Former software mogul and current cartoon millionaire John McAfee is running for President of the United States. But he will not be kissing babies to do so. And, for that, he apologises.
On his website, McAfee claims that he will be running the “first purely electronic Presidential campaign”. Which means that he will not be out there on the campaign trail, but pledges to make himself available to all Americans, unlike the Clintons and Trumps of the world.
From McAfee’s campaign website:
I will not be coming to your city to shake your hand or kiss your babies, and for that I apologise, both to you and to your babies. But I will make myself available in a way that no presidential candidate has yet done.
Despite the fact that McAfee wants to run as the Libertarian Party nominee (for which, it should be noted, he has not yet been nominated) he will not be debating Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, or presumably anyone aside from the cast of One Got Fat, a 1963 bicycle safety video which features prominently in one of McAfee’s campaign videos. His is a purely internet-driven campaign, complete with “fireside chats” conducted over the web.
Why is McAfee running? He believes that our current political structure is corrupt and he wants to represent all Americans. He also insists that his is a serious campaign. How serious?
Again, from McAfee’s campaign website:
I am called “not serious”, yet I know of no-one who has lived a more serious life. I have run a multi-billion dollar company, having to make decisions based on cash availability and the existence of real competitors while my government lived in a fantasy world and printed money when they had none to spend. I lived in a Third World Banana Republic, was tortured and had to watch my dog shot in front of my eyes by a soldier trained by the FBI at Quantico using an Ar-15 supplied by the US Government. I hid in the jungles of Central America for weeks while being chased by an army representing a government that I had refused to be extorted by. Please…. tell me what is not serious about this.
Emphasis mine.
Back in September McAfee floated the idea when his unnamed “advisers” told him he must run for office. Then he said that he’d be starting his own political party to make a go of it. Now it seems McAfee wants to run on the Libertarian ticket — one of the few “third parties” any Americans actually recognise.
One of the most curious assurances made by McAfee? He will represent every single American — a politically impossible feat that McAfee claims would be the death knell of his campaign if even one American feels they’re not represented by McAfee’s views.
If there is even one American that, at the end of my campaign, I do not represent, then I have failed and do not deserve to be your president.
So yeah, best of luck with that, Mr McAfee. We’re rooting for you. Because Donald Trump’s crypto-fascist shtick is getting tired. We need a real old-fashioned American eccentric money running for office. One with mountains of guns and drugs and government conspiracies. And you look like you fit the bill.