Leo Frank Suiter, September 18, 1925 (Fairfield, Mo.) - December 25, 2017 (Daleville, Ala.)
VP candidate for Independent (aka 19 Independent 80 Party) (1980)
Running mate with nominee: James Robert Montgomery (1941-2001)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
James R. Montgomery, a laborer in Oronogo, Mo., former employee of Webb City's Rex Casket Co., and apparent recent cancer patient, had a murky story that didn't seem to make sense. He was ticked off that the Social Security Administration deemed him to be incompetent and sent money to his mother instead. Or something like that. So he decided to run for President as an independent to change the system.
His platform included "breaking up" the US Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, opposition to abortion, opposition to busing for racial integration, and a belief that the gasoline shortage was fake.
More than one reporter mentioned his striking resemblance to the late Wally Cox, which I must say is indeed true in the photos. If you remember Cox in the TV series The Adventures of Hiram Holiday, then looking like that actor who played a hero was not a bad thing. Also, Cox was the voice for the animated superhero Underdog, which in Montgomery's case was probably an appropriate parallel.
Montgomery placed an ad for a running mate in Country Music magazine and Leo Suiter, a retired US Army Major who was in 1980 a country singer living in Daleville, Ala. responded.
Suiter was the more articulate and distinguished looking of the two and he was able to boil down their platform in simple terms. Some quotes from a Suiter speech in Lamar, Mo. as reported by Randy Turner:
Our lives are being controlled by the one-world socialist government conspiracy ... Their goal is to strip all nations of their sovereignty and bring the world under one socialist government.
These people are everywhere, President Jimmy Carter, David Eisenhower, George Bush, U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, Shirley Temple Black, Vice President Walter Mondale and the president of Coca-Cola. Is it any wonder that the people of Coca-Cola knew about the normalization of relations with China before the congress?
Our problems can be blamed on two things-- the Federal Reserve System and the graduated income tax.
A prolific letter to the editor writer throughout the 1980s-1990s, Suiter used this venue during the campaign stating his strong opposition to the existence of the Trilateral Commission.
In Dec. 1979 Montgomery and Suiter both attended a gathering called, and I am not kidding, the Presidential Kookie Convention in Atlanta, Ga. The pair were an oddity among oddities in that they were seemingly the only two-person ticket present. "This convention is the greatest thing that ever happened to us," Montgomery stated. "All the candidates have a lot of good qualities and a lot of good ideas, but I was kinda surprised that a great many don't have vice presidents yet."
After the initial news coverage in late 1979 the Montgomery/Suiter effort sort of faded away as they failed to gain access to any ballots. It is easier to find news announcements of Suiter's musical gigs in 1980 than it is to locate articles about his role as a VP candidate.
Montgomery and Suiter went their separate ways but both ran for public office again. In 1982 Suiter ran to the Right of his opponent George Wallace for the position of Alabama Governor as part of the Alabama Conservative Party.
Election history:
1973 - Mayor of Daleville, Ala. - defeated
197- - Mayor of Daleville, Ala. - defeated
1982 - Governor of Alabama (Alabama Conservative) - defeated
Other occupations: country singer, radio disc jockey, soldier (WWII), US Army Major, flight instructor, radio advertising sales, chewing gum vending machine sales, Chief Executive Officer at Computer Tax Service
Buried: Westview Cemetery (Ozark, Ala.)
Notes:
His work appeared in albums and cassettes.
Captured and held a POW by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge in WWII.
Appears in archival film footage used in the movie Forrest Gump.
