Perennial candidate

A perennial candidate is one who frequently runs for public office with a record of success that is either infrequent or non-existent. Perennial candidates are often either members of minority political parties or have political opinions that are not mainstream. They may run not with any serious hope of gaining office, but in order to promote their views or themselves. John C. Turmel is according to the Guinness Book of Records, the most persistent perennial candidate, having run and lost in a total of 66 elections.

Famous perennial candidates

Brazil

• Enéas Carneiro has run for the Presidency of Brazil three times. He has promised not to ever run for any other office, but decided to run for Congress in 2002, when he was elected with 1.4 million votes, the highest number of votes that a Brazilian Congressman ever received.

Canada

• Michael Baldasaro of the pro-marijuana Church of the Universe has run on numerous occasions for positions at various levels.

• Douglas Campbell has run as a fringe candidate for federal parliament in the 1960s, the leadership of both the Ontario and federal New Democratic Party in the 1970s and 1980s, and Mayor of North York, Ontario. He ran for Mayor of Toronto in 2000, 2003 and 2006.

• Colby Fraser has sought election to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick in every election from 1987 onward on a platform opposing official recognition of the French language. He was also twice a candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in 1988 and 1993.

• Henri-Georges Grenier ran 13 times for the Canadian House of Commons between 1945 and 1980 on the tickets of a variety of political parties, for each of which he was the sole candidate.

• Ben Kerr, a street musician, ran for Mayor of Toronto seven times between 1985 and his death in 2005. He was best known for his country music performances and for advocating the medicinal benefits of drinking a concoction that has cayenne pepper as its main ingredient.

• Patricia Métivier contested 24 Canadian federal, provincial or municipal elections from 1972 to 2001.

• David Popescu has run for seven different offices since 1998 on an extreme anti-abortion and anti-homosexual platform.

• Naomi Rankin is running for the Communist Party of Canada in 2008, her eighth attempt at becoming an MP. She has also ran six times for the Communist Party of Alberta, also all unsuccessful.

• John C. "The Engineer" Turmel is in the Guinness World Records for being the candidate who has "most elections contested" and lost: 67 as of 2008.

France

• Arlette Laguiller, leader of the Workers' Struggle, a French Trotskyist party, has been a candidate six times (1974, 1981, 1988, 1995, 2002 and 2007) in the French Presidential elections.

India

• Hotte Paksha Rangaswamy was a political leader from the Indian state of Karnataka, who had a penchant for contesting elections. He is a Guinness World Records holder for having contested the highest number of elections - he unsuccessfully did so 86 times.

Mexico

• Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda was a candidate ten times: 1892, 1896, 1900, 1904, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1917, 1920 and 1924 and also tried to run for a seat in the Congress of Mexico at least twice. The eccentric Zúñiga never got more than a few votes, but always claimed to have been the victim of fraud and considered himself to be the legitimate president.

United Kingdom

• Bill Boaks contested general and by-elections for a period of 30 years under various descriptions, most famously "Public Safety Democratic Monarchist White Resident". Boaks's main concern was public safety on the roads and believed that pedestrians should have the right of way at all times. In the Glasgow Hillhead by-election, 1982 he received only 5 votes, one of the lowest recorded in a modern British Parliamentary election. He died in 1986 from injuries sustained in a car accident two years earlier.

• David Sutch ran in 39 general elections and by-elections under the name Screaming Lord Sutch for the British House of Commons, and one election for the European Parliament, never winning much more than 1,000 votes. He first ran in 1963 on the National Teenage Party ticket for the seat left vacant by the resignation of John Profumo. He founded the infamous Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1983 and led it until his suicide in 1999.

• Kenneth Clarke has become somewhat of a perennial candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party (UK). Despite being one of the party's so called 'big-beasts', he has been defeated on three separate occasions, 1997, 2001 and 2005. Clarke's failure to secure the leadership has been attributed to his pro-EU views which are considered to be out of sync with the rest of the primarily eurosceptic party membership.

United States

• William Jennings Bryan, was the Democratic Party nominee for president three times and unsuccessfully sought the nomination twice.

• Henry Clay, American politician, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senator, ran for President in 1824, 1832, 1840, 1844 and 1848.

• John H. Cox, a Republican talk radio host, has run for various positions in his home state of Illinois including U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, and Cook County Recorder of Deeds, the latter in an attempt to eliminate the position; which he saw as unnecessary. Cox most recently unsuccessfully ran for the 2008 Republican nomination for President of the United States.

