Michael Joseph Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson, August 29, 1958 (Gary, Ind.) – June 25, 2009 (Los Angeles, Calif.)

VP candidate for Independent (aka Independent Republican) (2000, 2008)

Running mate with nominee (2000, 2008): Roger Henry Jewell (b. 1960)
Popular vote (2000, 2008): ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote (2000, 2008): 0/538

The campaign (2000):

On Nov. 29, 1998, reporter Robert Gavin disclosed, "Roger Jewell of Phoenix, Ariz., also was a candidate in 1996. This time he's apparently hoping a well-known running mate will put him over the top. In addition to his own committee, he formed the 'Draft Michael Jackson (King of Pop) for VP 2000 Committee,' according to FEC records."

From what I can gather, Jewell has run for President in 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2016. Although he has initially filed as a Republican or Libertarian on occasion it seems he usually settles into an independent status by Election Day.

Jewell has also created numerous PACs over the course of his political career, here are several I have identified that provide a window into his platform--

ROGER JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT '96 COMMITTEE
REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT UNIFICATION PROJECT
FRIENDS OF THE LIGHT PARTY
COMMITTEE FOR FAIR AND OPEN ELECTIONS
AMERICANS AGAINST ABORTION
ISRAEL/PALESTINE PEACE MEDIATION COMMITTEE
AMERICAN WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE
PEACE IN IRAQ NOW COMMITTEE
COMMITTEE FOR THE AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION FOR EQUAL
   OPPORTUNITY FOR PRESIDENCY
DRAFT MICHAEL JACKSON (KING OF POP) FOR VP 2000 COMMITTEE
DRAFT MICHAEL JACKSON KING OF POP FOR VP 2008 CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
COALITION OF INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
COMMITTEE FOR THE DECLASSIFICATION OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS RELATING TO
  UFOS
ROGER JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT 2008
REPARATIONS NOW!
EXPLORATION COMMITTEE FOR PEACEFUL FORMATION OF A SPACE NATION
AGENCY FOR DECRIMINALIZATION OF DRUG LAWS
CARING CHRISTIANS FOR FAIRNESS AND GAY MARRIAGE
VETERANS FOR ROGER JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008
AMERICANS FOR FAIR TAX STRUCTURE
GET UP STAND UP STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS COMMITTEE
PATRIOTS FOR STRICTER GUN POLICIES
FIGHT THE POWER COMMITTEE
ROGER JEWELL DRAFT MICHAEL JACKSON KING OF POP PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN
  COMMITTEE 2008
JEWISH-CHRISTIAN COALITION FOR ROGER JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008
PATRIOTS FOR THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS AND ASSAULT WEAPONS (AS PER THE
  CONSTITUTION)
JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT '96 COMMITTEE
MUSLIMS FOR JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008
COMMITTEE INVES/POSSIBLE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT/1996 REP PRES CAND ROGER
  JEWELL
ROGER JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT 2000 CAMPAIGN
FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL DISABILITY PARTY
ELECTORAL COLLEGE FOR ROGER JEWELL 2015
ROGER JEWELL FOR LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENT 2016
ROGER JEWELL FOR PRESIDENT 2016

Not sure what his connection was with the Light Party or the National Disability Party. The 1996 assassination attempt is a story yet to be uncovered.

In a 2014 too-much-personal-information interview, Jewell expressed admiration for Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, coming across as something of a centrist conservative peppered with a few social libertarian policies.

Jewell's choice of Michael Jackson as a running-mate, was, I assume, news to Mr. Jackson if in fact he knew about it. The Jewell-created PAC called Draft Michael Jackson (King of Pop) For VP 2000 Committee could possibly have attracted Jackson's attention. In 2000 Jackson was living in New York City and working on his 10th solo album, Invincible.

I could not locate any states where Jewell was a certified write-in candidate in 2000.

The campaign (2008):

Although Jewell had run for President in 2004 there is not a lot data about that campaign. But in 2008 he once again indicated Jackson would be a fine running-mate as Jewell formed a PAC called Draft Michael Jackson King of Pop For VP 2008 Campaign Committee. Demonstrating a possible inner conflict, Jewell also formed the PAC known as Roger Jewell Draft Michael Jackson King of Pop President Campaign Committee 2008.

For his part, Jackson was preparing for a new concert tour. Back in California, Century 21 had not been kind the King of Pop. He lost his contract with Sony, was taken to court as a result of various child sexual abuse allegations, and he was on the edge of financial ruin. Also his health was rapidly declining. If the Jewell/Jackson ticket had emerged victorious in 2008, the Vice-President would have died only six months after taking office if Fate kept the same timetable.

Jewell did not run for President in 2012, instead acting as the Executive Director of the Draft Sarah Palin for President Committee. But in 2016 he made another run for the White House.

Election history: none

Other occupations: entertainer, King of Pop

Buried: Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale, Calif.)

