Political Equinox

When in Iowa, Tyler Chris and I took part in an NPR discussion in a museum in downtown Des Moines. While wandering around the museum after the event, we stumbled upon an exhibit which looked at the history of the Iowa caucus. One wall had the campaign posters of everyone in the 2008 race. I had heard of every name on the wall, even those who had dropped out early on – Senator Bayh, Senator Vilsack, former Senator Daschle were just a few of the names on the wall.

There was, however, one candidate I had never heard of – he was a Republican named John Cox.

When i got back to my room, I Youtube’d (hey, we use Google as a verb) John Cox. I found this (the video was made by the campaign…I’m not kidding):

Mr. Cox is a businessman from Illinois. He ran for multiple offices in Republican primaries in the Chicago area, including the US Senate, Congress and county wide positions in Cook County. The status of Mr. Cox’s campaign is unclear at the moment – he has not updated his website since December 10 2007 but has not announced suspension of his campaign.

Mr. Cox did not receive any viable support in Iowa from caucus goers. However in multiple primary states, Mr. Cox did receive some votes. In New Hampshire, Mr. Cox received 40 votes and 83 votes in South Carolina.

Unlike many “fringe” candidates, Mr. Cox’s positions and policies seem to be in line with traditionally conservative positions. He has no real extremes: in fact, Tucker Carlson essentially approved of his conservatism on his show (apologies for the TV in a TV recording):