Believe it or not, there are eight people running for president this November.
Since we are blessed enough to live in a political dichotomy, we are forced by the invisible hand of pragmatism to pick between one of the two candidates guaranteed to win – Obama and Romney.
However, there are six other individuals from smaller fringe parties and movements who deserve at least some recognition. Not because they stand a frozen turd’s chance in hell of winning, but because they stand for interesting causes that the big shot candidates won’t even acknowledge.
For example, take the most famous of the losers, Ron Paul. Congressman Paul is a “Republican” from Texas. Paul is a libertarian, not a Republican in the contemporary sense.
Paul’s main focus has always been less government, especially when it comes to the Federal Reserve.
Speaking of Libertarians, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is the Libertarian Party nominee for president this year.
Johnson and Paul have very similar views on several key issues. For example, they both are for the legalization, taxation and regulation of marijuana.
This issue has become exponentially more important to many Americans over the past ten years than most ever thought possible, largely because many states have adopted medical marijuana programs.
Marijuana legalization is an issue that Obama and Romney won’t touch.
During the 2008 election, Obama said he was in favor of reforming drug laws, and once elected, he went so far as to issue a mandate ordering the federal government not to interfere in states where medical marijuana had been legalized.
And if Romney ever lit up a doobie, Joseph Smith would rise from his grave and trigger the zombie apocalypse.
Jill Stein is a Massachusetts physician who has run for governor of her state twice. She is the Green Party nominee for president, and probably the most leftist of the candidates. She is critical of Obama’s liberal stances but seemingly conservative actions, like the continuing troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The most entertaining candidate is undoubtedly Jimmy McMillan of Brooklyn, N.Y., and founder of The Rent is Too Damn High Party. His agenda speaks for itself.
Virgil Goode is a former congressman from Virginia. I’d never heard of him until I wrote this paragraph, and neither have you.
Similar to Romney, Goode likes to switch parties. He was a Democrat, then an independent, then a Republican and is currently a member of the Constitution Party.
The final candidate for president is Stewart Alexander, the Socialist Party USA nominee from California. You haven’t heard of him because anything with the word ‘socialist’ beside it automatically conjures up images of Hitler and Stalin – at least in this country.
But socialism is not a bad thing, in fact, the United States would be better off if we adopted a few socialist principles into the way our government does things.
Socialism is taking care of society, in all respects. I predict a radical shift towards the left in the upcoming years, primarily because the wealth gap in this country is staggering.
I encourage you to research these minor candidates and perhaps surprise yourself with which one you side with the most.
But don’t bother wasting your vote on any of them.
Parker Cramer is a 21-year-old political science senior from Houston. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_pcramer.
 
____ Contact Parker Cramer at [email protected]