Towson author on presidential ballot
Blaine Taylor is on the ballot.
The Towson resident appears as a Democratic candidate for president of the United States on the Maryland State Board of Elections official list of candidates for the Nov. 4 election.
Taylor, an author of several books on vehicles of the Third Reich and history related to Adolf Hitler, was not allowed on the February Democratic primary election ballot after state officials decided he was not a viable candidate.
But Taylor’s name now appears on the current list of candidates listed on the state board of elections Web site. A call to elections officials was not returned as of this posting.
Taylor seemed surprised to be on the list.
“To this minute, the state board hasn’t replied at all to my letter earlier this year,” Taylor wrote in an e-mail response to a reporter’s questions. “I suspect that it just DID it—added me to the list—and that was that.”
His candidacy is motived by his desire to make a statement about his personal political beliefs and to keep a promise he made to himself on June 6, 1968, to run for the nation’s top office.
His platform includes withdrawing all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of 2009, repeal of the federal income tax and replacing it with a federal sales tax, ending all aid to Israel and the immediate deportation of all illegal immigrants.
In previous interviews, Taylor has said he does not intend to raise or spend money. Campaigning around the state will be a challenge because he does not drive. He also is not a candidate in any of the remaining 49 states so even if he won Maryland, the 10 electoral votes wouldn’t likely mean much.
Taylor ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in 2006. He is a former aide to Republican Rep. Helen Delich Bentley and ran as a Republican for the House of Delegates in 1990 and 1998.
Tags: 2008 election, Blaine Taylor, president