Kathie Lee Gifford

 Regis and Kathie farewell show

Kathie Lee Gifford, August 16, 1953 (Paris, France) -

VP candidate for Reform Party of the United States of America / Independent (2000)

Running mate with nominee: Uncle Duke (b. 1974)
Popular vote: ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Uncle Duke is a character in Garry Trudeau's long-running political comic strip Doonesbury. It was never clear if Duke was his surname or first name, but he was initially alleged to be the uncle of Zonker Harris. The drug-soaked comic character was clearly based on Hunter S. Thompson who was surprisingly angered by this cartoon version of himself. If I recall, Thompson at the time said he would rip Trudeau's lungs out if they ever met. It was a clash of two iconoclasts and Thompson demonstrated a low tolerance for being on the other end of parody. As an admirer of both gentlemen at the time I recall being disappointed in Thompson's inability to accept the honor of being famous enough to be spoofed.

Uncle Duke's campaign included a webpage and merchandise. Trudeau told the press in Feb. 2000, "Duke characterizes his overall political philosophy as either compassionate fascism or coercive libertarianism. At his core, he holds libertarian values, but he believes in a kind of wide-ranging, state-sponsored political freedom. He'd require gun ownership and regulate marijuana packaging and distribution to help save the family farmer. He wants to underwrite a massive rebuilding of the nation's aging racetracks."

Duke had made a bid, via Internet and the printed comic strip, for the Reform Party nomination but eventually ran as an independent. For his running-mate he selected TV co-host Kathie Lee Gifford of the iconic Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, where she appeared with Regis Philbin on a regular morning talk show. After 12 years she went to other pursuits about the same time she was nominated for VP.

Uncle Duke announced his running-mate during an interview with Larry King on Mar. 13, 2000:

KING: We're not going to have a -- we're not going to have a first lady?

DUKE: Let me tell you something: I am going to have a -- let me -- I'm going to announce it exclusively right here on LARRY KING. Speaking of first lady, I want to talk about my vice presidential candidate. I want to announce that it's going to be Kathie Lee Gifford. You know why, Larry?

KING: Why?

DUKE: One, she's available. Two, she's used to being, you know, VP, second banana. She's been vice president under Regis for a long time. She's tough. She knows how to run a string of sweatshops. And lastly, she's perky. You know, I mean, perky, that's key. You know, we haven't had a perky vice president, since you know, well, you have to go all the way back to Dan Quayle. And perky, like a cheerleader, and she's also headline-bait.

That's why -- I think Kathie Lee is going to really help out this -- this campaign.

KING: It's Duke and Kathie Lee Gifford, is the ticket...

DUKE: That's exactly right. Thank you, Larry, for saying that so well. 

Unfortunately for the Uncle Duke campaign, it was announced in Sept. 2000 that Gifford apparently sent word via her attorney that she did not desire to be on the ticket or associated in any way with the electioneering. But Duke, it seems, never replaced her and apparently continued as if she was still the VP.

Election history: none

Other occupations: television host, actress, author, songwriter, singer

Notes:
Born to American parents in Paris, France.
Brush with fame-- I have a copy of Doonesbury : a Musical Comedy (1984) inscribed by Garry
 Trudeau to the actor Keith Szarabajka who portrayed the character of B.D. in the play. It reads:
 Keith, this is the final script, okay? No more cuts or changes. I promise. Your pal, Garry. Sept. '84.

Sortition Candidate

Sortition Candidate

VP candidate for Nihilist Party (aka National Nihilist Party) (1988)

Running mate with nominee: Elisha Shapiro (b. ca1954)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

This profile is more about a concept than a candidate. The term "sortition" means "the action of selecting or determining something by the casting or drawing of lots," like we do with our jury selection system, or like military conscription during the Vietnam War era.

Los Angeles conceptual artist Elisha Shapiro ("A Dangerous Leader for Dangerous Times"), Presidential candidate of the Nihilist Party proposed that his Vice-President be selected by "a random national lottery, so everybody has an equal chance." He added his method was "a lot better way of choosing my Vice President than the Republicans. I'll have someone the people can really relate to, who is more stable."

There are a few Presidential candidates who made a deliberate point of not choosing a running-mate because they felt the office of Vice-President was not needed. But Shapiro was the first I am aware of to propose the concept of sortition as a method of selecting someone for the office. He also advocated this method of selection for most other federal positions. 

But there were some government offices that Shapiro was not going to leave to chance and he announced his intended appointments, including: FBI Chief- Angela Davis, Ambassador to the USSR- Ted Koppel, Head of Joint Chiefs- David Byrne, Ambassador to South Africa- Louis Farrakhan, Press Secretary- Hunter Thompson, Chief Economic Advisor- Louis Rukeyser, Secretary of State- Bobcat Goldthwait, Poet Laureate- Patti Smith.

The Nihilist Party platform also had the following policy proposals:

THE GOVERNMENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM

"For one month every year, our government and the government of another country will change places. For example, the first year, for one month, our government will run the USSR, and the Soviet Government will run the US. This is a way to better understand the problems of peoples from other lands."

THE PENTAGON CHANGEOVER

"No one can get Congress to cut the Defense Department budget. The Pentagon employs too many people in too many states. But that doesn't mean we can't change what people in the Pentagon do. In the PENTAGON CHANGEOVER we don't fire anyone, we just give them useful jobs like making VCRs, telephone answering machines and personal computers. This will earn money for our government and reduce the deficit."

PROPOSED LEGISLATION

    --Change American capital to Los Angeles.
    --Change national bird to the Thunderbird.
    --Play jazz-fusion, go to jail.
    --A constitutional amendment making sodomy mandatory in Georgia.
    --Limit capital punishment to inconsiderate driving infractions.
    --Force the National League to expand to include a team for Havana and Managua.

