Michelle Marie Tidball, January 1, 1963 (San Diego County, Calif.) -
VP candidate for Birthday Party (aka Non Affiliated aka Independent aka Unaffiliated aka No Party) (2020)
Running mate with nominee: Kanye Omari West (b. 1977)
Popular vote: 71,079 (0.04%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
Entertainer Kanye West, who had been identified as a pro-Trump Christian conservative in recent years, announced he was running for President on July 4, 2020. Giving his address as Cody, Wyo., he filed with the FEC under the Birthday Party on July 16, 2020. His running mate was also from Cody, a Biblical life coach, dental office worker, and self-proclaimed servant of God named Michelle Tidball.
Tidball had an autobiography on her commercial webpage that had been removed by the time of the campaign--
I had my first encounter with God as six months old when my mother awoke to find that I was slipping away into a crib death. In a hospital tent God first visited me and spoke life and destiny which I can still recall today. My childhood consisted of visitations and atmospheric encounters. Being raised in the church I loved God, encountered Him, but wanted to know more. At seventeen I had an encounter in the heavenly realms and made a decision to serve Him all the days of my life. The first thing God did was teach me about His Sabbath, Feasts, and Word! I began walking in His cycles and began to know and understand.
I have various degrees in mental health and criminal justice. I worked as a mental health therapist for ten years and then shifted into life coaching. This seemed a good transition helping people get “unstuck” in their lives using biblical principles and prophetic insight. I use this as well to help sons who are “stuck” and are not encountering God as they were designed to.
I have been involved in almost all aspects of ministry including speaking, pastoring, prayer, teaching, and the most time spent in bringing deliverance to those who are in bondage. My heart has always been to walk in the fullness of sonship and to bring others into manifesting their sonship – to be about His business and see the completion of things He mandated before the foundations of the world.
I look forward to bringing the word with experience and practical counsel on walking as brilliant sons manifested upon the earth!
Shalom!
Michelle
For the most part Tidball remained elusive to the media and took little part in the electioneering.
West's official platform was released on his campaign website--
Kanye West Presidential Platform
1. Restore faith and revive our Constitutional commitment to freedom of religion and the free exercise of one’s faith, demonstrated by restoring prayer in the classroom including spiritual foundations.
We will not hide the truth from our children, but will declare to the next generation His praises and wonder. Psalm 78:4
2. Restore the sound national economy. Reduce household debt and student loan debt.
God has plans to give us hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
3. Provide leadership to restructure our country’s education system to serve the most at-risk and vulnerable populations allowing the widest possible range of educational and vocational paths to job opportunities and career success.
Direct your children on the right path. Proverbs 22:6
4. Maintain a strong national defense, fully prepared, but not so quick to tie up our country’s young men and women in foreign quagmires that do not advance our national interest, and which last for decades.
Through God we shall do valiantly. Psalm 60:12
5. Reform the legal system to provide true justice, equitable for all citizens, regardless of race or ability to defend oneself in court. Recognize the disparity in verdicts and prison sentences, caused by the lack of financial resources or legal assistance.
There will not be differing weights and differing measures. Proverbs 20:10
6. Reform the approach to policing in a manner that treats all Americans the same, regardless of race, color, or ethnicity. Refocus police forces on real crime. Eliminate federal sentencing guidelines that tie the hands of judges, resulting in ridiculous sentences for the most minor offenses.
We will speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. Proverbs 31:8
7. Take care of the environment, diligently pursuing clean air and water as a national security priority and making renewables top priority.
The past is forgotten and everything can be new 2 Corinthians 5:17
8. Ensure that we always place Americans’ best interest first and foremost in dealing with foreign affairs. We must project strength, not aggression. We want trust, but we must also verify. We want fair trade, not one-sided deals that hurt American workers.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9
9. Support faith-based groups to provide vital local services, giving communities a shared purpose in government.
We will provide ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works Hebrews 10:24
10. Creativity and the Arts can be an important source of innovation and development of other national strengths and resources.
He has given them skill in all kinds of work done. Exodus 35:35
As the campaign began it was apparent West knew a lot more about how to gain publicity than he did about the basic workings of government. On July 8 he had a long interview with Forbes which was used a reference point until Election Day. Some quotes--
I would run as a Republican if Trump wasn’t there. I will run as an independent if Trump is there.
Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation.
One of the main reasons I wore the red hat as a protest to the segregation of votes in the Black community. Also, other than the fact that I like Trump hotels and the saxophones in the lobby.
One time I talked to Jared Kushner, who was saying, ‘We don’t have Black leaders, we just have hustlers.’ Why? Because they killed all the Black leaders.
That is a form of racism and white supremacy and white control to say that all Black people need to be Democrat and to assume that me running is me splitting the vote. All of that information is being charged up on social media platforms by Democrats. And Democrats used to tell me, the same Democrats have threatened me. . . . The reason why this is the first day I registered to vote is because I was scared. I was told that if I voted on Trump my music career would be over. I was threatened into being in one party. I was threatened as a celebrity into being in one party. I was threatened as a Black man into the Democratic party. And that’s what the Democrats are doing, emotionally, to my people. Threatening them to the point where this white man can tell a Black man if you don’t vote for me, you’re not Black.
