There are important facts about the 2012 presidential race that you likely do not know. President Obama has challengers for the Democratic nomination. There are Republican presidential candidates that were not allowed to participate in the televised debates. There are experienced politicians seeking to run third party campaigns. And of course there are also third party candidates with unique and interesting positions. Without further ado, here are 10 presidential candidates you have probably never heard of.
John Wolfe
John Wolfe is running for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. He supports a 0.75% tax on derivatives, which are financial instruments used by Wall Street Banks. He also supports an alternative federal reserve that would give direct loans to small businesses, community banks, and credit worthy individuals. Wolfe says that creating an alternative federal reserve would “just” cost one trillion dollars. It is unclear whether that would be printed money or money than is allocated by congress. On foreign policy he wants to end US military aid to Israel and end the US support of the military dictatorships in Egypt and Bahrain. He also would call on Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders in exchange for a US defense guarantee.
Darcy Richardson
Darcy Richardson is running for the nomination of the Democratic Party. He believes in bringing back the separation of investment and savings banks that existed under the Glass-Steagall Act. He opposes the war in Afghanistan as well as the Panamanian and South Korean free trade deals. He supports a capital levy on wealth, a stimulus 5 or 6 times larger than President Obama’s proposed 447 billion dollar jobs act, a new Works Progress Administration, and a 33 to 50 percent reduction in military spending. He has criticized Obama’s decision to not nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the consumer protection bureau. He also supports a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.
Rocky Anderson
Rocky Anderson is the presidential candidate of the Justice Party. Formerly a major of Salt Lake City, he called for the impeachment of George W. Bush. He supports a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision in order to achieve campaign finance reform and reduce the corrupting influence of money in politics. As a result, his campaign is only accepting donations of 100 dollars or less. He opposes all on-going wars and telecom immunity. He supports universal health care, treating substance abuse as a public health issue, and US leadership on climate change. He also supports the prosecution of government officials and politicians responsible for authorizing and performing warrantless wiretapping and torture as well as Wall Street executives whose decisions helped create the financial collapse of 2007-2008.
Buddy Roemer
Buddy Roemer’s resume includes being a former governor of Lousiana and a four term congressman. Despite his extensive previous political experience, he was not allowed to participate in even one of the 20 Republican presidential debates. On February 22, he ended his attempts to become the Republican nominee for president. He is now seeking the nomination of Americans Elect and the Reform Party. Campaign finance reform is his primary goal. Thus, he is not accepting any donations larger than 100 dollars and refuses to accept money from political action committees. He also believes that the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is far too weak.
Gary Johnson
Gary Johnson is running for the nomination of the Libertarian Party. A former governor of New Mexico, he originally sought the nomination of the Republican Primary before dropping out in December. He was only allowed to attend two of the Republican presidential debates. Johnson supports immediately balancing the budget, block granting Medicare and Medicaid to the states, implementing a flat tax, and ending all foreign aid. Johnson also wants to end the war in Afghanistan, repeal the PATRIOT act, and legalize marijuana.
Fred Karger
Fred Karger is the first openly gay candidate to run for the nomination of the Republican Party. He supports gay marriage, legalizing and taxing marijuana, and ending the war in Afghanistan. He would also support a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 16 or 17. Fred Karger claimed that if Mitt Romney were president and he received a call from the leader of the Mormon Church telling him to take a position on an issue, he would have no choice but to obey. Politifact game the claim a Pants on Fire rating after consulting three experts on the Mormon religion. That prejudiced statement mirrored the equally closed-minded claims that if John F Kennedy were elected president he would have to answer to the pope.
Randall Terry
Randall Terry is an anti-abortion activist who is running for the nomination of the Democratic Party. He founded the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. He unsuccessfully attempted to use his candidacy to air commercials during the super bowl showing graphic video of aborted fetuses.
Jack Fellure
Jack Fellure is the presidential candidate for the Prohibition Party. As the name implies, the Prohibition Party is in favor of outlawing the sale of alcohol. Fellure also supports the recriminalization of homosexuality, abortion, and pornography. In 1996 he blamed America’s problems on, “Atheists, Marxists, liberals, queers, liars, draft-dodgers, flag-burners, dope addicts, sex perverts and anti-Christians.”
Andy Martin
Andy Martin is running for the nomination of the Republican Party. Martin was the original source, in 2004, of the false rumor that Barack Obama is a secrete Muslim. He now is pushing the false rumor that Barack Obama’s father was not Barack Obama Sr. but instead Frank Lloyd Davis. He sued Hawaii to try to get the state to reveal Obama’s long form birth certificate, even though the Obama campaign had already released the legally required short form birth certificate. In 2008 Andy Martin was featured as an expert on Barack Obama’s past on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.
Peta Lindsay
Peta Lindsay is the presidential nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. She is currently seeking a master’s degree in education at the University of Southern California. She has been an active anti-war activist since 2001. Her biography at her party’s website states that, “Lindsay traveled to Cuba in 2002 with Pastors for Peace and witnessed first-hand the accomplishments of a society that is organized to meet human needs, not the profit motive of a few greedy bankers and corporate owners.” Lindsay also was the youngest delegate at the World Meeting of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity that was hosted by Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan government.
Factoids of Interest
According to The Green Papers, Barack Obama finished 10th in the New Hampshire Republican primary with 285 votes. In the New Hampshire Democratic primary Ron Paul finished second with 2,289 votes, 3.77% of the total. Mitt Romney finished third in the New Hampshire Democratic primary with 1,814 votes, 2.99% of the total. Jon Huntsman finished fourth in the New Hampshire Democratic primary with 1,238 votes, 2.04% of the vote. Here are more notable results from that same primary: Randall Terry (442), Rick Santorum (302), Newt Gingrich (276), Darcy Richardson (264), John Wolfe (245), Buddy Roemer (29), Fred Karger (26), Rick Perry (17), Gary Johnson (4), Michele Bachman (2), Herman Cain (1).
According to The Green Papers, these are the largest vote totals from all contests combined for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time of the publication of this article.
Barack Obama 122,267 85.82%
Randall Terry 2,458 1.73%
Ron Paul 2,289 1.61%
Mitt Romney 1,814 1.27%
John Wolfe 1,267 0.89%
Jon Huntsman 1,238 0.87%
Darcy Richardson 1,156 0.81%
According to the Green Papers, here are the largest vote totals for the Republican presidential nomination at the time of the publication of this article.
Mitt Romney 1,185,522 38.84%
Newt Gingrich 838,882 27.49%
Rick Santorum 570,834 18.70%
Ron Paul 338,564 11.09%
Jon Huntsman 51,171 1.68%
Rick Perry 26,145 0.86%
Michele Bachmann 12,572 0.41%
Herman Cain 12,361 0.41%
Gary Johnson 2,142 0.07%
Buddy Roemer 967 0.03%
For whatever reason, the results for Fred Karger do not appear in green papers’ list of total Republican results even though their page for the NH Republican primary shows him receiving 345 votes in that contest. In the Republican race, Condoleezza Rice has received 2 votes and Ralph Nader has received one vote even though neither is running for president.
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