Barbie Millicent Roberts

Barbie Millicent Roberts, March 9, 1959 (Willows, Wis.) -

VP candidate for USA interParty (aka interParty) (2000)
VP candidate for Independent (2016)
VP candidate for Independent (OTC) (2016)

Running mate with nominee (2000): Raymond Kenneth Petry
Running mate with nominee (2016): Barbie Millicent Roberts (b. 1959)
Running mate with nominee (2016): Drunk Menopausal Barbie (b. 1959)
Popular vote (2000, 2016): ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote (2000, 2016): 0/538
 

The campaign (2000):

Raymond K. Petry of Honolulu had run for President in 1992 and 1996, but in 2000 he made a concerted effort to be drafted as Vice-President instead. No one took him up on his offer so he relaunched as a Presidential candidate under the USA interParty banner. According to his webpage, "Barbi" [i.e. Barbie] was nominated as his VP, presumably for the Barbie and Ken humor value: "Petry is leading the interplanetary space effort in this decade, and America is not going alone: Barbi has been nominated for Vice President: Sign the on-line Petition to put Ken and Barbi on the Ballot in your State."

Citing Manifest Destiny, Petry advocated expanding the space program for colonization of the Moon, Mars, and even Pluto.

"With a bit of web-clatter the oval office is being prepared for Mr. Petry: We're culling and gleening for Election year AD 2000 ... and, Mr. Petry is preparing himself to run for the Presidency - an unprecedented move: the former VeeP candidate is going for the Presidency - [maybe just to be VeeP] - so, this'll be extra challenging for Mr. Petry - he's been acting as President for the next four years, now he's ready for office in AD 2001 - Mr. Petry has proven to America that he's a better President than any of them, and that America has been better-off in four years with him acting President - so, America will let him take office ... and if America ever needed a government-within-the-government, this is it: Mr. Petry is ready."

As a reflection of his background and interest in mathematics, much of Petry's platform was science-based.

Meanwhile Barbie, full name Barbie Millicent Roberts, was already running for President in 2000 on her own and fending off a challenge from the Vanessa/Eva doll ticket.

The campaign (2016):

OK, I'm not sure how this works but Barbie was her own running-mate, sort of a split-personality thing. Not unlike Austin Burton serving as his own VP nominee in 1976.

In the year where Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee, Mattel spokesperson told the press, "The President and Vice President dolls continue our efforts to expose girls to inspiring careers that are underrepresented by women ... We see this doll set as a timely and topical platform to further the conversation around female leadership."

Mattel had worked with She Should Run, "a nonpartisan nonprofit working to dramatically increase the number of women considering a run for public office" in the development of the dolls.

VP Barbie's main difference from Presidential Barbie was that she wore glasses.

The campaign (2016 : OTC):

The OTC Comedy Troupe is based in Georgia and has an online presence via Youtube. In Sept.-Oct. 2016 actress Kelley Cody-Grimm presented a campaign running her "Drunk Menopausal Barbie" character for President.

Using the slogan, "Let's make America fabulous," Drunk Menopausal Barbie presented an African American Barbie doll as the Vice Presidential nominee.

Election history:
1992 - US President (Independent) - defeated
2000 - US President (Independent) - defeated
2004 - US President (Party of Girls) - defeated
2008 - US President (Independent) - defeated
2012 - US President (B Party) - defeated
2016 - US President (Independent) - defeated
2016 - US President (Independent : OTC) - defeated

Other occupations: over 200 careers

Notes:
Barbie sat out the 1996 Presidential election, and seems to be in 2020 as well, so far.

Barbara Garson

Barbara Garson, July 7, 1941 (New York, NY) -

VP candidate for Socialist Party of the United States of America (aka Socialist Party USA aka Socialist Party aka Liberty Union Party aka Independent) (1992)

Running mate with nominee: John Quinn Brisben (1934-2012)
Popular vote: 1,689 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

In 1992 the Socialist Party nominated J. Quinn Brisben for President. He had previously been the VP nominee for the Party in 1976.

Brisben predicted bad economic times for the years ahead. Reforming the health care system was a topic he highlighted.

Brisben's speeches had some very quotable lines:

The major parties are simply pawns to the military industrial complex. They accept huge campaign donations, figure out who they need to do favors for and come up with the most electable candidate.

This presidential Gong Show does nothing to serve the people's interest.

First we need to start freeing our minds by not watching any commercial TV. I can assure you that you don't need anything they advertise.

More Greens are becoming Reds as they realize they're not going to get much sympathy for the spotted owl if they can't save the job of the lumberman.

Once involved in socialism, people are often surprised at how popular many of our ideas really are. We stand for universal health care, women's rights, national day care and housing and jobs for everyone.

One good thing about running as a socialist, you can prepare your concession speech months in advance.

We would be better off with a parliamentary system as the British have because our electoral system is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'll probably end up losing more elections than Basil Rathbone lost sword fights ... This campaign is an educational effort. That's a left-wingy way to say we're going to lose but it's worth it anyway.

Early in the campaign Brisben was arrested in Orlando, Fla. for raising his cane at a law enforcement officer he felt was mishandling someone in a wheelchair. He was literally raising cane.

Brisben's VP was William D. "Bill" Edwards, the Party's first African American national nominee. The Bay Area-based Edwards was a labor organizer, former longshoreman, and anti-Apartheid activist. Sometimes the media called him "Edward D. Williams."

