Marilyn Jean Downs

 

Marilyn Jean Downs, September 22, 1938 (Excelsior Wis.) - November 26, 2013 (Boscobel, Wis.)

VP candidate for Independent (aka Non Affiliated) (2012)

Running mate with nominee: Rick L. Rogers
Popular vote: 1 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Rick L. Rogers of [Washington State trivia alert!!!] Mill Creek, Wash. filed with the FEC for President late in the season, Sept. 26, 2012. His Vice-President was Marilyn Jean Downs of Boscobel, Wis., although as we shall see Rogers told Donald Trump he would consider him for VP.

Rogers' campaign website has not survived but his social media during the 2012 electioneering has endured--  

Oct. 26, 2012
Mr. Trump,
I appreciate how engaged you are in the election.
I’m a working family man that a few weeks ago, decided to run for President of the United States because both parties are corrupt and ruining America. I would turn things around for real and for good.
The media refuses to take me seriously and has decided that the American People don’t need to know about me or hear about my superior vision, ideas and plans for America.
When I started there was time for my campaign to gain momentum and eventual victory. But with the media brick wall I encountered time is so short now, its time to start throwing “Hail Marys”.
You have the resources to quickly get me in the game. In fact, I would consider you for my VP if we come to a mutual understanding of what that entails.
I ask for an appointment to discuss it with you at your earliest convenience. Please have someone contact me ASAP today to arrange the appointment.
Please visit my website for more information about me and my campaign.
Thank you,
Rick Rogers
http://www.rogersforamerica.com/
saveamerica_2012@yahoo.com

Oct. 27, 2012
I hear so many people complaining about President Obama and the Democrats and about the Republicans. Yet, none of you will help me stop their corruption and incompetence.
If you are one of the complainers, guess what! You deserve whatever pain they cause you because you refuse to take action.
We go from one party in control to the other over and over again. They never solve our problems and spend all our money and bankrupt us doing it. Then they create new problems that they won't fix.
Yet, you do nothing except complain. You fall for their lies again and again.
You no longer deserve to complain because I gave you a chance and you rejected it.
Step up, or shut up!!!

Oct. 30, 2012
Read it and weep!
Here are my latest Electoral Vote assessments. The national popular vote polls mean absolutely nothing.
October 14th:  President Obama 288 and Governor Romney 250. (includes a 3% bias toward Governor Romney)
October 19th:  President Obama 277 and Governor Romney 248. (CO & NH too close to call)
October 26th:  (1) President Obama 277 and Governor Romney 252. (CO too close to call)
(2) President Obama 277 and Governor Romney 235 (CO, VA and NH too close to call)
October 30th:  President Obama 281 and Governor Romney 235. (CO & VA too close to call)
Like I’ve been saying all along, President Obama is projected to win (every time since August). Governor Romney tightened the race but is fading just like I predicted due to several expected factors that will benefit President Obama in the last week or so before the election which include:
• A slight improvement in the economy (in spite of President Obama’s policies, not because of them)
• Opportunities for President Obama to play President in the media (i.e. Hurricane Sandy)
• Continued lies by President Obama and Democrats everywhere (either unchallenged or portrayed by the media as truth)
• A secret tactic (still unused, but likely)
I gave America a chance to stop President Obama and to elect a truly non-partisan President for the first time in over 200 years. The media and voters refused to listen.
I can only hope that what myself and others have done so far and will continue to do will help sway enough Electoral Votes from President Obama to Governor Romney to do what Governor Romney can’t do on his own, stop President Obama from winning.

Oct. 30, 2012
Barring a billionaire suitor stepping in today to fund my campaign, I must suspend my campaign.
I urge everyone to vote for Governor Romney because President Obama, in a second term will issue hundreds of illegal executive orders to:
• transfer wealth and power from you to his coalition.
• transform our Democratic-Republic into a Socialist-Democracy.
• eliminate rights.
• subordinate our Constitution and laws to international organizations and laws.
• weaken our military and our ability to defend ourselves.
• collapse our economy.
• many more harmful actions.
I want to thank the few that contributed in some way to my campaign. At least they know they won’t be to blame for allowing President Obama to destroy our Republic.
Good luck to all that tried to fight the transformation, you’re going to need it. Please pass on to the generations that follow, what America was. Perhaps one day, we’ll get her back.
Thanks!

Nov. 1, 2012
I launched my campaign six weeks before the election because that's the earliest I could start. I knew I'd have to catch lightning in a bottle but I also knew that in America with today's technology it could happen.
Ok so it didn't happen.
However, I'm willing to see this through until 2016 and save America then.
If President Obama wins reelection it will be vastly more difficult, but we can still do it.
With your help, just a little from each of you we can win in 2016.
Let's get started and power to victory.
Join with me, do it for your country, your posterity and the future of mankind.
The world needs a strong America.
Let's make it happen, together.

Nov. 7, 2012
I want to thank Tea Party People for standing up for all of us in 2010 and helping take away the House from the Democrats. Think of how screwed we'd be now without them. They are heroes!

Nov. 9, 2012
I'm working on my plan to recover from the $20T+ deficit President Obama will leave me when I take over in 2017.

