While many mainstream news outlets reported that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was the first Republican to officially declare his candidacy for president in the 2016 election Monday, he’s actually 197th or more down the line, according to the Federal Election Commission. Indeed, as of yesterday, Cruz had not filed a Statement of Candidacy form with the FEC yet (he has 15 days from his public declaration to do so).
It’s not a high bar for entry into the race, however. One must either have raised $5,000 in campaign contributions, spent $5,000 on one’s campaign or designated someone else — a committee — to raise and/or spend $5,000 on one’s behalf.
Our perennial favorite candidate, Paul Chehade, has been in the race since 2013. He’s joined by, to judge on names alone, some rather quirky folks with aspirations to high executive office.
Rickey Joe Storey is running (again — he ran in 2012, too) as a Republican, courtesy of the “Average Joe for President” committee. Then there’s the Rev. Pamela M. Pinkney Butts running for the “other” party since March 2, followed closely by Sydneys Voluptous (sic) Buttocks, who declared as an independent candidate March 3.
His Royal Highness Caesar St. Augustine de Buonaparte, also standing for the “other” party, has filed for presidential candidacy in 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2011 and now again in 2015. In the same regal vein is President Emperor Caesar, who has been a candidate four times, most recently since 2011. Another serial filer, standing for the Constitutional Party, is Miss Betsy Pauline Elgar, who has filed annually since 2011.
James “Titus the Great” Law filed as a Democratic candidate in 2014. Pres (sic) Princess Khadijah M. Jacob-Fambro, ostensibly from San Francisco, has been registered since 2012 with her committee listed as “FROM ONE ALIEN TO ANOTHER ALIEN LIL WAYNE DWAYNE MICHAEL CARTER JR PRESIDENT CARTER WILL.”
The longest-running candidate on the list is Republican Josue Larose of Deerfield Beach, Fla., who has been in the 2016 race since Dec. 12, 2008.
While it’s easy to cherry-pick nut-jobs from the list of registered candidates, it will be less entertaining when the 20 or so Republican presidential wannabes take the national stage in what will no doubt prove to be a long, brutish and nasty Republican primary season in the run-up to 2016. So far, however, none of them have made it official.
