Theodore Conrad Billings, May 6, 1906 (Providence, Ohio) - May, 1977 (Denver, Colo.?)
VP candidate for Constitution Party (1964)
Running mate with nominee: Joseph Benton Lightburn (1899-1980)
Popular vote: 5,061 (0.01%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
At the Constitution Party convention in Houston on July 26, 1964 Joseph B. Lightburn, a longtime Party activist and West Virginia small retail businessman, was a surprise nomination for President. Most observers expected the nod to go former FDR son-in-law Curtis Dall or Texan Bert Ellis.
The VP choice was Theodore "Ted" Billings, owner of a Denver health food store called Lifeguard Foods, and, according to a December 1963 FBI report investigating Billings' reported public threats about shooting President Kennedy prior to the assassination, an anti-Semitic "loudmouth."
The convention had 54 delegates (half of them from Texas) from 12 states.
The Party and candidates had a lengthy list of issues that were aired during the campaign: repeal of the Civil Rights Act, support of states' rights, getting the USA out of the UN, eliminate federal aid to education, repeal the income tax, legally require a federal balanced budget, eliminate the Army and use state militias instead, end foreign alliances, end fluoridation of water, bring back prayer and Bible reading in public school, end medical inoculations and immunizations and vaccinations including for polio (Lightburn: "It's mass medication. The people don't know what's in those drugs or what all the effects might be."), end social security, withdraw from the Vietnam War, and repeal the Federal Reserve act of 1913.
Apparently the Republican nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona was not conservative enough for them. They used Lightburn's initials "JBL" which was "LBJ" in reverse as way to gain attention and employed the slogan "Let a Lightburn in the White House." Billings said his hometown of Whitehouse Village, Ohio was prophetic.
In a revealing news account, reporter James A. Haught interviewed Lightburn with Party official W.J. "Woody" Kerns, who shows up as a peripheral figure in JFK assassination theory literature. Kerns is quoted: "The Communist takeover is all set up. The controlled press and television are in on it. A couple of missiles from Cuba-- that would provide the emergency. Then they could declare martial law by executive order, and the assassin squads could come around and kill all real patriots ..."
Lightburn finished Kerns' thought with a grim smile, "They'd get me first or else send me off to Alaska." Kerns then continued and clarified, "They built a big mental hospital up there ... where they could give people drugs or five-minute lobotomies. But the earthquake shook it down. God is working ... The whole story is a battle between Christ and the anti-Christ. The conspiracy is the anti-Christ. It's satanic ... the U.N. is part of it-- a one-world Babylonian government ... A certain group of people say they're God's elect, but the Bible shows us that's not true." Lightburn jumped in to qualify, "It's the international bankers. Most of them are Jews, but some are Gentiles."
They were on the ballot only in Texas where they captured 0.19% of the popular vote in the Lone Star State. President Johnson won Texas with 63.32% of the vote.
Election history: none
Other occupations: sales clerk, health food store owner, Constitution Party newspaper publisher, author, pamphleteer
Buried: ?
Notes:
His surname also appears as Billing in several sources.
Lived in Whitehouse Village, Ohio with his parents until the early 1930s.
Married 1933 in Ohio, but by 1942 was divorced and living in Chicago.
His father Conrad Billing died a month before the Constitution Party convention.
Recorded a comic vanity record Dec. 1930 entitled "Adam and Evy."
Formerly a registered Republican.
