Cyril William Minett, January 23, 1930 (Haywood County, NC) - September 29, 2006 (Texas?)
VP candidate for Populist Party (aka America First Party aka Independent aka Constitution Party) (1992)
Running mate with nominee: James Gordon "Bo" Gritz (b. 1939)
Popular vote: 107,014 (0.10%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
Prior to running for President the flamboyant and always controversial James "Bo" Gritz (rhymes with "rights") was a soldier during the Vietnam War, followed by POW/MIA activist efforts, followed by embracing a long list of conspiracy theories. His life story could be a novel, except some would ask would it be like Elmer Gantry or instead like Heart of Darkness? At first he had alliances across the political spectrum especially after he exposed Reagan administration figures involved with drug trafficking and also after he later opposed the 1991 Gulf War, but as the Left learned more about his connections with the extreme Right, Christian nationalists, Holocaust deniers and his personal homophobic, anti-Semitic views, they backed away.
In 1988 Gritz had been the Populist Party VP nominee but dropped out. As he later told the story:
I was invited by the Populist Party in 1988 to share my POW experiences. I accepted the paid invitation to speak. Following my talk, I was told they planned to run James Traficant [D-Ohio] as their presidential candidate. I knew and respected Traficant. They asked me to be his running mate. After lunching with Traficant, I consented. My name was instantly accepted by the delegates. It wasn't until the next day that they rejected Traficant in favor of David Duke, whom I did not know.
I immediately informed the leadership of my withdrawal, but was urged to first meet with Duke. Photos were taken and we spoke briefly. I found Duke to be a brash, untraveled, overly opinionated, bigoted young man and resigned as a non-member candidate. Duke was furnished with another running mate who appeared on the voting ballot with him.
He began his 1992 run by attempting to gain multiple nominations. He ran in the Independent Voters primary in Massachusetts and his name was entered for nomination with the American Independent Party, the American Party in South Carolina, and the US Taxpayers Party. In each case the winner was Howard Phillips. In Minnesota Gritz was identified as the nominee of the Constitution Party, so perhaps he did manage to affiliate with another party in that state but information regarding that ballot line is difficult to find. Gritz was officially given the Populist Party nomination in May 1992. He said he was approached by the Party leaders much earlier and he accepted on the condition that he was the sole author of the platform.
The Populist Party platform included: eliminating the Federal Reserve, eliminating the IRS, balancing the federal budget, revoke the 17th amendment and have members of the US Senate elected once again by state legislatures rather than popular vote, end foreign aid, oppose the "The New World Order," workfare instead of welfare, stop illegal immigration, restore states' rights, stop all farm foreclosures, rescue the remaining POWs, cut the pay of all elected and appointed officials, diminish the power of the judicial branch, and recognize that America is a Christian nation. The campaign slogan was "God, Guns, Guts and Gritz."
Gritz's running-mate was Cyril "Cy" Minett, who served as a USAF fighter pilot in Vietnam and had been retired since 1974.
Minett predicted dire consequences if the Populists failed to win. "This is our last chance. If we don't get it done in 1992, very likely what's going to happen is that George Bush is going to declare a national emergency. They're going to suspend the Constitution, and then the fat is in the fire."
The running-mate believed, as did many in the Populist Party, that there was a conspiracy by the combined forces of the Trilateral Commission, Council of Foreign Relations, the media, and major corporations who were really operating the levers of power against the interests of the average working person.
According to one report, Minett "also believes there are 10 regional governments organized, with an appointed leader chosen and answerable only to the president, that are ready and waiting for their place in international power." If I am connecting the dots correctly, each "appointed leader" would possibly be an alien somehow associated with Hatonn. Now it gets interesting--
The writer Adam Parfrey, in an Apr. 8, 1993 piece for the San Diego Reader, related this story regarding Gritz and Minette:
On various weeks of the 1992 campaign, the Weekly World News supermarket tabloid showed candidates Clinton, Perot, and Bush shaking hands with a space alien. Bo Gritz may have been the only candidate to actually attempt to enact such an event. Apparently, his vice presidential candidate, Cyril Minett, had convinced Gritz in the midst of his campaign to fly to the Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles to meet with Hatonn, the eight-and-a-half-foot reptile-like Commander from the Pleiades.
Recalls Gritz, "We got to this little storefront, and Cy says, 'Now, I just want to verify this. Hatonn himself is going to walk in and meet with us?' And a person said, 'Yes, he'll be here momentarily.' I had this vision in my mind of a person in a lizard suit walking across a parking lot, but momentarily [a woman who] calls herself Dharma sat down at the table and said very quickly without any fanfare, 'I am present.' And I thought, 'Shoot, we got a channeling thing going on here.' Cy said, 'Are you eight and a half feet?' She said, 'No, no, I'm actually nine and a half feet.' "
So there you have it.
Gritz himself subscribed to numerous conspiracy theories, just to name a few: JFK's death was a coup involving very complicated connections -- Jonestown was a government project gone wrong -- FEMA has concentration camps -- The AIDS virus was invented in government labs -- The barcode is somehow connected with Satan -- We will all eventually have microchips embedded in our right hands -- Armageddon will come in 1996.
In August 1992 Gritz made national headlines when he successfully negotiated a peaceful settlement in the Ruby Ridge incident. A hero to some, Gritz became unpopular with others. He told Parfrey, "The Aryan Nation people were mad. They wanted Randall Weaver dead. They would have had their martyr. The media was mad. They wanted the Weavers up there in that little clapboard cabin as nothing but charred bones. That would have made a wonderful story. The truth is, a number of Weaver's neighbors were mad because they hated Weaver for whatever reason. A lot of people were mad because Weaver came out of there alive. And it just happened to be my misfortune that ... I got the Weaver family out alive with no more bloodshed."
Although Gritz was a natural in terms of gaining publicity, even some of his admirers were shocked at how naive he was politically. His expressing an open admiration for the criminal and unstable James Traficant serving as an example or choosing to address a small rally rather than appear on TV with Larry King where millions would hear his message. Being an outsider of the politico class does have a certain attraction for some voters, but demonstrating an inability to learn the game presents huge obstacles. Still, in spite of this handicap, the Populist Party Presidential ticket did surprisingly well even with Ross Perot sucking all the oxygen out the room for several other third parties.
The Gritz/Minett team placed 5th nationally with the most support coming from Mormon strongholds and the Far West. On the ballot in 18 states they finished 4th in seven of them: Utah (3.84%), Idaho (2.13%), Louisiana (1.04%), Montana (0.89%), Nevada (0.57%), Arizona (0.55%), Alaska (0.53%). They also were certified write-ins in about 17 other states, doing particularly well in that format in Wyoming (0.28%) and Oregon (0.10%)-- high percentages for write-ins.
Election history: none
Other occupations: US Air Force (1954-1974), editor of Aerospace Safety Magazine, flight instructor, emu rancher and exotic sheep raiser, author
Buried: Ridgeview West Memorial Park (Frisco, Tex.)
Notes:
Trivial Washington State trivia. When Kevin Harris was airlifted out of Ruby Ridge, he was taken to
Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, where I was born. Well, actually I was born in the old previous
building.
Minett attempted to be granted a Sovereign Citizen type of status in a Texas court in 1994.