Tuxedo Sam

 

Tuxedo Sam, 1979 (Tokyo, Japan) -

VP candidate for Friendship Party (2012)

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

The campaign:

On Oct. 8, 2012 the Catsparella website reported--

Hello Kitty (given name: Kitty White), who hails from London, England by way of Tokyo, Japan, announced her candidacy today to become President of the United States of America. The 38-year-old third grader, who weight is equal to that of three apples, is running as a member of the newly formed Friendship Party because, "you can never have too many friends!"

Sanrio is kicking off HK's 2012 campaign with a slew of super cute merch, online activities, and live events that are sure to give her a competitive edge in the upcoming race. In addition to slinging patriotic t-shirts, headbands and keychains for the cause, any purchase currently made at Sanrio.com comes with a free campaign button or bumper sticker, to boot.

Of course, any presidential hopeful needs a qualified vice president to back them up, which is why Hello Kitty has launched a Facebook poll to help select the running mate who best supports her mission of friendship, fun and happiness. Old favorites like Tuxedosam, Badtz-Maru, My Melody, and Keroppi are all among the contenders, but in the end I cast my vote for Chococat, because two felines are always better than one.

The Hello Kitty mega-franchise had a one month marketing blitz using the US Presidential election as a commercial springboard. The Sanrio Co., Ltd. created a sense of consumer participation by having the fans select the running-mate by the end of October. A cartoon penguin named Tuxedo Sam (or TuxedoSam) won the day. Sam is actually the second cartoon penguin to run for VP, the first being Opus the Penguin starting in 1984 with the National Radical Meadow Party.

So, some problems for the Friendship Party ticket-- They were created/born in Japan. Apparently Hello Kitty is a citizen of the UK. And they are animals, and fictitious ones at that. Plus they were never on any ballots or registered write-ins.

Election history: none

Other occupations: animated cartoon penguin

Notes:
Even though my daughter would have been in the prime era for Hello Kitty products we somehow didn't get caught up in that universe. I knew more adults who were into it than children which I suppose tells you something about the sort of people I hang out with.

Mae Poulet

 

Mae Poulet, ca2009 (California) -

VP candidate for Bully Party (2012)

Running mate with nominee: Satchel (d. 2015)
Popular vote: ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

A bull terrier Presidential candidate in Tennessee named Satchel selected a hen in California named Mae Poulet to be his running-mate about a month before Election Day. Animals running for the White House was becoming sort of a tradition-- dogs, cats, hamsters, pigs-- but Mae Poulet is the first chicken as far as I know but not the first fowl. I believe that honor belongs to the parrots in the Beak and Freedom Party who have been running in every election since 2000. Of course we could predate that with fictional animals such as Opus the Penguin being a bird VP starting in 1984 with the National Radical Meadow Party, but that would be silly.

Poulet was under the care of Charlotte Laws, a Los Angeles community activist, television personality, and animal rights advocate. Laws, a vegetarian, acquired the hen via a "free chicken" advertisement in 2010 and added Poulet to her group of rescue animals. Apparently Satchel the standard bearer was also a rescue animal.

On her webpage, Laws acted as Poulet's spokesperson--

There are two primary components to Mae’s political platform.

The first is protecting animals, an area in which Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have a poor record. Romney strapped his dog to the top of his car and chose Paul Ryan, a hunter, for his ticket. Obama was graded a dismal C- by the Humane Society of the United States and broke a campaign promise to adopt a shelter dog if elected. Instead, he got a pure-bred pup from Ted Kennedy.     

Four million dogs and cats are killed in U.S. shelters each year at a staggering cost of $600 million. This is not only heart-breaking for the animals, but a fiscally irresponsible situation. Mae wants people to spay and neuter their animals and to stop buying from breeders and pet shops. She and Satchel support policies that protect both animals and people’s pocketbooks.

Secondly, Mae wants third party voices and third party candidates to be heard. Some studies show that 40% of the people in this nation identify as independents, yet Democrats and Republicans talk about “bi-partisan” rather than “non-partisan” solutions. The concerns of independents are rarely, if ever, addressed.  

