unclear. One thing is for sure, my PHD in the capabilities of clandestine forces did not come from osmosis.

Crow is convinced that the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers were controlled via remote by the Bush administration. Moreover, the publishers of both the New York Times and USA Today are in on the plan. He also thinks the "DC snipers are patsies," referring to John Allen and Lee Boyd Malvo (who aren't responsible for the DC shootings, according to Crow).

He's unabashedly anti-Zionist. He says he doesn't think he's anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist. "Some people, usually zioni$t$' and communi$t$, as a means of trying to nullify me, say I am prejudiced against Jewish people. This is not true. I was not raised to hate anyone or to be prejudiced against any person." Those dollar signs must be typos, in that case.

There's plenty more, but I'll let his own list of "problems in the United States" speak for itself:

1) communi$m 2) The Economy 3) US dollar 4) Alan Greenspan 5) God under attack 6) The media 7) Rigged political system 8) President making war on the economy as much as he is making war around the world 8) Homeland Security 9) The Patriot Acts 10) Gun Control 11) Vouchers 12) Military Tribunals 13) NAFTA 14) Faith Based Programs 15) Farmers' plight 16) Merger Mania 17) Credit card interest rates 18) Stock Market 19) Enron 20) Social Security 21) Short Selling commodities 22) Interest paid on savings too low 23) Mortgage debt 24) zioni$m 25) Total elimination of inheritance taxes 26) Oil & gas prices too high

Sorry we didn't get a chance to talk, Mr. Crow.

The Fringe, Part 5

Cap Fendig is the fringe man's Mike Huckabee. The Republican presidential candidate wants to keep the troops in Iraq, supports the fair tax, and promotes pro-life policies. But while Huckabee's profile continues to rise, Cap Fendig is hoping to grab four percent of the votes in Iowa, at most. That's what happens when the highest public office you've held is county commissioner.

The 53-year-old man certainly looks presidential, and speaks in a southern drawl that would make John Edwards swoon. His high-quality Web site has pictures of him and his wife looking like the all-American couple—complete with an out-of-focus background to imply Fendig is a stark contrast to the murky America that surrounds us all.

Fendig recently sold his tour company in Georgia to fund his campaign, but it was his business that inspired him to run in the first place. He said his platform consists of policies the "American people" want. Of course, most of those Americans are his conservative tour clientele.

Fendig is not ashamed to tell you that he thinks the constitution ought to be changed. First up, the Fair Tax, which would repeal the 16^th amendment that allows the government to collect an income tax. Next, he wants to solve the immigration problem by scrapping pieces of the 14^th Amendment. Under the Fendig administration, babies born in the United States would no longer be automatic U.S. citizens. Their parents would have to be citizens, as well. Unclear on whether America would make it a habit of deporting children before they leave the hospital. Oh, and don't forget to tack on a gay marriage amendment while you're at it. (Fendig said homosexuality is a lifestyle choice America cannot endorse but should protect.)

Constitutional changes aside, Fendig is making one novel recommendation: He wants to impose term limits on congressmen so that the legislative branch has a "rotation of fresh ideas and energy."

Fendig, though, has more pressing concerns—like getting people to take him seriously. When Fendig delivered his official announcement speech at a county meeting, the video shows that the woman sitting behind him couldn't help but let loose a laugh.

The Fringe, Part 4

Tom Koos gets it. He knows that a 41-year old facilities manager from California isn't going to win the Democratic nomination. He understands it's unlikely he'll even earn a delegate in New Hampshire, where he'll only campaign for a week before the primary. But he's not running for president to become president. He's running so he can figure out who to vote for.

Koos has wanted to become president since he was 7. He looked up at the calendar and realized that he'd be 35 by 2000, which meant that in 28 short years, he could be taking the oath of office. So, in 2000, he threw his name in the ring. Nineteen people voted for him—one more than the Fringe's last subject, Michael Skok.

Considering Koos finished 76,881 New Hampshire votes behind Al Gore in 2000, what is there to gain by running again? Koos told me he wanted to get a better sense of what his own opinions were on the election's major issues so he would know which candidate to endorse.

As a result, Koos' platform is essentially a composite of his opponents' stances. Like Joe Biden, he wants a soft-partitioned Iraq. Like Hillary Clinton, he supports a national-service academy. And like Dennis Kucinich, he advocates a universal, single-payer health-care system. He's the Voltron of presidential candidates.

Does this mean Koos is once again embarking on a selfish, self-indulgent pursuit? Perhaps. But he said he's also running to try and convince his friends and family to pay attention to the elections. When he tells people he's running for president, he gets to discuss current events and politics with relative strangers. Plus, he said, running for president is "an awful lot of fun." Some might call it a midlife crisis, but Koos thinks of it as a boyhood dream.

The Fringe, Part 3

Michael Skok, a 58-year-old retiree from New York, asked me this today: "I would argue with you that Republicans have evolutionists in their party. So why can't the Democrats have a creationist in their own party?" Skok believes the Earth is 6,000 years old, that America will cease to exist within eight years, and that we need to send a man to Mars. That's why he's running for president.

Undeterred by his 18-vote tally in New Hampshire's 2000 primary, Skok is back in the race for the Democratic nomination. Not that he's on the trail, exactly: He can't afford to head out to New Hampshire just yet, having spent much of his campaign budget on the $1,000 registration fee for the state primary. His family doesn't like that he's running: "They said it's a waste of money. I tell them I'm trying to save the country." Here's the plan:

Restore the country's Christian values: Skok wants to stage a modern-day Scopes Trial via a nationwide debate between the country's best creationists and evolutionists. "We're becoming a nation that's godless with no morality," he said. He's puts his faith in the creationists, partly because the books on evolution he has read have been "confusing."