Rogers' VP Marilyn Downs appeared to have been his own mother. There was at least one previous ticket in US history with a son as the Presidential nominee and the mother as VP: Daniel Steven Burkhardt/Georgia Loyce Burkhardt (Independent, 1996).

The Rogers/Downs ticket were registered as write-ins in at least 7 states. Only West Virginia reported a solitary vote for them. Although Rogers' marketing proclaimed "Rick Rogers for President of the United States of America 2012 (2016?) Independent - Non-Partisan - Constitutionalist - Veteran - Family Man - Honest - Smart - Determined" it does not appear he ran again in 2016 but instead supported Sen. Ted Cruz in the primaries--

Feb. 28, 2016
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, PLEASE SHARE AND POST THIS!!
ATTENTION SUPER TUESDAY PATRIOTS:
Your state is important to the survival of our Republic. There are many delegates at stake. You must mobilize and get to the poles this Tuesday. I urge you to vote for Sen. Ted Cruz. He is the one to force the federal government to follow our Constitution. Trump is a play both sides of the fence guy. One who will abandon the rule of law to cut a deal, a bad deal for America. Rubio is the RINO puppet that wants amnesty for illegal aliens. The time is now to catch and surpass Trump and push Rubio to the side. Here's a little more to consider.
The corrupt, incompetent, RINO, establishment GOP infestation is at all levels of government. Proving their incompetence is their unwise support of Jeb Bush and now Marco Rubio. They have no clue that the best thing for America and their party is a constitutionalist in the White House. Their support of Rubio is keeping that from happening. It is pushing the undisciplined, reckless Trump into office. A guy who will make deals and compromise with democrats just to say he made a deal. No deal is better than a bad deal. With a bad deal we are stuck with it. If no deal is reached we can try again for a better one and eventually we all end up much better off. The bad deal never solves the problem and costs ten times as much. Listen up GOP, Rubio won't edge out Trump. The Trump voters are those fed up with YOU! But they don't grasp what our country really needs. The smart voters know that the next President, above all else must do what his job is... faithfully execute the Office of President and preserve, protect and defend our Constitution. Trump won't do that. He'll be all over the board acting like the childish blowhard he is. Worse, he's such a high-negative person/candidate he very well may blow the general election and lose to a totally unworthy democrat that in no way should win otherwise.
PLEASE SHARE THIS SEVERAL TIMES A DAY UNTIL THE POLES CLOSE TUESDAY. POST IT EVERYWHERE YOU CAN. IF WE WORK TOGETHER WE CAN REACH MANY PEOPLE. MANY ARE LOOKING FOR GUIDANCE, LETS GIVE IT TO THEM. SUPER TUESDAY MUST GO WELL OR AMERICA INCHES CLOSER TO FAILURE. FIGHT WITH YOUR VOTE!!

Election history: none

Other occupations: ?

Buried: Appleton Township Cemetery (Minneola, Kan.)

Notes:
nee Miller.
Rogers was listed by Cracked in "5 Crazy People Who You Can Elect President Tomorrow"

June Syers

 

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.

Twisted Conundrum, Be the Veep

Around 2000-2001 I supposedly had a regular column in The Seattle Stranger regarding strange "what-if?" questions. I say "supposedly" because although I would receive a $50 weekly check, I never actually saw the column in print. But then again, I live in rural Washington outside of the I-5 corridor beyond the tabloid's distribution area.

Anyway, one of these columns written during that time period had to do with being a Vice-Presidential running mate. The piece was later reposted on OlyBlog in 2006. And here it is once again, just as conundrummy now as it was then:

https://www.olyblog.net/newWP/2006/03/19/twisted-conundrum-be-the-veep/

Twisted Conundrum, Be the Veep

During the last few Presidential elections we seem to be getting a pattern of having at least one candidate who is incredibly wealthy, but has little or no government experience (Perot, Forbes, Trump come to mind). They want us to believe the size of their bank accounts qualifies them to sit in the Oval Office.

In May or June of one such election year, one of these wealthy candidates knocks on your door. He has selected YOU out of millions of random Americans. We have to assume you are a natural-born citizen and over the age of 35. This candidate knows that his wealth is actually a handicap, creating a wall between himself and the average American. He needs someone on his team who can give him a reality check, to remind him what it is like to be a wage-slave. He wants someone next to him who will appeal to the everyday voter. In short, he wants you to be his running mate.

He somewhat shamelessly says that he will tout you as his proof that he is connected to the needs and concerns of just plain folks. And if your ticket wins, you will hold a position that will be almost 100%  ceremonial. He is up front about it– you are a token, he could care less about your views on government, politics, or social issues.

In fact, he says that you can say anything you want on the campaign trail. You will be expected to hit the same circuit as most Vice-presidential candidates, but the difference will be that the standard bearer will not expect total loyalty. Indeed, he almost invites you to disagree on issues with him in public as proof that he is tolerant and inclusive. And if you screw up– well, this candidate believes there is no such thing as bad publicity.

You do not draw a salary for this adventure, but all expenses are covered.

So, can we expect to see your name on bumper stickers and campaign buttons?