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Subject: On the Bottom Of the Ballot; Not for Bush or Clinton or Check Out These
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 92 08:47:18 EST
Message-ID: <37.1992Oct31.084718@AmeriCast.com>

On the Bottom Of the Ballot; Not for Bush or Clinton or Perot?
Check Out These Candidates<By Jonathan Freedland=Washington Post
Staff Writer=

 On Tuesday, why not avoid disappointment and vote for the guy
who promises to lie, cheat and steal?

  Failing that, you could choose the man who wants to make tran-
scendental meditation part of the school day. Then again there's
always the candidate with that snappy, progressive slogan, "Help
Us Turn Back the Clock!"

  Because on Nov. 3 you really do have a choice. If Messrs. Bush,
Clinton and Perot don't tickle your fancy, there are plenty of
other names huddled at the foot of the ballot for president. Be-
sides Libertarian Andre Marrou, who is running in all 50 states,
there are no fewer than 19 candidates in various states vying for
the "none of the above" vote.

  On ballots across the nation are the names of people utterly
unlike George, Bill and Ross: women, blacks, pensioners, a con-
vict and a mystically inclined scientist -  all of them seeking
the highest office in the land.

  In this electoral Ben & Jerry's the choices are daunting.
Voters in Iowa, for example, will have 14 flavors to choose from:
There is the Campaign for a New Tomorrow, the New Alliance Party,
the America First Party, the Natural Law Party, the Grassroots
Party, Independents for Economic Recovery, the Taxpayers Party,
the Socialist Workers and Take Back America all vying, along with
a local independent, for a slice of the vote known, so ungen-
erously, as "others."

  Not all are in the race to win.

  Take Jim Boren, 66, the presidential nominee of the Apathy Par-
ty (selected at a July meeting of 100 inactivists gathered in a
pub). On the ballot only in Arkansas, he is running a campaign
not for apathy, but against it.

  He's traveling the state playing the archetypal corrupt politi-
cian. Wearing a black shoestring tie, a gold chain, and a large
gambler's hat, his electioneering theme is, "I've got what it
takes to take what you've got."

  Determined to provoke people into action, Boren, a political
scientist at Northeastern State University, and cousin of Sen.
David Boren (D-Okla.), is promising voters that he won't steal in
his first two years in office. "If I'm ever caught with my hand
in the cookie jar," he says, "I'll return the jar."

  Satirizing real politicians, he has devised a multiple-choice
platform, where the voter can check off whether he is for/against
the issues of the day: major stuff like education, crime, patrio-
tism, and broccoli. "I promise I will be for whatever you are
for," oozes Boren's election leaflet.



  He is in the business of political education, disgusting voters
to the point where they feel they have to get involved. "I'm do-
ing some good," he says. "I'm stirring people up."

That comfort is sought elsewhere on the fringe. All these politi-
cal minnows have ways of justifying their efforts, usually in
terms of "raising awareness" or "building for the future." John
Hagelin, 38, running for the Natural Law Party, has a better line
than most.

"Although it would take a miracle to win this election, it'll
take a miracle to lose the next one," he says.  Hagelin, a
Harvard-trained quantum physicist, according to his campaign
literature (several of these players in politics' little league
share a need to attach the letters PhD to their names, perhaps as
a kind of insurance policy against cries of "wacko") has taken
time off from his post at the Maharishi International University
to be the candidate of "logic."

  Founded in April, the Natural Lawyers propose reforming crimi-
nals through transcendental meditation and bringing school kids
to a "higher state of consciousness."

  On the ballot in 27 states and the District, and with a half-
hour info-mercial due to air today, tomorrow and Monday,
Hagelin's candidacy is serious. He is hoping to repeat the suc-
cess of the sister party in Britain, which netted plenty of at-
tention, not least through a TV spot that featured party members
engaged in "yogic flying." In lotus position, shaven-headed medi-
tationists tranced themselves into giant leaps across implausible
distances. Among young Britons, in particular, the party's smil-
ing spokesman, introduced as the Magician, became an instant hit.

  Here, the NLP is also having fun. At the Palladium in Los
Angeles Monday, musicians from Journey, Wilson Phillips and San-
tana will play at a party benefit - an event inspired by a London
election eve concert starring George Harrison and Mike Love of
the Beach Boys, both longtime supporters of Maharishi Yogi.