• Eugene V. Debs was a presidential candidate for the Social Democratic Party in 1900 and thereafter for the Socialist Party in four more elections: 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. In the 1920 election, while in federal prison for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 with a speech opposing the draft, he received 913,664 votes, the most ever for a Socialist Party presidential candidate.

• Earl Dodge, a long-time activist in the temperance movement, was the Prohibition Party's presidential candidate in six consecutive elections, from 1984 to 2004. He was also that party's vice-presidential candidate in 1976 and 1980. He ran for Governor of Colorado on five occasions (1970, 1974, 1982, 1986, and 1994) as well. He also ran for Senator of Kansas in 1966.

• John Hagelin, a physicist and co-founder of the Natural Law Party, was that party's only presidential candidate in its history. Hagelin ran three times (in 1992, 1996 and 2000) before the party folded in 2004.

• Gus Hall, leader of the Communist Party USA, ran for Governor of Ohio in 1940 and for the presidency four times, from 1972 to 1984 inclusive.

• Bob Kelleher, an attorney from Montana, ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1968 and 1976, ran as a Green candidate for the Montana State Senate in 2000, for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2006, and for Governor of Montana in 2004, and is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2008. [1]

• Alan Keyes, has run for U.S. President in 1996, 2000, and 2008. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 1988, 1992, and, in 2004, against Barack Obama in Illinois.

• Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe political figure, ran for president of the United States in eight elections, beginning in 1976. He ran once as a U.S. Labor Party candidate and seven times as a Democrat. In 1992, he campaigned while in federal prison. Many of his followers have also run for office repeatedly, including Sheila Jones and Elliott Greenspan, both of whom made eight campaigns for a variety of offices.

• Andy Martin (also known as Anthony Martin-Trigona), a journalist and self-described consumer advocate has run for several local, state and federal offices dating back to at least 1977, including two runs for president and six runs for Senate. He has run as a Democrat, a Republican and as an independent.

• Eugene McCarthy, Senator from Minnesota, though successful in multiple campaigns for the U.S. Congress, was a perennial presidential candidate. He ran for the Presidency five times, in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1988, and 1992. He tried (unsuccessfully) for the Democratic Presidential nomination in three of those years (1968, 1972, and 1992), and ran as an Independent in the other two years.

• Ralph Nader, a noted consumer rights advocate, has run for the presidency five consecutive times. He ran as a write-in candidate in 1992, then twice as the nominee of the U.S. Green Party (in 1996 and 2000). In 2004, he ran as an independent. On February 24, 2008, Nader announced on Meet the Press that he will again be a candidate for President in 2008. Nader's 2.7% in the 2000 election has led to controversy as to whether he spoiled the election for Al Gore.

• Jim Oberweis, Illinois dairy magnate, unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, Illinois Governor in 2006, and U.S. Representative in the Illinois 14th district in 2008 in the special election to replace retiring Dennis Hastert. He is currently the Republican candidate in the November election in a rematch against Bill Foster.

• Pat Paulsen, a comedian best known for his appearances on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, first ran for President in 1968 as both a joke and a protest. He ran again in 1972 and in succeeding elections until 1996, one year prior to his death.

• Mary Ruwart, a member of the Libertarian Party, Ruwart campaigned unsuccessfully for the party's presidential nomination in 1984 and 2008 and for the vice-presidential nomination in 1992. Ruwart was the Libertarian Party of Texas's nominee for U.S. Senate in 2000 losing with only 1.16% of the popular vote.

• Al Sharpton ran for the United States Senate from New York in 1988, 1992, and 1994. He also ran for Mayor of New York City in 1997 and for the Democratic nomination for President in 2004.

• Harold Stassen was probably the best-known perennial candidate, at least in the United States. The one-time Governor of Minnesota ran for the Republican nomination for President on nine occasions between 1948 and 1992. While Stassen was considered a serious candidate in 1948 and 1952, his attempts were increasingly met with derision and then amusement as the decades progressed. He also ran in 10 other races for lower offices.

• Norman Thomas was the Socialist Party's candidate for President of the United States on six occasions from 1928 to 1948 inclusive. Unlike most other perennial candidates, Thomas influenced American politics to a considerable degree, with many of his policies being appropriated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.