Jimmy McMillan

Jimmy McMillan
McMillan in Brooklyn, New York
Personal details
Born	James McMillan III (1946-12-01) December 1, 1946 (age 65) New Smyrna Beach, Florida
Political party	Registered Republican[1] Rent Is Too Damn High Party
Residence	East Village, Manhattan, New York City, NY
Occupation	Political activist Perennial Candidate
Religion	Christian
Website	http://rentistoodamnhigh.org

James "Jimmy" McMillan III (born December 1, 1946)^[2] is an American political activist, perennial candidate, and Vietnam War veteran, as well as a former postal worker and private investigator from Brooklyn, New York. He is best known as the founder of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, a New York-based political party. McMillan has run for office at least six times since 1993, including in the 2010 New York gubernatorial election on the "Rent Is 2 Damn High" line.^[3][4] He declared on December 23, 2010, that he would run in the 2012 U.S. presidential election as a Republican.^[1]

Political career

Early campaigns

McMillan's first run for political office came in 1993, when he ran for Mayor of New York on the Rent Is Too Damn High ticket. In the course of that campaign, McMillan was at one point tied to a tree and doused with gasoline;^[5] he would later climb the Brooklyn Bridge and refuse to come down from it unless television stations broadcast his message.^[6] He was ultimately disqualified from the ballot for coming 300 petition signatures short of the 7,500 needed to qualify for the general election ballot.

McMillan next ran for governor of New York in 1994 by traveling from his home in Brooklyn through upstate New York to Buffalo on foot, staying in homeless shelters along the way; his original itinerary had him walking back to Brooklyn as well, but an injury in Rochester led to him taking a bus home.^[7] When he arrived in Buffalo, the site of the state Democratic convention, McMillan disrupted a speech by incumbent governor Mario Cuomo at the convention and was thrown out because of it.^[8] After failing to collect enough signatures to get onto the ballot, he continued in a write-in campaign.

McMillan was removed from the ballot during the 2000 U.S. Senate election in New York.^[9]

McMillan qualified for the November general election ballot for mayor of New York City in 2005 and 2009.^[10][11] In 2005, he received over 4000 votes^[12] (0.3% of the total vote). In 2009, he received 2615 votes.^[13] McMillan was the keynote speaker at Occupy Tenafly on May Day 2012. There, he told protesters that college tuition is also "too damn high".

McMillan's significant media coverage spawned imitators, such as these two men at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C.

McMillan received 13,355 votes in the 2006 gubernatorial election, fifth place in a field of six candidates.^[14]

2010 gubernatorial campaign

For the 2010 campaign, McMillan filed petitions to appear on the Democratic primary ballot and the Rent Is Too Damn High line. However, McMillan put very little effort into the Democratic petitions, and the vast majority of the 13,350 signatures bearing his name were collected by Randy Credico, who had partnered with McMillan for a joint Democratic petition.^[15] Credico had counted on McMillan to collect 10,000 signatures to put his total at over 20,000, above the 15,000 required to get onto the ballot, but McMillan never followed through, leaving both candidates short of the necessary signatures to force a Democratic primary. Credico, in response, called McMillan a "jack-off" and a "sorry ass," accusing him of "working against me," "turn[ing] in a wagonload of blank pages and then [leaving] Albany in brand new automobiles."^[16] McMillan did file the necessary signatures to get onto the "Rent Is 2 Damn High" line; the petitions were technically invalid because they did not include a lieutenant governor candidate, but McMillan was allowed onto the ballot anyway because nobody challenged the petitions. During an appearance at a 2010 gubernatorial debate in which McMillan figured prominently, he stated his views on gay marriage, by saying "The Rent Is Too Damn High Party believes that if you want to marry a shoe, I'll marry you." After the debate, McMillan garnered significant attention from the media.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

McMillan, perceived by many as a protest vote, garnered 40,000 votes, enough to finish in fifth place out of seven, compared to winning Andrew Cuomo's 2.5 million and second-place Carl Paladino's 1.4 million. McMillan gained almost as many votes as Libertarian Party candidate Warren Redlich with 48,000 votes, and nearly double the votes of Anti-Prohibition Party candidate Kristin M. Davis.^{[22][23][24][25][26][27]}

Regarding his use of black gloves during the debate, "I’m a war vet," McMillan said. "Don’t forget I was in Vietnam for two and half years and I have three Bronze Stars, but the chemicals of Agent Orange -- dioxin and a lot of other chemicals mixed up -- I would get sick. When I get home tonight, I know I’m not going to be able to breathe if I take them off. It could be psychological, I don’t know, but I just put em on and wear them anyway."^[28]

Jimmy McMillan's gubernatorial campaign was the subject of an independent, feature-length documentary titled DAMN!.^[29] Filmmakers Aaron Fisher-Cohen and Kristian Almgren documented McMillan throughout his campaign for Governor of New York, as well as the events immediately following McMillan's loss of the election. The film was an official selection at the Little Rock Film Festival in Arkansas, as well as at the Brooklyn Film Festival, but did not officially premiere until August 2011.^[30][31]

