This is the sixth entry in “The Fringe,” aperiodic look at the lesser-known candidates for president. Read the archives here .
The Fringe suffered its first rejection this week. OnTuesday 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 otherFringers have: he didn’t want the press coverage. He told me that he doesn’tlike being the oddball fringe candidate that the mainstream media trots out toshow how easy it is to run for president. He’d be willing to talk if I askedhim for a quote on a policy-related story that I also asked the frontrunnersabout. Fair enough, I said.
But that doesn’t mean Mr. Crow’s website is off limits. Click over to itand you’ll meet a conspiracy theorist who claims he’s a descendent of Pocohontas , thinks theNew 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$70,000 on running for 13 different political offices. Also, people play “dirtytricks” on him:
In 1994 I started having some weird eventsof a dirty trick nature enter in my life. It took me five or six years tofigure what was going on and even to this day what was and is going on is alittle unclear. One thing is for sure, my PHD in the capabilities ofclandestine forces did not come from osmosis.
Crow is convinced that the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers werecontrolled via remote by the Bush administration. Moreover, the publishers ofboth the New York Times and USA Today are in on the plan. He also thinks the “DC snipers are patsies,”referring to JohnAllen and Lee Boyd Malvo (who aren’t responsible for the DCshootings, according to Crow).
He’s unabashedly anti-Zionist. He says he doesn’t think he’santi-Semitic, just anti-Zionist. “Some people, usually zioni$t$’ andcommuni$t$, as a means of trying to nullify me, say I am prejudiced againstJewish people. This is not true. I was not raised to hate anyone or to beprejudiced against any person.” Those dollar signs must be typos, in that case.
There’s plenty more, but I’ll let his own list of “problemsin the United States”speak for itself:
1) communi$m 2) The Economy 3) USdollar 4) Alan Greenspan 5) God under attack 6) The media 7) Rigged politicalsystem 8) President making war on the economy as much as he is making wararound 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 onsavings too low 23) Mortgage debt 24) zioni$m 25) Total elimination ofinheritance taxes 26) Oil & gas prices too high
Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk, Mr. Crow.
