Filed by KOSU News in Politics.
June 5, 2011

If the contemporary era thinks it has cornered the market on presidential candidates who think outside the box — such as Ron Paul and Herman Cain — it should think again. American history is chock-full of one-of-a-kind politicians with White House aspirations.

Nevermind all the self-nominated hopefuls like Leonard “Live Forever” Jones — a Kentucky original who thought he could live forever and ran for president in the mid-19th century — or Homer Tomlinson — a New York preacher who ran unsuccessfully several times in the 1950s and eventually got fed up and appointed himself “King of the World.”

We set as our criterion: People who were nominees of a political party — people chosen by others to potentially be leaders of the free world. In most cases, these candidates attracted delegates, garnered popular votes and even helped shape American politics. Here then is a barroom brawl-starting list of the five most unusual nominees for president. Ever. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]