Find alternate sources of energy: To ease America's dependence on the OPEC states, Skok wants to put solar panels in Earth's orbit and then somehow get that energy back down to Earth. Also, expect the Skok administration to put solar collectors along the freeway and invest in wind turbines.

Fix America's trade deficit: Skok is convinced that in eight years, there will be no such thing as the United States. Instead, the EU is going to annex the U.S. because the dollar will be so weak and so many industries will have been outsourced to China.

Advance America's science and technology sectors: Sending an astronaut to Mars, he said, would help strengthen America's position in the world. This, coupled with Skok's desire to send solar panels into orbit, made me wonder how his creationist beliefs jibe with his scientific interests. "I'm using science to find out if the Bible is true," he told me.

Skok said he can't imagine voting for any other Democrat but that Fred Thompson had caught his eye because he wanted to restore Christian values. If Fred's performance continues to underwhelm, maybe Values Voters can find their candidate across the aisle.

The Fringe, Part 2

Dr. Mark Klein shares at least one presidential tic with the rest of the mainstream candidates—he has a tagline. "We need a grown-up in the White House," Klein proudly told me earlier today. He wants that grown-up to be him.

Klein is a retired psychiatrist from Oakland, Calif., who woke up one morning in 2005 and felt like running for president. So that he did. Armed with $20,000 of his own money—Klein doesn't do any fund raising of his own—he started a field office in West Des Moines, Iowa, and says he has a dozen volunteers who believe in his message. "Instead of in my retirement buying a fancy Mercedes, I decided to run for the White House," he told me.

Klein's main goal is to strengthen the middle class. That means stemming the flow of illegal immigrants, imposing banking regulations, and re-evaluating free-trade policies. "What passes for the free market today is basically socialism for the very rich," he said. He added that even though he lives an admittedly "prosperous" lifestyle and lives off stock dividends, he considers himself middle class, since he has a net worth less than $10 million. He's less focused on foreign policy (his campaign materials say it would play "second fiddle" to domestic policy), but says he wants to withdraw all troops and supports the Bidenback strategy of dividing Iraq into three countries.

As if running for president wasn't hard enough, Klein is convinced the GOP doesn't like him. He claims the Iowa Republicans ignored his requests to be included in the Ames Straw Poll because they're anti-Semitic (Klein is Jewish). Mary Tiffany of the Iowa GOP told me his discrimination claims were baseless. He just didn't pass muster when the State Central Committee chose whom to put on the ballot in Ames. "Mark Klein isn't even a formidable candidate," she said, adding that she was surprised I was giving him the time of day. If Klein had more press coverage and bigger events, she said, they might have listed him as a candidate. (Eleven candidates were on the ballot, including John Cox and the then-unannounced Fred Thompson.)

All of this creates a presidential Catch-22: Outsider candidates can't raise their profile at major events because they don't have enough of an infrastructure, but they can't get the infrastructure they need because they don't have the medium to spread their message.

Of course, Klein could have gotten around this by running for some office other than president. But those small-time positions didn't interest him. "I don't waste my time," he said.

The Fringe, Part 1

Our inaugural candidate is Dr. Jack Shepard, a dentist from Minnesota—no, not that Jack Shephard. He has lived in Rome for the past 25 years but still thinks he's the Republican who can protect America and bring peace to the Middle East. Oh, I almost forgot, he's a convicted felon who is wanted on arson charges back home.

Shepard left the country in 1982, after serving eight months in jail for possessing narcotics—he says he was permitted to have them because of a license obtained for his dentistry practice*—and after Minnesota authorities claimed he burned down his house and dentistry office. Since moving to Italy, he says he routinely speaks with high-level Syrian, Iranian, and Hamas officials to assist America's foreign-policy efforts. He believes he is still serving in the armed forces at the age of 60 because his ID card doesn't have an expiration date. He claims he can't come home because he's still serving his country abroad. When I asked for specifics, he said that was all he was allowed to tell me.

If Shepard's platform has a fulcrum, it's full diplomacy with leaders in the Middle East, especially Iran. When I asked him about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's aggressive anti-Israel comments, he blamed them on a mistranslation. He would section off Palestine within Israel (he offered no specifics) and veto any pro-Israel bill that came across his desk. He also offered this: "The votes that I get will be votes from peace people," he said, "I'm curious how many people are actually after a person who really has dialogue with the evil of axis, as it's called." That was not a typo.

If Shepard sounds like he's a peace-loving Democrat, that's because he used to be. He became a "born-again Republican" in 2000 after a convoluted episode involving racial bias. Nevertheless, he wants the Rev. Jesse Jackson to be his ambassador to the United Nations.

He wouldn't tell me much about his domestic policy despite specific questions on health care, abortion, and gay rights. But he did say he wanted to reform the prison system, using personal examples from his own incarceration as evidence of its shortcomings.

To run for president, all Shepard had to do was send $1,000 check to New Hampshire's secretary of state and sign some papers saying he wanted to run. In South Carolina, you have to pony up $2,500 or 3,000 signatures to get on the primary ballot. Nobody does a background check, and he can't get pulled off the ballot in New Hampshire unless somebody files a complaint. This means Shepard will almost certainly remain a diplomatic vigilante.

Even if he were to garner a delegate, it's doubtful he'd be able to attend the GOP national convention in Minnesota, since that's the state where he's wanted for arson. Ever the optimist, Shepard ended an e-mail he sent me with this: "It would be the greatest and happiness moment of my life to return to St. Paul, Minnesota the city of my birth to get the Republican Nomination for President there." After all, aren't all politicians just talkative people looking for a little redemption?