Who’re dose guys?

I’m writing this particular commentary for my brother, Chris, who recently asked me, “Is there anybody else running” for president.

STEIN: A suburban Chicago native



He’s not impressed with the incumbent, but also doesn’t think that Mitt Romney is worthy of a vote.

MY BROTHER PLANS to cast his ballot on Election Day, and I don’t have a clue as to who he will go for when it comes to making his mark for U.S. president.

Would he go for a third party candidate just to express his contempt for the incumbent? Which might well be a popular move this election cycle – for which we have one more week to cast our votes early, or else wait for Nov. 6 proper to do so.

Here in Illinois, Barack Obama warrants the top ballot spot, with Mitt Romney right behind him. Which then brings up the candidacy of Gary Johnson of Santa Fe, N.M., who is the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee – with Newport Beach, Calif., resident James P. Gray as his running mate.

There’s also Jill Stein of the Green Party, who although she now lives in that very historic burg of Lexington, Mass., was born in Chicago and raised in suburban Highland Park.

BUT THAT’S ABOUT it.

A look at the records of the Illinois State Board of Elections shows that candidates of the Socialist USA Party, the Constitution Party and the Together Enhancing America Party, along with several political independents, tried to get on the Illinois general election ballot – only to get knocked off by one means or another.

Some voters in this country may get the chance to cast their gag vote for socialist Stewart Alexander, but we in Illinois won’t.

JOHNSON: President Veto?



Personally, I think the biggest “loss” when it comes to candidates who couldn’t remain on the ballot were a pair of Illinois residents who tried to run for president and V-P.

WE COULD HAVE had the chance to vote for favorite son candidates in the form of Lex Green of Bloomington and Edward Rutledge of suburban Lemont, if only they had not dropped out voluntarily back in July.

I’m not saying that Green or Rutledge were at all qualified to hold higher office. I suspect they just have too much free time on their hands, which makes me wonder about that old saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

But it’s always a kick to be able to cast a ballot for somebody who actually knows your own home turf firsthand, rather than having read about it in a briefing report written by some campaign aide who probably cribbed two-thirds of it from Encyclopaedia Britannica.

So what do we in Illinois get to pick from, should we absolutely decide that neither Obama nor Romney is worthy of our little green checkmark on those touch-screen ballots we’re all now supposed to use nowadays (but which many people still seem uncomfortable – if the cautious and clumsy activity I witnessed at an early voting center when I cast my ballot is any evidence)?

JOHNSON OF THE Libertarians is a one-time New Mexico governor who was among the many people who gave thought to trying to get the Republican nomination for president in this year’s cycle.

But when he couldn’t elevate himself ahead of a field that included such people as Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, he converted to libertarianism.

The one-time “Gov. Veto” (he used his power 200 times during his first six months as governor) would like to go to work in the District of Columbia.

Which is more than Stein could offer, although she has run for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010 and has the endorsements of Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader in her presidential bid this year.

ALTHOUGH BY CAREER, she’s a doctor (and a Harvard Medical School graduate) with a serious interest in the way government takes actions meant to protect the health of the public.

GIERACH: They wouldn't let him in either



Which may sound noble. But about the only attention she has received this campaign cycle is when she got arrested Oct. 16 when she tried to crash the town hall-type debate between Obama and Romney held at Hofstra University.

Perhaps she should have tried the same tactic as would-be Illinois gubernatorial candidate James Gierach in 1994. He brought his own chair to Democratic primary debates and tried to set it up on stage with the so-called “official” candidates. He wasn’t invited to participate in debates either.

Which seems to be what our election cycles have devolved to these days – a club to which only certain people can work their way onstage for us to choose from.

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