Notes:
Washington State trivia alert! Roger Jewell was born in Tacoma. I knew some Jewells in Olympia in
  the 1960s. Related?
In addition to a long list of celebrities, Jackson is buried in the same cemetery as fellow third party
 VPs Claude Alonzo Watson (1885-1978), Prohibition Party 1936, and Job Harriman (1861-1925),
  Social Democratic Party 1900. Like Jackson, Harriman was also born in Indiana.

Dale Harold Learn

Dale Harold Learn, December 8, 1897 (East Swiftwater, Penn.) - March 16, 1976 (East Stroudsburg, Penn.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1948)

Running mate with nominee: Claude A. Watson (1885–1978)

Popular vote: 103,708 (0.21%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Claude Watson was nominated again for President but not without a contest. Other names proposed were Enoch Arden Holtwick (future 1952 VP nominee and 1956 Presidential nominee), David Leigh Colvin (1920 VP nominee and 1936 Presidential nominee with Watson as his running mate) and Dale Harold Learn, a realtor from Pennsylvania. Watson won the prize and Learn was nominated as the running mate.

Watson knew how to work the media. He publicized the fact he was the first Presidential nominee to pilot his own campaign airplane. A tall tale was told that Mrs. Watson had already visited the White House in order to make redecoration plans when she assumed the role of First Lady.

The 1948 Prohibition Party platform did indeed have a few extreme statements regarding alcohol and God being the source of all government, but on many other issues it is a surprisingly centrist document given their earlier hard Right religious turn in 1940 and 1944. This time they probably had the most moderate platform in tone of the many third parties running that year.

They earned 0.21% of the national vote, landing in 6th place. As paltry as that sounds the Party would never come close to finishing with a percentage that high again. Their 103,708 popular votes marked the final instance where they surpassed 100,000.

On Election Day, the Watsons were unable to vote since their absentee ballots had been misplaced.

With recorded votes in about two dozen states, the Watson/Learn ticket had their largest percentages in Indiana (0.89%), Kansas (0.82%), Washington (0.68%) and Michigan (0.62%).

Election history:
1942 - Governor of Pennsylvania (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1946 - US Senate (Penn.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1947 - Prohibition Party nomination for US President - defeated

Other occupations: school director, realtor, lay minister for the United Methodist Church in East Stroudsburg, Penn., Trustee of East Stroudsburg State College, US Army soldier WWI.

Buried: Laurelwood Cemetery (Stroudsburg, Penn.)

Notes:
Mason
Buried in the same cemetery as Walter Burke and A. Mitchell Palmer.

Andrew Nathan Johnson

Andrew Nathan Johnson, September 21, 1875 (Jackson County, Ky.) - August 30, 1959 (Lexington, Ky.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1944)

Running mate with nominee: Claude A. Watson (1885-1978)

Popular vote: 74,758 (0.16%)    

Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Claude A. Watson, who had been the running mate in 1935, was nominated in Nov. 1943 for President and Rev. Floyd C. Carrier was selected as the VP. Carrier developed some health problems and was replaced by Rev. Andrew Nathan Johnson in January 1944.

In addition to proposing a single six-year term of office for the Presidency, the 1944 Prohibition Party platform continued the open appeal to Christian churches as it had in 1940:

True Use of the Ballot:

  We pledge our support to the original purpose of the ballot, which is to register the individual voter's conviction on principle, and not merely to elect persons to office. We recognize church leaders, pastors, church officials, members and editors of Christian literature as very influential on behalf of higher standards of political action, and we urge them to recognize and teach the true use of the ballot for principle. We urge them to unite in this party, which upholds righteousness as implied in the Ten Great Comandments and the Golden Rule.

The Liquor Problem:

  Right thinking people are alarmed at the rapidly growing peril of the liquor power as now manifested:

    1. Inflicting the alcoholic appetite upon millions of girls and women.
    2. In multiplying juvenile delinquency.
    3. In increasing gambling, vice and all kinds of crime.
    4. In combating the efforts of the church and other moral forces.
    5. In dominating our great organs of public opinion.
    6. In subjecting political leaders and parties to its control.
    7. In delaying, if not endangering, the success of our war effort.

  The re-legalizing of the liquor traffic has brought about the worst moral reaction of modern times. Present conditions are due directly to the action of Government in restoring the liquor power through repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, and repeal was due directly to the platform pledges of both the old parties in the 1932 presidential campaign.

  Of all the wrongs committed by Government none has been worse than the authorizing of the liquor traffic to degenerate our own citizenship.

Watson was denied permission for priority airplane travel or to buy a new car for the campaign by war rationing agents. By and by he apparently was given his air travel rights and was issued extra gasoline for campaigning by auto. Watson also made the news when his brother was arrested on a DWI charge in Feb. 1944.

On the ballot in a couple dozen states, they finished strongest in Oregon (0.49%) and Alabama (0.45%)

Election history:
1908 - US House of Representatives (Ky.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1943 - Governor of Kentucky (Prohibition Party) - defeated

Other occupations: Methodist minister

Buried: Wilmore Cemetery (Wilmore, Ky.)