Let’s see if the appointing is at 2020 or if it’s 2024—because God appoints the president. If I win in 2020 then it was God’s appointment. If I win in 2024 then that was God’s appointment.
It’s so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralyzed. . . . So when they say the way we’re going to fix Covid is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious. That’s the mark of the beast. They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we can’t cross the gates of heaven. I'm sorry when I say they, the humans that have the Devil inside them. And the sad thing is that, the saddest thing is that we all won’t make it to heaven, that there’ll be some of us that do not make it. Next question.
God just gave me the clarity and said it’s time. You know I was out there, ended up in the hospital, people were calling me crazy. I'm not crazy. Between all of the influences and the positions that we can be put in as musicians—you go on tour, you put out all these albums, and you look up and you don’t have any money in your account. It can drive you crazy, through all of that I was looking crazy because it wasn’t the time. Now it’s time. And we’re not going crazy, we’re going Yeezy, it’s a whole ‘notha level now. N-O-T-H-A.
I don’t know if I would use the word ‘policy’ for the way I would approach things. I don’t have a policy when I went to Nike and designed Yeezy and went to Louis and designed a Louis Vuitton at the same time. It wasn’t a policy, it was a design. We need to innovate the design to be able to free the mind at this time.
A lot of Africans do not like the movie [Black Panther] and representation of themselves in…Wakanda. But I’m gonna use the framework of Wakanda right now because it’s the best explanation of what our design group is going to feel like in the White House…That is a positive idea: you got Kanye West, one of the most powerful humans—I’m not saying the most because you got a lot of alien-level superpowers and it’s only collectively that we can set it free. Let’s get back to Wakanda . . . like in the movie in Wakanda when the king went to visit that lead scientist to have the shoes wrap around her shoes. Just the amount of innovation that can happen, the amount of innovation in medicine—like big pharma—we are going to work, innovate, together. This is not going to be some Nipsey Hussle being murdered, they’re doing a documentary, we have so many soldiers that die for our freedom, our freedom of information, that there is a cure for AIDS out there, there is going to be a mix of big pharma and holistic.
West had registered to vote for the first time in his life at the same time he announced. Even with the backing of Elon Musk and several Republican operatives, West's attempt to gain ballot access in several states was something of a debacle. Missed deadlines and suspicious petition signatures were part of the problem.
The candidate found himself frequently defending his campaign against charges that he was either in the race for commercial self-promotion, or, was a Trump-backed ringer designed to draw votes away from Biden.
There was also a weird sideshow that began in mid-August--
The far Right and Christian-based American Independent Party in California, which had nominated Trump/Pence in 2016, chose Rocky De La Fuente as their nominee, who was already the nominee of the Alliance and Reform parties. But De La Fuente's running-mate Darcy Richardson was bumped as the VP and replaced with Kanye West. Apparently this VP choice was accomplished without input from any of the nominees. De La Fuente said, "I was not consulted to see if I wanted Mr. West as my running mate ... Obviously, we're a weird—and I wanted Mr. Richardson as my running mate—but it was their decision and their decision only."
De La Fuente had entered the AIP primary in Mar. 2020, but came in second to Phil Collins, who was also the Prohibition Party nominee for President.
The Independent Political Report quoted Darcy Richardson--
“Please let Rocky know that if he runs with the unstable, bi-polar Trump-loving Kanye West in California that I will withdraw as his vice-presidential running mate nationally,” Richardson declared in a text message to [AIP official Mark] Seidenberg earlier today. “I’ve spent my entire adult life battling the duopoly and certainly DO NOT want my name associated with a candidacy that peripherally includes a Trump/GOP plant like the unhinged rapper….Bill Shearer must be rolling over in his grave.”
It should be noted that Richardson did remain in the race, or at that was my impression when I posted our interview Oct. 6, 2020. In it he said--
Rocky and I are on the ballot in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vermont. We also hope to be official write-in candidates in a couple of dozen states.
Rocky is also on the ballot in populous California where --- much to my chagrin --- he's paired with unhinged, pro-Trump rapper Kanye West on the American Independent Party ticket, a remnant of segregationist George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign.
https://thirdpartysecondbananas.blogspot.com/2020/10/darcy-richardson-2020-vp-alliance-party.html
West was also not pleased with being nominated VP, calling the AIP "deceitful" and issued a statement that included, "I am campaigning to be the next president of our great country — not vice president ... The political party in California that listed my name as its VP candidate has done so without my knowledge ... Californians, I ask for your vote for president and urge you to write in ‘Kanye West.’"
The De La Fuente/West ticket placed 5th out of the 6 positions on the California ballot with 0.34% of the vote in that state. It was by far De La Fuente's largest bloc of votes nationally.
Back to the Birthday Party vote tally-- West was on the ballot in a dozen states and registered as a write-in a dozen more. His strongest results: Utah 0.48%, Idaho 0.42%, Oklahoma 0.36%, Arkansas and Tennessee and Vermont 0.34% each, Kentucky 0.30%, Mississippi 0.28%, Colorado 0.25%. Amazingly, the West/Tidnall ticket finished in 7th place, ahead of several longtime third parties such as the Constitution and Socialist Workers parties.
West has been teasing a run for 2024.
Election history: none
Other occupations: therapist, life coach, dental officer worker, pastor
Notes:
She has had numerous surnames over the years but Tidball seems to be her name at birth.
