Kanye West Listed On CA. Ballot As Veep For Far-Right Party
Kanye West Listed On CA Ballot As Veep For Far-Right Party
To his own surprise, West is listed as the running mate of car dealer Rocky De La Fuenta Guerra under the American Independent Party ticket.
By Michael Wittner, Patch Staffhttps://cdn.patch.com/assets/layout/...atch-staff.svg
Oct 6, 2020 6:00 pm PT|Updated Oct 6, 2020 7:41 pm PT
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The pairing unique to California.
Both candidates are running in other states with other running mates under different parties. (Michael Wittner)
CALABASAS, CA — The 2020 plot thickens: Kanye West is now on the ballot in California as a vice presidential candidate to a San Diego-based car dealer, as part of a far-right party.
Neither candidate even knew this was happening, and neither has publicly acknowledged the candidacy on any of their platforms.
Starting Monday, millions of California voters will open up their mail-in ballots to find the Calabasas hip hop mogul running alongside Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente Guerra, a 66-year-old Mexican-American businessman from San Diego who has run unsuccessfully in several presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial campaigns.
De La Fuente and West are running in California under the American Independent Party ticket, a far-right party that nominated segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace for president in 1968. According to its website, which does not mention either candidate,the party is running on a pro-life, anti-same-sex-marriage, pro-Second Amendment, anti-immigration platform.
In 2016, the party listed Donald Trump as its candidate on the California ballot, though the Trump campaign rejected the association at the time. In 2016, it was also listed as the fastest-growing third party in the state, though a Los Angeles Times survey found that most voters who registered did so in error, thinking they were registering as "independent voters."
AIP Chairman Markham Robinson told TMZ that party leaders nominated West to be on the ticket with De La Fuente in their convention in late August without letting either candidate know.
Robinson admitted that the party thought West could siphon away votes from Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Unfortunately for Robinson, all of California's 55 electoral votes are awarded to the candidate with the most votes, and Biden is polling an average of 31.7 points ahead of Trump as of Sept. 28, so it appears unlikely these two betrothed candidates will make much of a dent.
But other states may be a different story. West is currently running in 12 states: Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, and Colorado, with the latter three generally considered competitive swing states.
West missed the deadline to file in California, along with 28 other states and the District of Columbia.
West announced his candidacy by tweet on July 4, 2020, saying that he was running under the newly-invented "Birthday Party" because "when we win, it's everybody's birthday." His late announcement missed the filing deadlines in several states, and the campaign spent most of the summer tied up in litigation and spending millions on mostly unsuccessful attempts to get on different state ballots.
Though famously pro-Trump, West's views represent an eclectic mix of left and right: he is pro-life but anti-death penalty. He once told Black people to "stop focusing on racism," but has voiced his support for Black Lives Matter, and paid the college tuition of George Floyd's daughter. He is pro-cannabis legalization but anti-gun control; he has voiced support for both illegal immigrants and school prayer: the list goes on.
His website says that he aims to "create a culture of life", listing ten principles relating to defense, the economy, education, the environment, and more that are each supported by a Bible quotation.
The first tenet advocates for "the free exercise of one's faith, demonstrated by restoring prayer in the classroom."
West, who is polling an average of one percent or under in most states, has listed biblical life coach Michelle Tidball as his running mate.
But West himself is a surprise running mate to another political outsider: Rocky De La Fuente. A real estate developer and car dealer, De La Fuente has run numerous political campaigns for several different parties. He started running as a Republican for the 2020 presidency all the way back in 2017. He made it onto the California ballot, but failed to get on many others.
He is currently running with Reform activist and author Darcy Richardson under the Reform Party in Florida, both Natural Law and Alliance parties in Michigan, and the Alliance Party - a party formed in 2018 fighting for progressive causes like environmental protection and universal health care - in nine other states.
This year, De La Fuente also ran as a Republican to represent California's 21st District, a seat for which his son Ricardo is now running - despite the fact that neither of them live there.
In 2018, he ran as a Republican senate candidate in California, a senate candidate in Washington state, a gubernatorial candidate in Florida, and various other candidacies in Wyoming, Hawaii, Minnesota, Vermont, Delaware, and Rhode Island.
He ran for mayor of New York City in 2017, and as a Democrat - and later a member of the American Delta Party - for the presidency in 2016.
The current platform listed on his website is similar to that of the Alliance Party and very much opposed to that of the AIP. It calls for universe single payer health care, immigration reform that views immigrants as "assets rather than liabilities," and investing in "100% renewable energies," among others. The website makes no reference to West.
According to TMZ, De La Fuente said that he's not happy about the selection of West, but says he accepts it and "wants to make the most of it at the polls." He told TMZ that West is strong with the 18-25 demographic, and hopes their pairing will allow him to finish third in California.
Though West's broad name recognition makes him an obvious choice for the American Independent Party, it is unknown why they chose De La Fuente for the top of the ticket and West for the vice presidential slot.
The party has not responded to Patch's call for comment.
https://patch.com/california/calabas...ar-right-party
