In theory, becoming the President of the United States is supposed to be one of the hardest endeavors one can do. But for some, it seems to have been easier than it looks, and not because they were THAT good.
As it turns out, all you need is money, charisma, a vague objective that seemingly touches multiple areas of interest and issues, and no more than 35 years of experience as an American human. This set of super easy prerequisites has become increasingly more apparent to legions of weirdos who have had the confidence to say: “Well, I could be the next president!”
But truth be told, from self-proclaimed vampires to former punk icons, all these presidential candidates tried their best to win and failed miserably.
Vermin Love Supreme
Vermin Love Supreme (let’s hope that’s not his real name) is a performance artist and overall weirdo who’s been known to walk around with a boot on his head while carrying an enormous toothbrush.
He had a long series of killer promises he planned for if he got elected. The one that stood out the most involved a law that required everyone in America to brush their teeth, research devoted to the concept of time travel, a free pony to everyone in the country, and a well-organized zombie apocalypse awareness campaign.
Allegedly, he also donated a kidney at one point, which he didn’t cease to mention on his weird website.
Jello Biafra
If you don’t know who Jello Biafra is, wait until you find out. The legendary frontman of the Dead Kennedys and punk guru, Jello Biafra had an attempt to snake the Green Party nomination back in 2020, losing to Ralph Nader.
Biafra decided to partner up with death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal as his running mate. He promised to enact a maximum wage, abolish the military, and also to lower the voting age to five. However, in retrospect, it would have been interesting, to say the least, to have a president who once wrote a song called “Kill the Poor.”
This country would’ve probably ended up pretty much in the same place it is today, anyway.
Basil Marceaux
Tennessee’s own Basil Marceaux has decided to run for office numerous times, without success. His most recent candidacy was in 2010 when he made a myriad of outlandish promises such as banning police officers from charging suspects for anything except vehicle moving violations.
He basically granted Americans complete immunity from the law with statements like: “VOTE FOR ME AND IF I BECOME PRESIDENT I WILL IMMUNE YOU FROM STATE CRIMES FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!” What a deal, right? Also, he released a Christmas song, which is not too shabby, to be honest.
James Traficant
If you ever looked at the White House and thought: “man, it would be so fun if a convicted felon would run the country”, well, that might be the case this year. Jokes aside, that would have been the case if James Traficant would’ve locked the 1988 presidential election.
Who is James Traficant? I’m glad you asked. He was part of the House of Representatives in Ohio, but he rapidly got expelled after taking bribes, filing all sorts of false tax returns, and forcing his coworkers to perform chores on his own houseboat.
Traficant also served seven years in jail and was rapidly released in late 2009. He served as a guest speaker at a Tea Party protest right before he got killed in 2014 in a farm accident.
Jonathon Albert “The Impaler” Sharkey
Yes, we could have had a guy called The Impaler in the White House. Here are all the reasons we should be thankful that this ex-wrestler lost the elections. Among many things, Sharkey is also a self-proclaimed vampire who only drinks the blood of women because “women are gorgeous, they have such beautiful necks and arms.”
His own policy on crime relied on torturing and impaling criminals. He called former President H.W. Bush a communist, and he once recorded an album of Elvis Presley covers. As he lost the 2012 election, Sharkey planned to run again in 2020, but it didn’t happen, thank God!
Roseanne Barr
There have been plenty of celebrities who tried to run for President, but Roseanne Barr got far enough to file with the Federal Election Commission in 2012 under the “Green Tea Party” ticket. Barr’s candidacy even focused on mental health and meditation.
He also promised to send Wall Street bankers and re-educate camps. In some cases, he even planned to execute them by beheading. If you’re wondering whether I’m inventing all these things or not, trust me, I wish I was. For a while, it seems that America was prone to feudalism in a way that’s truly still hard to comprehend.
Joan Jett Blakk
Joan Jett Blakk is a writer and performer who came up with the “brilliant” idea to run for president. Not once, but twice. The first time in 1992, under the slogan “Lick Bush in ’92!”, and another time in 1996, under the slogan “Lick Slick Willie in ’96!” Did you notice what they did there? Blakk ran on the Queer National Party ticket. However, they lost twice.
Mike Gravel
Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel earned his fame through a bizarre series of events and extremely unsettling election videos throughout the 2008 elections. One of them involves a stone-faced Gravel staring into a camera and then throwing a huge rock into a lake. The other is no less than seven minutes of a cracking fire. Needless to say, he didn’t win anything.
Pat Paulsen
When comedian Pat Paulsen was carefully approached by The Smothers Brothers with the brilliant idea of running for president in 1968, he replied: “Well, why not? I can’t dance, and the job has quite a good pension plan. I will get a lot of money when I retire.”
Paulsen’s political decisions were mainly grounded in satire. Oftentimes, he would publicly answer questions with a certain phrase: “I think it’s too directly bound to its own anguish to be anything other than just a cry of negation.
It carries with itself the seeds of its own destruction.” Well, that’s…quite philosophic. As he was never really serious about holding office, Paulsen came in second place to Bill Clinton in the New Hampshire for Democratic Primary, with no less than 921 votes.
Short list of cool facts about those who actually became presidents
Now, all this talk about, well, losers, made us want to know more about those who actually managed to be presidents. So we thought: why not add a short list of fun facts? Are you ready?
- Abraham Lincoln was 6 feet, 4 inches, which makes him the tallest U.S. president
- James Garfield was the first left-handed president of the United States
- Millard Fillmore, the 13th president, was the very first president with a stepmother
- The only president who wanted to become a medical doctor was William Henry Harrison, the ninth president
- The 18th President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, got a $20 speeding ticket for riding his horse and buggy way too fast down a street in Washington, D.C.
Now, there’s much to learn about our presidents, so if you want to find out more, we recommend you read “Presidents of the United States of America: A History of America’s Leaders” by Franklin Taylor.
If you found this article interesting, we also recommend checking: 7 Reasons Why Trump Shouldn’t Be President Again
