Many Presidential Options

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | May 25, 2024

Quick now: What do Chase Oliver, Randall Terry, Claudia De la Cruz, Peter Sonski, Michael Wood, Bill Stodden, Joseph Kishore, Rachelle Fruit, Tom Ross, and Paul Noel Fiorino all have in common? No clue?

What if we add Cornel West and Jill Stein? No? Then let’s add Robert Kennedy, Jr., Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, because all of the above are running for president. And you thought you had no real choices.

We already know more than we wanted or needed to know about Mr. Trump, and Biden isn't exactly a secret after more than half a century of political public service.

(Trump is insisting his pair of debates with Biden require both of them to stand, as he apparently believes he can stand longer than Biden, a true measurement of presidential potential. A better option would be to hook both up to a polygraph and let us see the results in real time. Some might prefer a candidate who is less deceptive while sitting than one who is lying while standing.)

That leaves us with the rest of this group. Along with Biden and Trump, Kennedy, Stein, and Terry have all qualified to be on the Michigan ballot. Others have qualified in other states, and the final five are still searching for a ballot somewhere.

Let’s start with Robert Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an independent. Kennedy has generated plenty of interest but not necessarily in a good way. He’s an anti-COVID vaccine person but says he’s not a blanket anti-vaxxer. Kennedy, who regularly boasts about his vitality at 70, has recently claimed part of his brain was eaten by a parasitic worm. The medical community says a worm could have invaded his brain but likely did not eat any of it, which is why the thing starved and died.

Jill Stein is once again the candidate of the Green Party, and her platform is short and easily understood. Stein says she is “...pro-worker, anti-war and pro-climate action.” This will be Stein’s third run for the White House.

Cornel West is an author, college professor and lecturer, and long-time civil rights activist. He’s not yet on the Michigan ballot, but he has campaigned here extensively, targeting Arab-Americans, Muslims, and young Black voters disappointed in Biden.

Randall Terry represents something called the Constitution Party and will be on the Michigan ballot. To say he is an anti-abortion activist would be something of an understatement. As a founder of Operation Rescue, Terry has been arrested on multiple occasions at multiple demonstrations. He’s running, he says, to “end murdering babies and to destroy the Democratic Party.”

Michael Wood is a member of the Prohibition Party, the country’s third oldest, but appears to be running as an independent and is not yet on our ballot. Interesting that they are still around and still delivering a message of temperance despite Prohibition having been repealed 91 years ago.

Then there’s Claudia De la Cruz, another independent without a ballot home. De la Cruz is a self-described “hard Socialist,” has been endorsed by the South Carolina Workers Party, and pledges to “end capitalism once and for all.”

In fact, Socialists have so many various arms and branches they’ve practically torn themselves asunder. Bill Stodden is the candidate for the Socialist Party USA, Joseph Kishore the candidate of the Socialist Equality Party, and Rachele Fruit the choice of the Socialist Workers Party. That’s quite a few Socialist candidates in a country that rarely elects them.

Tom Ross is the nominee of the Transhumanist Party. If you’ve never heard of them, that’s likely because they did not exist prior to October of 2014. Their platform is “...putting science, health and technology at the forefront of American politics.” (Go to transhumanist-party.org, and scroll down a bit to behold the most astonishing candidate photo ever.)

Paul Noel Fiorino is the candidate of the Unity Party of America which boasts members in 40 states. Their slogan is “Not left. Not right. Forward.” but their platform might not generate as much unity as they’d like since they support a balanced budget amendment, elimination of the federal income tax, and Congressional term limits, among other ideas.

Finally, there’s Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party. Sounds like a unifying party, but it is not. Their vision of the “tradition of Christian democracy” starts to sound less than inclusive and it goes on to say we have to recognize the “primacy of religion in each person’s life.” That sounds more theocratic than democratic.

Every presidential election affords us many, many options. That we choose to ignore all but two of those choices every four years is not the system’s flaw but ours. We claim we don’t want to “waste” our vote because no third party candidate has a chance to win. Maybe that’s because we never give them that chance.