Perry Eugene Wharton II, August 31, 1961 -
VP candidate for Independent (2016)
Running mate with nominee: Michael Stephen Levinson (b. 1942)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
A perennial candidate since the 1980s, Michael S. Levinson's campaigns usually used the Republican primaries as a vehicle for expressing the candidate's views on issues of the day. Once the primaries were over, he was generally done for the election season. But it appears that starting with the 2008 election Levinson was moving to the Independent route, although Levinson would also call himself an Independent Republican at times.
In late October, 1972 Mary Levinson of Buffalo, NY announced she was running for President as an independent write-in. Actually she was serving as a stand-in for her son, Michael, who at age 30 was too young to be elected President. Michael had, according to the press, "definite views on ending the Vietnam war and cutting rents everywhere." The campaign's motto was "You stand on your own two feet." Mary Levinson selected James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, to be her running mate.
Michael did campaign on his own at a later date and became known as a perennial candidate. His decision to wear odd headwear during debates and panel discussions did draw some attention, but viewers were distracted by his form which overshadowed the content. Levinson's campaign literature was delivered in his interpretation of the English language, using wordplay and puns which, like the hats, made the voter have to work in order to discover his platform. Some samples from his 2016 webpage--
Upon election I am going to immediately
Merge Cash In Advance (CIA) and Fascist Bureaucracy Ink. (FBI)
Into a single agency,
that way
civil or criminal, domestic or foreign
All inteligence gathering is conducted under the same roof with a statute
clearly prohibiting
Interference in any citizen’s domestic life whether political or private
unless the person is believed to be maybe
planning radical terrorist activities
then we should be watching 24 / 7 ready to grab them
after they purchase a pressure cooker, etc.
In the land of the blind the one-eye man is king.
Upon election to president,
I will meet with Members of Congress
and together we will
get to the bottom of the Federal Bureau of Eye's
illegal domestic activities that weakened our country
and keep us unsafe.
------------------------------
My deal for all who read my page and cough up bucks for my campaign:
You get buttons and cards via US mail.
WEAR MY BUTTON / SAVE MY CARD!
You will be on the first come first serve list for
White House lunch.
I plan on feeding two hundred people every day.
We lunch in the East Room at noon.
Then you come back after 6:00 P.M.
You are going to be the audience
For my After Dinner United Family Talk show
LIVE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
That's my dough nation deal for all Lev for president supporters.
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I created a Vehicle for World Peace.
The New York Times columnist, Thomas L. Friedman,
is my choice for Deputy Secretary of State.
My world wide dusk until dawn
spoken poem for all mankind,
with every line a delicate sensible rhyme,
is going to air on all the television channels
and all of our radio channels, world wide.
Thomas L. Friedman will go around to all of the countries
not especially our friends today,
where he, Thomas L. Friedman has personal friends; and,
as Deputy Secretary of State
Tom will convince those governments to "officially" tune in to my world peace poem.
Judge the Poet Peacemaker
Vote
the inspired world class poet
your choice for President.
Lev should be nominated by both political parties
The Libertarians and Greens shall follow ...
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Here's the Uncle Sam Shazam Lev Deal:
We issue 2% Shazam Savings Bonds
to pay off everyone's credit card debt,
moving the debt to Uncle Sam Shazam cards
interest rate 7% to 12%.
Deep ending on your cred
the spread between 2% Shazam bonds
and the interest on your Shazam cred card
is applied to further drawing down our national debt!
Soon enough we won’t have a national debt sucking up our wealth.
The card companies will have millions of reliable customers
with clean cards burning holes in their pockets.
New companies will form / business will begin to boom.
The poverty line poor with Social Security
will have a $500 line backed by their monthly sinecure.
-------------------------------------------------
Kevin Hogan of The Atlantic had a tense exchange with Levinson, as reported Oct. 6, 2015--
Even the mere suggestion that they are not viable candidates makes some become acrimonious, like 10-time presidential hopeful Michael S. Levinson. Levinson said J. Edgar Hoover had him marked as “person of Special interest.” He’s a cross between Gandhi and Heaven’s Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite. The 74-year-old Florida resident tells me his story began when he had a vision of becoming president at age 4 while doodling in an Abraham Lincoln book.
The peace and love candidate steps up the velocity of insults at my questions about his White House run and finally tells me to piss off. “I write books. I have a giant sense of words, world orders, and word hors oeuvres—a new word order,” he said. “I speak I win. I have a date with the universe I cannot be late.”
In earlier campaigns Levinson had selected Muhammad Ali as his running-mate, but the boxer had died in June, 2016. Levinson's new VP was Perry E. Wharton II, who lived in a neighboring apartment in St. Petersburg, Fla. Wharton appeared to have been a transplant from Texas. His name did not show up in Levinson's electioneering webpage.
The Levinson/Wharton ticket had become registered as write-ins in Kansas, where a total of zero votes were reported. Since both candidates were residents of the same state there would have been a potential Constitutional problem in the event of their victory.
Levinson also ran as "the unknown candidate for President" in 2020, but I could not locate his choice for VP. However, he did have a novel plan for assuming the Presidency according to a Twitter post on Sept. 9, 2019--
I am preparing a request to address the House of Reps as I am an applicant to be Speaker of the House. Upon election Trump and Pence will be imperached within ten days, and I the speaker will become President5- Nancy Pelosi V.P. A WINNER!
Election history: none
Other occupations: ?
Notes:
Wharton is registered with No Party Affiliation.