Unfortunately Edwards, who was 72, died on Aug. 5, 1992. By the end of the month the VP position was filled by Barbara Garson. She was already something of a public figure through her anti-war play MacBird! (which I enjoyed very much at the time it was released).

As Garson explained in a piece written late Oct. 1992:

Late this summer, I found a message on my answering machine saying that the vice presidential candidate of the Socialist Party had died. Could I help get his obituary into the papers? ("And by the way, you wouldn't want to run for vice president, would you?")

I'm a proud, though inactive, member of the Socialist Party and I agree with the platform. Still, I hesitated to become a candidate. Could I withstand the media scrutiny?

When asked by C-SPAN what she would do if elected Vice-President, Garson replied, "I'd demand a recount!"

Although the Liberty Union Party in Vermont endorsed the ticket, they did not achieve ballot status there. They were also endorsed by Dr. Benjamin Spock and singer Pete Seeger.

On Election Day, Edwards was still on the ballot in Tennessee. The Brisben/Garson appeared in the District of Columbia (probably) with 0.08% of the vote, Wisconsin 0.05%, and Utah 0.02% (placing 13 out of 13). Brisben was also write-in candidate in a dozen states.

Election history: none

Other occupations: coffee house worker, playwright, author.

Notes:
Third party figure Austin Burton aka Chief Burning Wood (1976) said Garson's MacBird! inspired
 him to invent the name from this line:
"MacBird shall never, never be undone/
 Till burning wood doth come to Washington."
Washington State trivia triple alert: First, Garson worked in the Shelter Half in Tacoma, Wash. ca. 1969, an anti-war coffee house where soldiers from nearby Fort Lewis could hang out. Second, the above-mentioned Burton was born in Washington State. Third, when I was college I played the McGovern role in a radio drama broadcast on KAOS-FM. The author, another student had written a play spinning off of  MacBird! but instead the topic was Nixon.

Austin Marion Burton

 1968

 1968

Austin Marion Burton, March 17, 1918 (Wenatchee, Wash.) - February 16, 2008 (Bennington, Vt.)

VP candidate for Independent (aka Independent Indian Party) (1976)

Running mate with nominee: Chief Burning Wood (1918-2008)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

It is pretty obvious from the get go that Austin Burton never let the facts get in the way of a good story, or hoax. And in true Washington State style it was all delivered with a straight face. So deciding what is confabulation vs. reality in his tales to the media is an interesting exercise. His claims of being a quarter or 1/8 Native American (the percentage would change with the telling as well what tribe) might have worked in 1976 but these days he would need to offer documentation or be charged with being a pretindian. He claimed he "was made a chief by three Oneida princesses on a TV show."

There were also dubious claims of being married to a topless dancer half his age and possessing a couple exotic animals, among other factoids fed to an uncritical press.

Burton said he invented the name Chief Burning Wood from a couple lines in the anti-LBJ play MacBird (1967)

"MacBird shall never, never be undone/
 Till burning wood doth come to Washington."

In 1968 Burton, who was described as a "Republican who makes psychedelic posters in Greenwich Village" wanted to file in the New Hampshire primary as Chief Burning Wood but was not allowed so he was forced to have his real name on the ballot. But not for President. He was running for Veep. It was sort of a good news/bad news campaign looking at his tactics through the lens of Century 21. Good news because he was an advocate for the rights of indigenous Americans. Bad news because he was perpetuating a negative stereotype through his costume and comic antics. 

Incredibly, he won the 1968 New Hampshire Republican primary for the Vice-Presidential nomination. "If Nixon wins he's morally obligated to take me as vice president. He said every candidate should be tested in the fires of the primaries, and I'm the one who has been," he said.

Around 1970 Burton moved to Panama, claiming he needed to escape oppression from the Nixon administration.

In 1972 he returned to New Hampshire to run for Vice-President as a Republican and declared, "When I won the New Hampshire primary in 1968 I thought it would impress the Republican party. Well it impressed them all right. They figured if an unknown kook could pick up 11,000 votes there must be something in it. So they went out and picked up an unknown kook of their own. Spiro Agnew." He paid his filing fee with a four-foot long snakeskin and wampum beads and was actually allowed on the ballot. It would seem that in both 1968 and 1972 the Chief Burning Wood character was running some kind of write-in campaign for the Republican nomination for President.

In 1976 he repeated his New Hampshire effort, but this time it seems like he wanted to extend his campaign beyond the Republican Party. In his FEC filing data for 1976 he filed nationally as Austin Burton and is listed as "Unknown" for party affiliation.

Having failed to attain any nomination from the Republican Party, newspapers called the Burton effort an independent campaign, and Burton himself mused at using the name Independent Indian Party. His Chief Burning Wood persona was the Presidential nominee and Burton would weirdly be a running-mate with himself

It seems active electioneering pretty much faded by the end of summer 1976.

Election history:
1968 - Republican nomination for US Vice-President - defeated
1972 - Republican nomination for US Vice-President - defeated
1976 - Republican nomination for US Vice-President - defeated

Other occupations: psychedelic poster shop owner, Junior Grade U.S. Naval Reserve (WWII), advertising, author, manager of Gourmet Dining Club in Louisville Ky., coupon book maker, retail salesman

Buried: Wenatchee City Cemetery (Wenatchee, Wash.)

Notes:
Attended Central Washington State College 1937-1939
University of Washington graduate with a degree in political science. Burton and I share the same 
 alma mater
Studied law at Gonzaga University
Allegedly had a pet spider monkey named Gerry Nixon Ford
Played the piano and organ