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OUR REALLY MASSIVE FIELD OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES — REALLY: Nobody’s actually, officially running for president just yet, right?

Oh, so wrong.

A cool 85 people are, as you read this, formally seeking the nation’s highest office ahead of 2012 elections, as OpenSecrets.org‘s IT guru Susi Alger discovered while downloading Federal Election Commission data this weekend.

Who you won’t find on this list: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty or practically anyone else whose name you’d easily recognize.

Perhaps the closest we get to a maybe-was-a-household-name-in-a-few-households-about-20-years-ago kind of candidate is Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, an organization that sprung to prominence during the 1990s as it attempted to shut down abortion clinics across the nation. Terry filed a statement of candidacy on Jan. 18, and he’s running as a Democrat. (See his candidacy statement here: terryfiling.pdf )

Beyond Terry, the field thins into folks ranging from the obscure, to the virtually unknown, to the downright bizarre.

Running for president is, for example, popular among people purporting to have presidential-y monikers.

There’s George Washington Williams and Rutherford Burt Hayes. Jeff Howard Taft Davis‘ candidacy might sow confusion over whether he’s running for the presidency of the United States of America, or, the Confederacy.

Also present on this list are folks who straight-up incorporate leadership titles into their names, including Warren Roderick President Ashe, Jonathon the Impaler Sharkey and Ole Savior, as well as the arguably overqualified President Emperor Caesar.

Having trouble choosing between Tanner Cline McCumber Bush and Savannah Jewel McCumber Bush? No surprise there, since both California-based presidential candidates list themselves in their FEC filings as independents who are, respectively, the “legal son” and “legal daughter” of “John ‘Jeb’ Ellis Bush former governor of Florida.”

Both forms also note, in script handwriting at the margins of the documents, that they’ve been filed by “Laura Jane McCumber Bush,” the “legal wife of Jeb Bush due to the worlds largest terrorists organization plotting our assassination.” (See document here: savannahbush.pdf )

One element that links nearly all of these presidential candidates together? Their campaigns are effectively broke, which could pose a tad of trouble for them in an election cycle when Obama’s campaign alone is expected to flirt with the $1 billion mark.

Then again, if you’re President Emperor Caesar, a few weeks pillaging Gaul and Britannia should easily fuel your staffing requirements and advertising campaigns ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Check back with OpenSecrets.org in the coming days for more information on the ever-developing 2012 presidential field.

NOW THAT GREEN BAY HAS WON THE SUPER BOWL … the National Football League and the NFL Players Association can begin to negotiate in earnest a collective bargaining agreement, as without one, a 2011 season would be thrust into extreme jeopardy.

The negotiations began Saturday after months and months of run-up. How long they’ll continue — and what they’ll yield — is anyone’s guess.

In the meantime, let us point out that, according to our research, the league and the players’ union have been playing serious politics, too: Both spent more on federal-level lobbying efforts in 2010 than they had in any year previous. (For the statisticians among us, that’s $1,450,000 for the NFL, and $450,000 for the players association.) When you dig into what they’re lobbying on, you’ll find (here and here) that labor issues rank prominently.

So, enjoy the Super Bowl afterglow, especially if you’re a Cheesehead, as the Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31-25, in a thriller that came down to the game’s final drive. Whether we even get a Super Bowl next year remains a mystery.



CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS, IN THE NEWS: Since Friday, a number of publications and networks have quoted our experts or highlighted our work researching and reporting on the influence of money in politics. Among them:

• Fox News

• MSNBC

• CNN

• CNBC

• Los Angeles Times (here, here and here)

• Washington Post

• Washington Examiner

• U.S. News & World Report

• Boston Herald

• Nashville Tennessean

• New Orleans Times-Picayune

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer

• Newark Star-Ledger

• Talking Points Memo

• The Hill

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected].



For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: [email protected]

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