Notes:
Graduated Asbury College 1903, DD from Ohio Northern University, PhD from Milton University
 (Pennsylvania?).
Buried in the same cemetery as Leander Lycurgus Pickett (1859-1928) who was the VP candidate for
 the American Party in 1924 and made a trustee of Asbury College one year after Johnson graduated.

Claude Alonzo Watson

Claude Alonzo Watson,  June 26, 1885 (Wexford, Mich.) – January 3, 1978 (Los Angeles, Calif.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (aka National Prohibition Party aka Commonwealth Party) (1936)

Running mate with nominee: David Leigh Colvin (1880-1959)

Popular vote: 37,646 (0.08%)

Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

The 1936 Prohibition Party convention selected WWI hero Alvin York as the running mate for D. Leigh Colvin (who was himself the 1920 VP selection for the Party) but the decorated soldier declined so the delegates turned to Los Angeles attorney Claude A. Watson.

It must have been a very difficult campaign year for the Colvin/Watson ticket. It was the first presidential election since the experiment with Prohibition had ended and for the veteran Party activists it must have felt like starting all over again.

The 1936 Party platform, seething with anger, roasted the two major parties over repeal of Prohibition. It also outlined policy statements on other issues and stated: "We present a sane, liberal and comprehensive program on the great problems of our time." This would probably be the last time the word "liberal" was used in a positive way by this group. 

Other selected passages foreshadowed the future for this party:

"It is plain that the crass materialism of our dominant parties; their abandonment of moral precepts; their flouting of the majesty of the law; their double dealing; their supreme self interest must be replaced by a return to the early American principles of dependence upon Almighty God as the source of all just government and to a following of the principles of the Prince of Peace."

"Movie Censorship

  We stand for federal supervision of the creation of motion picture films at the source of production so that the public effect may be beneficial and uplifting."

"Gambling

  We are opposed to the legalization of lotteries, gambling and all other forms of exploitation of the people."

With recorded votes in 25 states, their strongest finish was in California with 0.49%.

Election history:
1938 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1942 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1944 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1946 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1948 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1950 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1952 - Los Angeles County (Calif.) District Attorney (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1954 - Republican nomination for Attorney General of California - defeated

Other occupations: minor league baseball player, attorney, Methodist minister, author

Buried: Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale, Calif.)

Notes:
Buried in the same cemetery as Forrest Ackerman, James Arness, Theda Bara, Joe Barbera, George Barris, Billy Barty, L. Frank Baum, Warner Baxter, Iceberg Slim, Wallace Beery, Joe Besser, Joan Blondell, Monte Blue, Humphrey Bogart, Gutzon Borglum, Clara Bow, William Boyd, Joe E. Brown, Vincent Bugliosi, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Francis X. Bushman, Jack Carson, William Castle, Lon Chaney, Charlie Chase, Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Donald Crisp, George Cukor, Bob Cummings, Michael Curtiz, Dan Dailey, Delmer Daves, Sammy Davis Jr., William Demarest, Noah Dietrich, Walt Disney, Theodore Dreiser, Marie Dressler, Don Drysdale, W.C. Fields, Larry Fine, Errol Flynn, Dwight Frye, Clark Gable, Jerry Giesler, Samuel Goldwyn, Sydney Greenstreet, Jean Harlow, Edith Head, Edward Everett Horton, Michael Jackson, Jennifer Jones, Tom Keene, Ted Knight, Kathryn Kuhlman, Louis L'Amour, Alan Ladd, Carole Landis, Mervyn Leroy, Harold Lloyd, Carole Lombard, Ernst Lubitsch, Jeanette MacDonald, Chico Marx, Gummo Marx, Mike Mazurki, Chuck McCann, Victor McLaglen, Vincente Minnelli, Tom Mix, Clayton Moore, Hugh O'Brian, Merle Oberon, Clifford Odets, Edna May Oliver, R.F. Outcault, Lilli Palmer, Franklin Pangborn, Mary Pickford, Dick Powell, Blossom Rock, S.Z. Sakall, David O. Selznick, Aimee Semple McPherson, Norma Shearer, Red Skelton, William French Smith, Carrie Snodgress, Max Steiner, Casey Stengel, Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Taylor, Irving Thalberg, Spencer Tracy, Ben Turpin, Hal B. Wallis, Mary Wells, James Whale, Bobby Womack, Sam Wood, Robert Woolsey, Hank Worden, William Wyler, Ed Wynn, Keenan Wynn, and Robert Young
The winner in the 1938 race for Attorney General of California was Earl Warren.
The winner in the 1950 race for Attorney General of California was Edmund G. "Pat" Brown.
Graduate of Alma College (Mich.)
His widow, Maude (1889-1996) lived to be 106.
Licensed pilot.
Sometimes called Dr. Claude Watson although the origin of the prefix is murky.