Constable: 'El Gato Negro,' Kanye (not that one) and 321 other people running for president
A businessperson who never held a political office, speaks from the gut, doesn't back down, talks a lot about job creation and has come under fire for controversial comments about others is running for president of the United States in 2020.
Her name is Susanne Atanus, and she is joined by an Oswego candidate running as El Gato Negro (the black cat), a Zion man whose twitter handle is @JESUS2020POTUS and a total of 323 people who already have filed a Statement of Candidacy form with the Federal Election Commission to register as a candidate for the 2020 presidential election.
Atanus garnered nationwide attention as a 2014 Republican congressional candidate who said during her Daily Herald endorsement interview that God gives us tornadoes, autism and dementia because we provoked him by legalizing abortions and gay rights. The 59-year-old Atanus (who turns 60 on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day) splits her time between a townhouse in Des Plaines and caring for her 89-year-old father in Niles. She is running as a Democrat this time and says she's hoping to recruit July Fourth parade marchers through susanneatanusforpresident.com.
Atanus still says God doles out bad weather and diseases in response to people's actions, but says she'd rather focus on her presidential plans to abolish the Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S & P Indexes, ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, raise the minimum wage, give instant citizenship to every immigrant who passes a background check and create a restitution program for Jewish people (not blacks or Native Americans) that would give them 15 percent discounts off tuition and nursing homes.
Getting on the ballot is an insurmountable challenge for nearly all these presidential candidates, who come from almost every state including a dozen Illinoisans, although it seems that Californians and Texans are most eager to live in the White House starting on Jan. 20, 2021. Rules vary by state, but the deadlines to get on a ballot range from July to September 2020.
Presidential candidate Jawad Hashem Hakeem of Zion praises our current president but also calls for a “Universal Basic Income” of $5,000 a month for every person on Earth. Hakeem's 2016 campaign for the presidency failed to raise any contributions.
“We need a clear vision for 2020. We need Clifford Allen Englerth for President in 2020!” reads the gofundme pitch of Englerth, a candidate from Loves Park, who has yet to report a contribution.
A candidate from Sycamore filed as Devin Arendt with the middle name of 1983, but that might just be a mistake in filling out the form. Arendt's party affiliation is listed as NPA. The Oswego candidate who filed papers as El Gato Negro is running for president with the Conservative Guerrilla Party. The Facebook page for Brett Henderson for President says the Geneseo man will stand up to the NRA and, “as President and a Blue Collar man, I'll promote social equality and economic improvement for the middle and lower class.”
Other Illinoisans who have filed to run for president include Nelson Feliciano of Belvidere, Julius Theodore Engel of Danville, Caylend Anthony Edward Childs of East St. Louis, Troy Voss of East Cardondelet (near East St. Louis), Philip Henke and Tony Maggiore of Chicago, and another Chicago candidate who filed as Kanye Deez Nutz West.
Obviously, not all filed candidates for the 2020 election are serious. Other candidates include the fictional TV character Leslie Knope, who filed as an Independent candidate from the also fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana; a candidate named Sexy Vegan from West Hollywood, California; and a person listed as The Russian Hackers of the Communist Party, from Trump Tower, New York.
Which brings us to the only name you might recognize on the candidate list, New Yorker Donald J. Trump, who filed his intention to run as president in 2020 on the day of his inauguration in 2017.