First and foremost (and yet again) I want to thank Arlene Balkansky at the Library of Congress Serial and Government Publications Division for assistance with newspaper and magazine articles and with providing guidance through the maze of extraordinary materials in the various divisions of the Library of Congress, as well as guidance through life’s maze for forty-plus years of marriage.
I also want to thank her colleagues, Eric Frazier from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress and, at the Federal Election Commission, Christian Hilland. Little-known fact: federal employees such as these are part of a workforce that, given its enormity, is efficient and helpful far more often than not—indeed far more often than other huge organizations—and far too often unjustly maligned.
For similarly valuable assistance at other libraries, I am grateful to Jennifer Bibb from the Special Collections Division of the University of North Florida; Joanne Bloom, photographic resources librarian at Harvard University Fine Arts Library; and American University’s Bender Library for extending borrowing privileges to me.
As in the past, my agent, Alec Shane, provided insights and posed questions that were of immeasurable value in my finding the common denominator that linked the variety of fringe candidates included in this book. Similarly I am once again grateful to my editor at the University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, Tom Swanson, for spotting, amid the upheaval of the 2016 election, the value of exploring fringe candidates. My thanks as well to the entire team at University of Nebraska Press, with whom it has once again been a pleasure to work, with a particular shout-out to Mark Heineke for his input and special appreciation to copyeditor Judith Hoover for catching countless missteps without stepping on tone.
My thanks also to those whose comments, suggestions, questions, or answers to questions greatly aided me: Pat Behling, Bari Biern, Elizabeth Copeland, Daniel L. Goldberg, Bastian Hermisson, Bryan McGovern, Eric Meyers, and (alphabetically last but far from least) Harry Stein.