“Not everyone is a donkey or elephant,” Mae says. “Some of us are chickens or even people. The two parties have fowled things up miserably. It’s time for real change.”  

The animal ticket had a social media campaign with a serious side. Poulet's Facebook page outlined her platform point by point--

My platform includes the following.
a) Promoting logical national food safety/food importation safety.
b) Promoting a compromise between industrial food production needs and expansion of family farming and preservation of family farms and slowing the erosion of family farming.
c) Supporting logical and simple adjustments to availability of nutritional foods in markets that traditionally lack this access.
d) Promoting and advancing animal welfare concerns while maintaining the ability to produce mass consumption food products (and byproducts).
e) Promoting and maintaining a shift to healthier eating habits and exercise within our nation’s schools.
f) Promoting the expansion of availability and access to healthy foods in our nations urban and low income communities.
g) Looking for ways to increase food export markets, and to grow/build sustainable food production in troubled areas around the globe.
h) Promoting sustainability of our national and global ecosystem while addressing the needs of social/economic growth concerns of nations.

Satchel also ran for President in 2016 but it seems Poulet was not on the ticket on that campaign season.

Satchel died in Mar. 2015, meaning that in the event of their victory, Mae Poulet would have assumed the Presidency if indeed she was still living at that time.

Election history: none

Other occupations: chicken

Notes:
Poulet's VP run was a springboard into her continuing activism as an animal rights symbol.

Opus the Penguin

Opus the Penguin, June 26, 1981 (Falkland Islands) -

VP candidate for National Radical Meadow Party (aka Meadow Party) (1984, 1988, 2016, 2020)

Running mate with nominee: Bill the Cat (b. 1982)
Popular vote (1984, 1988, 2016, 2020): ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote (1984, 1988, 2016, 2020): 0/538

The campaign (1984):

Bill the Cat and Opus the Penguin were among the cast of characters in Berkeley Breathed's popular comic strip Bloom County. Bill's quest for the Presidency was complicated by the storyline that he been pulled into the Rajneesh (Osho) cult in Antelope, Oregon. Another small glitch in the electioneering was that Bill the Cat apparently died at some point, not that anyone would notice since his only dialogue consisted of "Aaack!" and close variations.

In the Mar. 14, 1983 strip, the names of Mister Spock and John Glenn were put into nomination, but rejected. Still without a Presidential nominee by the Apr. 27 strip, the Party nominated Opus for VP in his absence while he was out buying bags of Cheetos.

For newspaper readers the most effective way to follow the campaign was reading the strip itself or perusing the Letters to the Editor page. It really was a grassroots effort, which makes sense for a political party with the word "Meadow" in the name. Mostly ignored by the press even in fluff articles, it wasn't until after Election Day when Bill the Cat and Opus received a substantial number of write-in votes that journalists took real notice.

The campaign (1988):

Breathed, who had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1987, brought back the Bill/Opus ticket in 1988. In the May 15, 1988 Sunday strip, Bloom County presented a television advertisement for Bill's campaign:

Finally. A candidate every American can call their own. He's been a handicapped unionist minority farmer. He's been a Right wing, pro-choice, born again Southern elderly protectionist pacifist. He's been a redneck Northern liberal ethnic pro-life Jewish fixed-income no-nukes gun nut. And he's been a woman named Frieda. Bill the Cat for President. He's been one of us.

The campaign (2016 and 2020)

Bill and Opus' national campaign was active in 2016 and continues into 2020, making Opus one the rare third party VP to run four times! The comic strip Bloom County has long since passed, and newspapers themselves are rapidly going extinct so we are now seeing this duo in an online venue. It is difficult to ascertain how much of this electioneering is promoted by Breathed himself vs. that of devoted fans who keep the flame alive. We'll stay tuned.

Election history: none

Other occupations: legal secretary, musician, author

Notes:
Washington State trivia: Breathed resided for several years on Vashon Island.
Aside from the small detail that Opus is a fictitious character, his birth as a non-US citizen on the
 Falkland Islands would disqualify from being elected VP.