 Hagelin himself projects a more sober image and preaches politi-
cal consensus.

  "I would form an all-party cabinet," says Hagelin. What, with
jobs for Bush, Clinton and Perot in a Hagelin administration?
"I'd be honored."

  Perot is a hero to those outside politics' first rank. Among
these mavericks on the margins, he is king. "He's helped break
the ice for us," says the Natural Law leader of the Dallas Midas.
And Hagelin is not alone.

Lenora B. Fulani, nominee for the second time of the pro-
socialist New Alliance Party, can barely lid her enthusiasm for
the Texan capitalist. "I think Perot's coming forward has made it
possible for a new kind of voter to step forward," she says.
"These people existed for years and Perot made them visible."

  Her goal is some kind of third force, if only to break the
two-party hold, and she's discussed the idea with Perotists, Li-
bertarians and Natural Law followers. Fulani even offered this
unorthodox advice to voters: "They should vote for any indepen-
dent ... If I'm too black, or too womanly for them, they should
vote for Marrou, Hagelin or Perot."

Contesting 38 states and DC, Fulani has raised $2.2 million, and
has received $1.9 million of federal matching funds. A big fish
in politics' backwater, she debated Friday with her Libertarian
rival on C-SPAN (the Mecca of the minor parties). They were
selected because they are the only independents, Perot apart,
with even the mathematical possibility of winning.

 The candidate is hopeful. "I think I'm gonna do great, I think
the independent political movement will do great." What about the
fact that her fellow Americans tend to have a low opinion of
quixotic efforts like hers? How can it feel when David Letterman
does his "Top 10 Signs You're a Fringe Candidate" and includes,
"In an interview from prison, Charles Manson calls you, 'That nut
case'?"

  "I'm a black, poor woman. I'm used to being thought of as a
wacko," says Fulani bravely. But she knows she is not in august
company.

  Consider her rival in the District and in 17 states, Lyndon
LaRouche. He is, selflessly, running for Commander in Chief from
a prison cell as the Freedom for LaRouche candidate. Serving a
15-year federal sentence for fraud has constrained the
candidate's activities somewhat: telephone interviews are ra-
tioned and his personal appearances arranged by the good people
of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

  No less likely to raise eyebrows is the candidate of the Look-
ing Back Group, Isabell Masters (another self-described PhD). A
pensioner who "takes the fifth" on her age, she is only on the
ballot in Arkansas, although she has high hopes for a write-in
vote.

"I got a divine revelation to seek the presidency in 1981," she
says of the first of her three presidential runs. "It was just
revealed to me in unspoken words like the Divinity."

With her son Walter (B.S. in Political Science) as her running
mate, she is "riding on discount bus tickets and All-Aboard Am-
trak train fares" spreading the word to church groups and
schools. She even notes that she made the "Very Interesting Peo-
ple" section of the Muskegon Chronicle.

  With her mission, "To help some people change their attitude
and build their self-esteem," she promises to have another crack
in 1996 - if she is "spiritually inclined."

  In the competition for pathos, though, few can compete with the
"ex's." These are the fringe candidates who once were not. Howard
Phillips, president of the Conservative Caucus, is running in 20
states, promising not only to turn the clock back 30 years on
abortion, homosexuality and welfare rights, but also to be a
president willing "to govern confrontationally."

  On the other side of the policy ocean, and no less a student of
the in-your-face school of politics, is Ron Daniels. The deputy
chairman of Jesse Jackson's 1988 bid, he is running on a Campaign
for a New Tomorrow ticket. At a D.C. press conference (where
those answering questions outnumbered those asking them), he
called for "strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and civil disobedi-
ence. We intend to become ungovernable. It is the ballot and the
bullet - metaphorically speaking." Both men have given up on the
big parties where they began in favor of a smaller home they can
call their own. Both deny egotism played any part in the deci-
sion.

  Time to look again at Honest Jim Boren. Isn't self-promotion a
teensy, weensy part of a candidate's motivation? A wicked, rasp-
ing laugh. And then, "I'm having the time of my life!"<02:30 10-
31C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)