John McAfee, a fairly famous software developer, says he is founding a new party and will be its presidential candidate. Here is his FEC form, filed on September 8. Here is an article about him. Thanks to Darcy Richardson for this news.
2
Baroness Ros Altmann, a member of the British House of Lords and a minister in the Conservative government, was recently exposed as someone who had joined the Labour Party last year. All dues-paying members of the Labour Party received a postal ballot to vote on who the Labour Party leader should be. In Britain, party leaders become Prime Minister if that party wins the election.
The Labour Party combed through its membership list last month and expelled persons who are active members of other parties, but the process missed Baroness Altmann. See this story. She received a ballot, but the story does not say if she used that ballot. The votes are being counted now and the winner’s identity will be announced this week.
The Greensboro News and Record here editorializes that the North Carolina legislature ought to set a May presidential primary date.
The New York Times of September 8 has this front-page story about the Mississippi Democratic Party’s nominee for Governor, Robert Gray. Gray won this year’s primary even though he did not campaign and his two primary opponents did campaign. The story suggests that the Democratic primary outcome was caused by Republicans voting in the Democratic primary. Mississippi has an open primary.
On Saturday, September 5, Deez Nuts (alias Brady Olson) appeared at the Minnesota Independence Party’s booth at the Minnesota state fair. That was good for some publicity for the party. Even the Washington Post took note, as this column attests.