Jerry Carroll
VP candidate for Independent (aka No Party) (1988, 1992)
Running mate with nominee (1988, 1992): Jerry Leon Carroll (b. 1945)
Popular vote (1988): 13 (0.00%)
Popular vote (1992): 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote (1988, 1992): 0/538
The campaign (1988):
The perennial candidate who calls himself Jerry "Mr. President" Carroll first ran for President in 1980 as near as I can tell. He once expressed a desire to "become crowned emperor of Earth by all the peoples of Earth." The former Amway salesman was living in Lodi, Calif. in 1988.
It is little difficult to decipher his platform but it seems he might be something of a Christian nationalist and survivalist. Apparently he lays claim to being the "mole" that exposed Jim Jones' People Temple cult. He also said he was, for two years, the Public Relations Man for the National Security Agency [!!!]
His running-mate Marlin D. Thacker had run for President in the Democratic Party primaries in 1980 and 1984 in which he expressed admiration for FDR's massive public works programs. Thacker lived in Crossville, Ala., a licensed veterinarian who happened to be working in an egg processing plant.
The Carroll/Thacker ticket were registered write-ins in California, where they gained 17 votes.
The campaign (1992):
Carroll was simultaneously running for the US Senate in California as a write-in candidate in 1992. He garnered 37 votes in that one. Meanwhile, Thacker had once again started the campaign season as a candidate in the Democratic Party primaries.
Carroll was a registered in write-in, sometimes with Thacker as his VP, in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Carroll's native state of Kansas, Missouri, Montana, and Utah. On Election Day they had zero popular votes in every one of them. Yes. Zero. Nada, Zilch. I'm talkin' crickets.
In the event they had won, Thacker would have died just a few months into his term, May 1, 1993.
Election history:
1977? - DeKalb County (Ala.) Sheriff - defeated
1980 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1984 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1992 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
Other occupations: US Air Force (Korea), egg processing plant worker, licensed veterinarian
Buried: Beulah Baptist Cemetery (Fyffe, Ala.)
Notes:
Described as "a country hayseed in a pickup truck" in 1983 by his rival Democratic primary
candidate Richard A. Grayson.
