Wallace Cleaver, ca1945 -
VP candidate for Give America the Business Party (2008)
Running mate with nominee: Theodore Cleaver (b. ca1948)
Popular vote: ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
In five-minute Youtube entitled The Beaver for President 2008 (slightly revised on 7/21/08), a user named snicky58 presented the Presidential campaign of Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver running under the banner of Give America the Business Party.
Cleaver is, of course, the fictitious title character of the hit family-oriented television series Leave it to Beaver which aired from 1957-1963. The role of Beaver was played by child actor Jerry Mathers. Some of us Boomers remember it well when it originally aired, but the program has lived on in syndication.
The video is in the form of an interview, in which candidate Cleaver says, among other things--
-He does not like Sam Donaldson of ABC News.
-Would push legislation to not force boys to wear aprons while fingerpainting in class.
-Does not have a problem with Gay marriage.
The video advertised a bumper sticker that proclaimed: "The Beaver for President: He's Not as Dumb as Dubya."
The presentation ends with Beaver's running-mate revealed as his older brother Wallace "Wally" Cleaver, who was played by actor Tony Dow in the classic series. Wally was older enough to be sort of a half-parent and experienced voice, as well as translator/communicator between his little brother and their parents, Ward and June. Wally's regular warning to Beaver of "When Dad finds out he's gonna clobber you," offers a hint there was some form of abusive physical punishment in the Cleaver household the viewer never sees and perhaps the family was far more dysfunctional than we imagined.
The fact these two nominees were brothers was not unusual in Electoral politics. Other brother tickets have included: Larry Brant Sargeant/Perry David Sargeant - American Freedom Party (1976), Lowell Jackson Fellure/James Monroe Fellure - Independent (2000), Keith Russell Judd/Monty Wayne Judd - Nonpartisan (2008), and Randal Gene Trackwell/Byron Lee Trackwell - Bullmoose Progressive Party (2008).
Although Beaver and Wally were technically old enough to serve in office, the fact they were still encapsulated in the television pixel bodies of juveniles would have probably required some sort of court ruling in the event of their victory. In the canon, sequels had been produced with the adult versions of the characters, but in this 2008 campaign the original incarnations were the ones being electioneered. In the sequels, Wally becomes an attorney.
Beaver and Wally were both residents of whatever state their town of Mayfield was in, which posed another Constitutional problem. Oh, right, they were also fictitious characters, another small legality to consider.
The Cleaver/Cleaver ticket did not appear on any ballots, nor were they registered as write-ins, and hence no votes were reported.
Election history: none.
Other occupations: newspaper boy, soda jerk, ice cream vendor, attorney
Notes:
Beaver Cleaver is not related to Eldridge Cleaver.
In the Desperate Hours, Humphrey Bogart's character was killed in a hail of police bullets on the same front yard set that later became the Cleaver house.
