As the major GOP candidates accelerate toward the Feb. 20 finish line and President Bill Clinton campaigns safely from the sidelines, several other candidates are still trying gain enough name recognition to get into the race.
According to the New Hampshire Secretary of State's Division of Elections office, a $1,000 filing fee and a simple declaration of candidacy, including the candidate's address and the office he or she is seeking, are the only requirements candidates face in order to appear on the ballot.
The widespread media attention and the relative ease with which candidates can appear on the ballot has drawn a multitude of so-called "fringe" candidates to campaign in the state.
These fringe candidates, who often have no political experience and admit to having no chance of challenging major party candidates, seek to draw attention to their platforms in order to bring their pet issues to the national stage.
Caroline P. Killeen
Spectators at Kansas Republican Sen. Bob Dole's speech on the lawn of Alpha Delta fraternity or anyone who happened to walk down Main Street the following Monday afternoon were sure to notice Caroline P. Killeen's repeated cries of "Hemp."
Carrying a campaign sign emblazoned with a marijuana leaf and a bag full of similarly designed campaign buttons and bumper stickers, Killeen, 70, makes no bones about the main issue of her campaign for the Democratic nomination.
"The issue of hemp breaks down to everything that's destroying us as a nation. It's a salvation," Killeen said Monday in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Killeen's campaign is limited to the New Hampshire primary, she said, and her funding comes from her Social Security checks and the donations she receives for campaign buttons.
Killeen, with tears welling in her eyes, expressed dismay at the lack of major political support she has received. "I've had media exposure," she cried, "yet somebody who is a somebody has yet to endorse me."
Yet Killeen, who said she studied twice to be a nun, said she feels her campaign is divinely directed.
"The more I pray, the more I see the higher power assisting me in all these mystical ways ... I actually see the God of Hemp helping me in this cause," she said.
Legalization of the hemp plant and the marijuana which is derived from it is the crux of Killeen's campaign.
"By re-legalizing it, we can reduce the fascination of illegal pot," she said.
Killeen also dismissed health concerns about marijuana use. "It's not a drug, but an elixir... when it's used casually and responsibly, it's actually beneficial."
She advocated the taxation of marijuana and the placing of warning labels on packs of marijuana cigarettes.
"When it's illegal and there are no controls, warnings can't be given ... and that tax money can be used to finance drug rehabilitation," Killeen said.
She also promoted the industrial use of the hemp plant as a fiber, paper and pharmaceutical.
"You can eat it, you can wear it, you can smoke it," she said.
Saying that the United States "needs to get back to nature," Killeen's proposed welfare program consists of giving the needy five acres of state and federal lands to grow hemp for commercial use.
While campaigning in Hanover, Killeen said she talked to several like-minded Dartmouth students.
"They're basically enjoying the bud," Killeen said, adding that, "what amazes me is how prevalent it is."
Killeen became active in politics in the 1960's, she said, when she began bicycling cross-country in support of causes such as President John F. Kennedy's physical fitness program and clean air.
Richard Skillen
Republican candidate Richard Skillen visited the College last week to promote his own run in the New Hampshire presidential primary and to discuss his platform to eliminate inflation and improve national health care.
Skillen said his campaign for president, which is his first and is limited to the New Hampshire primary, has been "well-received, although we're off to a slow start."
He also said despite being raised as a Republican, he has "cast a lot of Democratic votes over the years."
"I don't think we need another major party," he said. "Other parties need to change. We owe it to the people to promote wealth accumulation for the little people."
Skillen, a Claremont native who practices medicine in Garner, N.C., and holds a master's degree in economics from North Carolina State University, introduced his key campaign issue immediately.
"Inflation over the past four decades is what has disenfranchised the minimum wage worker," Skillen told an audience of nearly 20 students.
Skillen said federal tax laws have made inflation's effects "worse than they would otherwise be and can give our federal government less than honorable reasons for causing inflation."
Similarly, he said inflation-based increases in the value of properties, which are taxed as capital gains, has made "their unambiguous capital gain your unambiguous loss."
He said as president he would halt the printing of currency to curb inflation and reestablish saving accounts "as a means of accumulating wealth."
