Ferris E. Alger, January 15, 1913 (Des Moines, Iowa) - May 15, 1997 (Bucks County, Penn.)
VP candidate for Big Deal Party (1984)
Running mate with nominee: Gerald Baker (1932-2012)
Popular vote: 892 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
Cedar Falls, Iowa resident and typewriter salesman, political gadfly and perennial candidate Gerald "Jerry" Baker originally set his sights on the Presidency in 1979 and made an effort to run in the 1980 Democratic Party primaries. When that did not pan out he had a brief campaign as an independent but dropped out. Then as early as September 1980, he was already planning his 1984 project.
Baker officially launched his second run for the Presidency in April 1984. His running mate was a man frequently touted as America's smartest person, Ferris E. Alger. They ran under the name Big Deal Party. Said Baker, "Teddy Roosevelt called his administration the 'Square Deal,' and Harry Truman called his the 'Fair Deal.' Roosevelt's was the 'New Deal.' In a half-humorous sense, I'll call our candidacy the 'Big Deal.' That name might be unusual enough to attract some national media attention that we wouldn't get otherwise, and maybe some write-in votes in states where we can't get on the ballot." An alternative reason given by Baker was that when he told people he had an IQ of 154 they would respond with, "Big deal."
Before the campaign had started, in a letter to the editor published Feb. 21, 1984 in the Northern Iowan, Baker mentioned Alger and provided some biographical information about the future ticket: "I talked with Alger, now age 71 and living in Pennsylvania, on the phone last Saturday. He and I both belong to 'The Thousand,' an organization whose members all have IQs in the 99.9th percentile, or 150 on the Stanford-Binet. Alger, however, also belongs to the 'Mega Society,' whose 20 members have 'one in a million' IQs. His measured IQ is 'one in a hundred million,' and may be the highest in the U.S."
Campaigning mostly in Iowa but also in Minnesota, Kansas and Missouri, Baker's main message was not allowing the arms race to spin out of control. He also addressed the more local issues of agricultural loans and soil conservation.
Alger made a campaign stop in Iowa late in the campaign, promoting a reduction and stricter international control of nuclear weapons. He described his participation in the Big Deal Party as "sort of a lark." He had not actually met Baker until late Oct. 1984 and told the press the standard bearer was "something of a character."
Only on the ballot in Iowa, the Baker/Alger ticket earned 892 popular votes, 0.07% of the state total placing 5th out of 8.
Election history: none
Other occupations: physicist, engineer, glassblower, antinuclear activist, aircraft designer, lecturer, cotton picker, inventor
Buried: Trinity Episcopal Cemetery (Solebury, Penn.)
Notes:
Lived in an orphanage from age 9-11
IQ score of 197 on the Stanford-Binet scale
Enjoyed classic cars.
"I've had to fight every step of the way. I have been cheated of credit and compensation for discoveries worth several million dollars. The establishment can forgive a man for anything except being right."--Ferris Alger 1985