NUKE ISLAND

"The nuclear arms stalemate will be resolved on NUCLEAR ISLAND. It will be an isolated island between the US and the USSR. The first American Nihilist Administration will disarm ten war heads and put them on the island. Then the bet will be to the Soviets. They can call or raise. The assumption is that their concern for public opinion won't let them fold. That's all there is to it. We bet, they raise, we raise and so on. They can keep making them and so can we--but they'll all end up on NUCLEAR ISLAND."

FOREIGN AID

"The American policy of supporting any regime or party which claims to be anti-Communist has landed our country in trouble many times since World War II. The Nihilist administration would radically change this approach to East/West competition and regional conflicts. Any country or party to which the Soviets give money would receive exactly the same amount of money from us. If the Soviets give the Nicaragua $100 million in an attempt to gain more influence than the US in that region, this bid would be quickly answered by a $100 million grant from the US. If the Soviets cynically switch sides and give $200 million to the Salvadoran government, we will answer this by an immediate $200 million gift to the Salvadorian government."

NEW NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

    --TV Dinner Day
    --Small Appliance Day
    --100 Mile-an-Hour Day
    --Automatic Weapon Day
    --Sodomy Day
    --Halloween


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Running as write-in, Shapiro told a reporter the day before Election Day, "We're a little behind in the polls, but we're about to make our move."

Election history: none

Other occupations: none

Buried: n/a

Notes:
Full disclosure. I have been an advocate for using the sortition method of filling some municipal and county offices on an experimental basis for several years.

Hunter Stockton Thompson

Hunter Stockton Thompson, July 18, 1937 (Louisville, Ky.) – February 20, 2005 (Woody Creek, Colo.)

VP candidate for Rhinoceros Party (aka Rhino Party aka Rhinoceros Party of Canada aka Rhinos of America aka Parti Rhinocéros) (1988)

Running mate with nominee: William Francis Lee III (b. 1946)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Former professional baseball player Bill "Spaceman" Lee was living in Canada ("I live in Canada because I've got a lot of plaid shirts") and playing with the semi-pros (some accounts have him living in Vermont too). He was also running for President of the United States as a member of the Rhinoceros Party. The Rhino Party was actually an absurdist organization satirizing Canadian politics (and there was a small American branch as well), but apparently they approached Lee and offered to nominate him for the US Presidency.

Lee told the press he wanted Hunter S. Thompson as his Vice-President: "Americans love their vice, and who knows more about vice in America than Hunter S. Thompson? We haven't heard from him, but we don't expect a reply within the first century."

Several years ago Lee reflected on his VP choice during an interview: "He really never responded, so we ad hoc put him on the ticket. I said, no one knows more about vice than Hunter Thompson, so he's the vice president. It's funny, we were probably politically opposite. He was kind of an anarchist, gun-toting ... I'm more of a socialist than a libertarian. I believe in the underdog. More Eugene Debs: 'If there’s a class lesser than I, I'm with him. If there's a man incarcerated, I'm not free.' I'm more that type of guy."

Lee on the issues in the 1988 election season:

The Designated Hitter rule is what's evil in America. It creates specialization. Ask any biologist or geneticist what the No. 1 cause of extinction is, and they come up with the same answer--overspecialization. Our whole society is pushing toward that direction.

If I was president, there'd be a law. You have to stay in shape. I'll give you a 10- to 15-pound grace limit. You're going to be monitored. The armed forces, their whole job is going to be taking these fat people off the street and putting them back in boot camp. Your wife is cooking dinner, expecting you to come home from work, and all of a sudden this unmarked van pulls up and absconds you. And you're not going to be seen for six or seven weeks. But when you come back, your wife's going to appreciate you. You'll be energetic. You won't be a couch potato.

Lee's campaign slogan was "No Guns. No Butter. Both Can Kill!": If the Democrats get into power, they believe in spending on the domestic budget, which is butter. Republicans, they all spend on the military budget. I'm afraid our whole way of life will collapse if there are no wars. We've still got to maintain that warlike philosophy, because people like a good battle. So we'll substitute sport for war.

My whole theory is based on Buckminster Fuller's--that the second law of thermodynamics doesn't exist. That nothing wears out. That there's enough to go around. You just have to constantly recycle it. Once people realize that there is enough to go around, there'd never be a war again. That's the concept. But you can't think of yourself first or the sovereignty of your nation first. You have to think of the world as a single unit. No matter how good we do individually, we will cease to exist as a species if the planet goes under.

People consider me radical, off the wall. But right here as we sit, we're traveling through space and time at a tremendous rate of speed. So, when you think about it, this planet is just a hanging curveball.

What do you do with the White House? I'd turn it into a Mexican restaurant. There are no good Mexican restaurants in Washington, D.C.

We don't believe in using chairs. They cause bad backs. We want an American public that can stand up for themselves.

My position on mandatory drug testing? I've tested mescaline. I've tested 'em all. But I don't think it should be mandatory.

Thompson had no involvement in the campaign. His book Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s was published that year (he predicted a Democratic Party loss in that election) and a documentary called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die had also been produced in 1988.

Election history:
1970 - Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colo. (Freak Power Party) - defeated

Other occupations: US Air Force, security guard, journalist, author

Buried: Cremated, and ashes were fired from a cannon.

Notes:
Suicide by self-inflicted gunshot.
Supported George McGovern in 1972.
One of my college pals in the 1970s attended a Hunter S. Thompson lecture. During the speech a
 bomb threat was made. Thompson informed the audience about the threat but said he was going to
 continue anyway. My friend decided to stay and had the thought that, hey, I might die but at least I'll
 die with Hunter S. Thompson.