"We need more than anything a renaissance of affordability," Skillen said.
He said health care can be improved by an expansion of the supply of physicians, the solicitation of bids from physicians for major medical procedures, the cessation of inflation and increased deductibles and co-payments for health care recipients.
Bruce Daniels
University of Winnipeg history professor Bruce Daniels is entering the history books himself during his New Hampshire Democratic primary run.
Daniels also said his campaign is limited to the New Hampshire primary.
"I don't have the energy, nor the things to say. I'm not a threat to the Clintons and I want to elect a Democrat."
Daniels said he hopes to visit the College, where he once lectured on colonial New England history three years ago, during his final campaign trip to New Hampshire between Feb. 9 and 19.
Daniels said he was raised just north of Hanover, in Landaff, where his family owned a farm. He said he first became involved in politics in 1960, when he worked on John F. Kennedy's successful presidential campaign.
While born in Hanover, Daniels said he believes he is the first presidential candidate to hold a dual citizenship.
Daniels received his Canadian citizenship during the 1980s, after living in Winnipeg, Manitoba since 1970.
The U.S. Constitution requires that the President be a natural born citizen of the U.S.
Daniels said his campaign is based on a sole theme -- the return of liberal values to the Democratic party.
"I've become enraged at the attack on liberalism. I'm running to try to force the Democratic party to sharply define itself," Daniels said in a telephone interview with The Dartmouth.
After graduating from Syracuse University, he spent two years in India with the Peace Corps, then went to graduate school at the University of Connecticut, where he received a masters and doctoral degree in history.
In 1970, Daniels began teaching at the University of Winnipeg.
Daniels said his move to Canada was not an attempt to avoid the draft.
"I did not come here to dodge the draft," he said. "There are few positions in academia in my discipline, and the University of Winnipeg offered me a job."
Daniels, who has promoted his campaign over the World Wide Web, said "The Internet is making my candidacy national," along with radio and television coverage of the campaign.
Dick Bose
Berlin, N.H., Mayor Dick Bose says he is not interested in winning the Republican presidential primary. Instead, he hopes to draw attention to the economic problems his hometown and much of rural New Hampshire face.
"We've become so effective at eliminating the second layer of candidates ... the 10 major candidates [in the New Hampshire presidential primaries] are focusing on things that are not issues." Bose said in a telephone interview with The Dartmouth.
Bose said his work with the Berlin Tax Association in bringing presidential candidates to Berlin to speak inspired him to run in the primary.
Bose said there were few candidates who wished to visit Berlin, and the Association felt that even fewer candidates were addressing the issues that the economically depressed town finds important.
"Since they won't discuss the issues ... I decided to run on my own," he said.
Bose pointed to the rise in unemployment that Berlin felt after the James River paper company bought the Brown Corporation, the town's major employer, in 1980 and eventually disbanded the company.
The resulting unemployment and economic depression "left us with a skeleton of a city," Bose said.
Bose blamed federal tax laws for the massive leveraged buyouts and plant shutdowns of the 1980s. "The tax laws in the U.S. foster antitrust... because debt is written off for taxes," Bose said.
In running, Bose said he is trying to "send a message against unfunded mandates," and pointed to a federal regulation of the Berlin water system, which caused the average family's water bills to increase to $900.
Bose said 25 percent of Berlin's population lives on a fixed income and was unable to handle the price increase.
Bose also said legal fees are out of control as a result of lawyers dominating government.
He said he will be coming to Lebanon on Feb. 1 to campaign locally.
But for Bose, the central issue of his campaign remains clear.
"It all comes down to how we're going to get manufacturing ... here again," he said.
John Hagelin
One Dartmouth graduate seeking election is John Hagelin '76, who is the Natural Law party's 1996 presidential candidate.
Hagelin said he expected to appear on the ballot in all 50 states for the 1996 campaign.
In an interview with The Dartmouth in November, Hagelin said that his approach to the presidency would involve two steps -- using meditation to reduce social stress and attempting to solve social problems with practical programs.
The Natural Law party platform calls for lower taxes, a reduction in the size of government, restricting of special-interest groups, the development of renewable energy, and energy conservation.