2012 presidential campaign

McMillan is a registered member of the Democratic Party.^[32] On December 23, 2010, however, he said that he would switch parties and run as a Republican in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, to avoid a primary challenge from President Barack Obama. He believes that his greatest political strengths include a mastery of social media, an ability to pinch pennies, and inimitable political vision.^[33] McMillan appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2011.^[34] He also appeared at Northeastern University in March 2011, through the Political Science Student Association, where he discussed key issues. McMillan campaigned during the Occupy Wall Street protests, criticizing the protesters for voting for the wrong person but defending the protesters' right to protest. On November 15, 2011 McMillan held court on the 23rd floor of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority offices kibbutzing with his legal staff and media representatives. ^[35]

Political positions

McMillan's political positions contain heavy influence from populist principles. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle described his 1994 platform as such: "While McMillan said he hopes to be a spokesman for the poor in his bid for Governor, his solutions make him sound more like a Republican."^[7]

• McMillan has come out against federal bailouts, specifically the Wall Street Bailout of 2008 and the Obama Administration's bailout of General Motors. Referencing the bailout and his presidential run, he said of Obama: "If you don't do your job right, I am coming at you."^[36]
• McMillan believes that global warming is a natural occurrence that occurs every 15,000 years. He disputes the idea that is caused by man and pollution, saying he "isn't buying [the] punk science" of Al Gore.
• A supporter of same-sex marriage, McMillan joked in the 2010 gubernatorial debate he would allow marriage between a person and a shoe.^[37][38][39] After the Marriage Equality Act passed, McMillan stated of same-sex couples "now you don’t have to marry a shoe, you can marry somebody."^[40]
• On transvestites and transgendered people, McMillan says "When you see a guy walk down the street and he’s got a little skirt on, and he’s so happy. Why shouldn’t you be happy? This is America, it’s beautiful to watch someone different."^[40]
• McMillan, as founder of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, is against high rent and property taxes for homeowners. He believes that lowering rent and cutting taxes will ease financial stress and help eradicate hunger and poverty, as well as raise tax revenue. He surmises that reducing rent would "create 3 to 6 million jobs" by freeing up capital to give businesses a chance to hire people. He also favors tax credits for commuters.^[41][42]
• McMillan and the party are in favor of writing off all taxes owed to the state, consolidating the rent boards in New York, seizure of unoccupied apartment buildings, reforming the state court system, and free college tuition.^[41][42]
• McMillan is in favor of having fixed rate of low rent across America, which would be the same regardless of property value. He states that adjusting the rent for property value "is a bunch of crap" and "a scheme to run out the poor."^{[citation needed]}
• McMillan supports allowing laws to be influenced by Christianity. His website states that "we need more reliance on the moral laws brought by religion and not limit out goodwill to our neighbors and co-workers to what the law demands alone." He also spoke of "restoring family values" and making sure that one parent remains at home to watch children.^[43]
• McMillan and the party oppose any spending cuts to education or elderly care services.^[41][42]
• McMillan has called for investigations of, and has sought to increase awareness of, fraud and Ponzi schemes in the real estate markets.^[44]
• Of his potential Republican opponents for the Presidential nomination, he thinks of Newt Gingrich as a "good liar" in the vein of John Edwards and that "people look at him and laugh," Mitt Romney as a "good-looking guy [that] will keep the ladies from looking at me." He has also stated that he loves Sarah Palin^[45] and holds an extremely negative view of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.^[46] He views current governor Andrew Cuomo as a do-nothing and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as "just a big mouth (...) New Jersey is crumbling just like every state in the union."^[40]

Personal life

McMillan is single and has two adult children; the elder child is a daughter (age 38 as of 2011) whom McMillan claims developed disabilities as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange, and the younger is a son (James McMillan IV, age 32 as of 2011), who currently serves in the U.S. military.^[47] McMillan served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War. After his time in Vietnam, he briefly spent time in the 1970s as an R&B recording artist; he claims to have spent a brief time at Brunswick Records before leaving the label to do independent work.^[48] McMillan graduated from Barkley Private Security Investigations Academy prior to 1993.^[44] He admits to smoking marijuana in the past, and he states that his favorite film is Deep Throat.^[49]

According to an interview with the New York Times, McMillan does not currently pay rent on a Flatbush apartment he has claimed as his residence and he has not done so since the 1980s but pays with maintenance services provided to the landlord. His landlord apparently allows him to reside in his apartment for free in exchange for performing maintenance work on his apartment building. He had previously told the Wall Street Journal that he pays rent of $800 a month for his apartment, but told the New York Times that he definitely did not pay rent. He pays the rent for an apartment McMillan shares with his son in the East Village in Manhattan, which is $900 per month under current rent controls.^[50] The landlord of the East Village apartment is moving to evict McMillan on the grounds that McMillan lives in the Flatbush apartment and not in the East Village one; McMillan, who has held the apartment lease since 1977, claims that the Flatbush apartment is not his residence but instead an office for the Rent Is Too Damn High Party.^[51]

Portrayals

McMillan was portrayed by Kenan Thompson on Saturday Night Live. Kenan Thompson kept saying "the rent is too damn high" to most of the questions mocking McMillan by making the joke that he only has one political view. McMillan praised the portrayal, saying that "that put me over the top... this election is over. Jimmy's gonna win it."^[52]

References

External links

• Jimmy McMillan for President in 2012 official campaign website
• https://secure.americanselect.org/profile-candidate/367217/draft-status Americans elect Candidate Page.
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances at the Internet Movie Database