Monday, June 22, 2020

Alexandra Lorraine



Alexandra Lorraine, March 15, 1952 (Chicago, Ill.) - 

VP candidate for Independent (2000)

Running mate with nominee: Daniel Joseph Pearlman (1935-2019)
Popular vote: 1 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Daniel Joseph Pearlman of Arroyo Hondo, NM had run for the State Senate in 1996 as an independent, and for US Congress in a special election in 1997 as part of the Reform Party, but in 2000 he was making a play for the Big One. His running-mate was Alexandra Lorraine of Warwick, RI, but she had earlier also lived in the Taos area of New Mexico.

Pearlman and Lorraine had made an attempt to run for Governor and Lt. Governor as part of the Greens/Green Party USA in 1998. Pearlman, a former mathematician and scientist for the Rand Corporation in California, had described himself as a "Gandhiesque" spiritual candidate. One newspaper reported that Pearlman "sleeps outdoors, lives on Social Security, keeps his belongings in a van and gets his mail from a post office box in Taos." The Green Party itself sabotaged the Pearlman/Lorraine team as much as they could. They considered Pearlman a much too eccentric candidate for their tastes and a hijacker to boot. The Secretary of State disqualified him as a certified write-in but Lorraine did survive only to be defeated in the primary.

Pearlman made some legal efforts to change the election laws of New Mexico which in his view institutionalized the two party system. He advocated ballots should not have printed names, and the positive result would be the voter could write in any candidate they wanted to select. In the process of this effort, as part of a letter to state legislators Pearlman said he was the holder of the "Office of Governor of Peace for the State of New Mexico."

Pearlman endeavored to register as a write-in candidate for President in all the states he could. His home state of New Mexico would not allow him to do so. But he was certified, so far as I can determine, in Kansas, Maryland, New York, and Utah. The Pearlman/Lorraine ticket garnered their single national vote from Maryland although Lorraine was not actually certified alongside Pearlman in that particular state.

After 2000 Pearlman continued to use the courts to challenge not only election laws but also capital punishment.

Election history:
1998 - Lt. Governor of New Mexico (Greens/Green Party USA) - primary - defeated

Other occupations: artist, organic farmer, peace activist, acting coordinator for the "Millennium Event" (2000) with the All One Tribe Foundation, clairvoyant, co-owner Laughing Horse Inn

Notes:
Moved to Taos from the San Francisco Bay Area and experienced the yet-to-be-explained "Taos Hum."