The United States truly is the land of opportunity, a country where anyone, even a dumb joke, can run for president. First there was Deez Nuts, the independent candidate for president who made a surprisingly strong showing in polling data released last week. As the Daily Beast reported, Deez Nuts is fictional—the creation of a puckish 15-year-old Iowan named Brady Olson—but his campaign filing is real.
Now Nuts has company—or perhaps a host of potential running mates. Scanning FEC filings, Robert Maguire of the Center for Responsive Politics found several other ridiculous candidates, many of whom seem to have cropped up in Deez Nuts’ wake: Butt Stuff of Seattle, Dat Ass of Syosset, New York, Tyrone Longdick of Elmwood Park, Illinois.
And while his name might be less sophomoric, it seems unlikely that Jeffrey Dahmer is really running for national office. Maguire points to other improbable candidates, including “suck seattle seachickens” and Master Alexander Soy Sauce-and-Taters.
I did my own scan of the FEC’s list of presidential Form 2 filers (Form 2 is a document that indicates intent to run for federal office) and found some other joke candidates—so long as one interprets “joke” loosely—including Bippy the Clown and Buddy the Elf. Rocky Balboa also seems unlikely to become a serious contender.
Maguire says this amount of pranksterism is new. “We’ve seen gimmick candidates in the past,” he told me, “but since the Deez Nuts survey came out, I’m seeing a flood of candidate filings.” FEC standards dictate that candidates must file a Form 2 when they’ve received or expended more than $5,000. But since nothing stops candidates from filing before they cross that threshold, we’re likely to see others in the spirit of Deez Nuts before the election season is over.
