June Syers
VP candidate for Lemonade Party (1996)
Running mate with nominee: Judson Moon (b. 1984)
Popular vote: ? (?%)
Electoral vote: 272/538
The campaign:
The juvenile fiction book The Kid Who Ran For President by Dan Gutman has the premise of a 12-year old boy named Judson Moon being talked into running for US President as a "goof" by a wiseguy schoolmate. In the story, events snowball beyond the control of the candidate and he is indeed elected to office.
Moon, who lived in Madison, Wis., picked a wheelchair-bound neighbor and retired nurse as his running-mate. He described her as, "June Syers is an old African-American woman I've known since the days she used to babysit for me. She has Parkinson's disease, which makes her hands and legs shake. But her mind still works fine." Their campaign slogan is "Moon + June."
Syers said she had not voted for President since 1944, "Haven't come across anybody worth votin' for since FDR." This would mean she could not have been born any later than 1923, meaning she would be no younger than 73 in 1996. Syers is portrayed as plain-speaking and a keeper of wisdom, "Politics changes a person. It rips your heart out and puts a stone in its place."
Although the story was originally published in 1996, the amended edition I checked out of the library was from 2012 and mentions of Internet social media tools that did not exist in the Clinton era were obviously added.
Moon's platform can be summarized by the answers he provided in the televised Presidential debate--
Q: You're on record as saying your first official act as president will be to abolish homework? What will you second official act be?
A: To abolish making beds. Why make a bed in the morning? You're only going to sleep in it again that night.
Q: What do you plan to do about jobs?
A: I plan to get one as soon as my term as president is over.
Q: Which president do you most admire, and why?
A: Grover Cleveland. Because he became president despite the fact that he was named after a character on Sesame Street.
Q: How do you feel about school prayer?
A: Every morning I pray that school will be closed.
Q: What do you intend to do about teenage pregnancy?
A: My dad says we're going to sit down and have a talk about that, but he keeps putting it off.
Q: It takes a tremendous amount of desire to become president. Do you have the fire in the belly?
A: Yeah, it must have been those tacos I ate for dinner.
Q: What's the toughest part about running for president?
A: Learning not to pick my nose in public.
Q: What do you think we should do about hazardous waste?
A: I'd suggest you try a strong laxative.
Although the number of popular votes and percentages were not reported in the book, it was revealed the Moon/Syers ticket won 272 Electoral votes and part of that came from New York, New Jersey, Maine, and California. His opponents in the story, also fictitious, included an incumbent President.
The story relates how the age restriction of 35+ was removed from the Constitution, but did not address the problem that both candidates on the ticket were residents of the same state. Also, the voting age remained at 18, so Moon could not vote for himself.
Election history: none.
Other occupations: nurse, babysitter
Notes:
In Aug. 2016, John Oliver of Last Week Tonight, gave a five-minute monologue on the parallels between the Trump and Moon campaigns.
