First, a disclaimer on behalf of America’s vampires, witches, and pagans, whose organizations publicly announced they did not support the political campaigns of Jonathon Sharkey, nor were they in any way associated with his self-created Vampires Witches and Pagans Party.1 This fact, however, went unmentioned in the considerable amount of news media attention showered on Sharkey as a fringe candidate. After all, parsing the views of those groups was nowhere near as entertaining as interviewing a vampire candidate. Though for most Americans, the fact that such differences exist would be news to them. It was to me.
Sharkey announced his presidential candidacy for the 2008 election during the time he was running for governor of Minnesota in 2006, intertwining the two campaigns. “When we get ahold of [Osama] bin Laden,” he declared of the 9/11 mastermind, “I’m going to impale him where the twin towers used to stand.” A former professional wrestler (under the name Rocky Flash), Sharkey employed the rhetoric of that form of entertainment in this and other campaign promises, such as, “When I become president, everyone who has been tried and found guilty of inhumane treatment against Iraqis, I’m going to pardon them.” In regard to Afghanistan, where bin Laden trained terrorists, Sharkey declared, “When I become president, to make sure future generations don’t have to worry about being attacked by Muslims, I’m going to eradicate the whole country—I don’t care; our country comes first.”2
In fairness, Sharkey’s campaign was not limited to foreign policy; he also addressed issues that came under the purview of state government. His platform’s thirteen-point program for Minnesota included stiffer sentences for drug dealers, child molesters, rapists, and repeated drunk drivers—specifically “impalement in front of the State Capitol.”3
Had Sharkey won the election, he would not have been the first professional wrestler elected governor of Minnesota. That distinction went to retired wrestler Jesse Ventura, who was elected governor in 1999. Ventura, however, had previously demonstrated his governmental abilities as mayor of Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis–St. Paul with nearly eighty thousand residents. Moreover his political career was devoid of professional wrestling’s enraged rhetoric.
It was, however, such chest-thumping braggadocio that, even in Minnesota (land of knee-slams and hammer-locks? I thought it was the land of lakes), made Sharkey stand out. “Looking for something really, really different in a political candidate this year?” the Minneapolis Star Tribune asked its readers in 2006.4 Apparently yes—and not just in Minnesota. Over in Montana the Billings Gazette took note of Sharkey’s candidacy, saying of him (in jest, but humor is not without a kernel of belief):
He’ll get more done as governor in two years than most governors do in eight. Among his bold ideas: “Any terrorist who is caught in Minnesota while I am governor will find out what the true meaning of my nickname, ‘The Impaler,’ means. Right in front of our State Capitol. Then the Feds can take the terrorist’s body from the impaling stake. If the U.S. Department of Justice wants to charge me with brutally murdering a terrorist, they may do so. I do not see an American jury convicting me.”5
This Billings Gazette article then addressed rumors that Montana’s governor Brian Schweitzer was considering a 2008 presidential bid by suggesting (still in jest but as per previous parenthesis) that Sharkey’s “addition to the Schweitzer-for-president ticket could be just the shot of excitement and controversy that our governor needs to go all the way to the White House.”
With so many newspapers paying attention to Sharkey’s candidacy, producers of cable news soon started calling. And not just, as some might guess, the testosterone-flowing fellows at Fox—though that network’s show Fox & Friends was among the first to host Sharkey for an interview.6 Over at MSNBC, the interview was not quite as friendly, but it was nothing if not fun-filled when Sharkey appeared on The Situation with Tucker Carlson.7
But let’s pause. Is all this press attention something new? In the mid-nineteenth century, as we saw, newspapers had considerable fun with the presidential bid of Leonard “Live Forever” Jones, much as in the 1950s they gleefully reported on Homer “King of the World” Tomlinson’s perennial campaigns. All three of these fringe candidates, at first glance at least, seem equally nuts.
Whether or not any or all of them was, by current psychiatric standards, mentally ill, one difference remains. “Live Forever” Jones and “King of the World” Tomlinson campaigned for Christian love; Sharkey campaigned for violent retribution. That, in fact, was what attracted attention at the time he ran. Strip away the vampires, witches, and pagans part of his campaign, and what remains is rage. And in 2006 rage was seeping up through the nation’s political cracks.
“When I read an article about Sharkey,” one college student wrote in her university’s newspaper, “I caught myself thinking, ‘A vampire for governor? Is this man serious?’” She went on, “Has our country’s willingness to let anyone run for office finally gone too far? But as I browsed The Impaler’s Web site, I began to re-evaluate my opinion. Indeed, most, if not all, of Sharkey’s ideas are a bit extreme.”
A bit?
“But he does have a platform,” she continued, ultimately arriving at the conclusion, “Isn’t the point of the democratic system to have a difference of ideas and something for everyone? . . . Although both national and local media have taken interest, neither has taken him very seriously. But maybe they should. Should only those who have ‘normal’ or mainstream opinions be taken seriously? . . . What would the public prefer?”8
Intellectually curious students were not the only ones open to contemplation of the white-hot core of Sharkey’s campaign. A Louisiana columnist wrote, “I think we should give the Minnesotans their due. They have figured something out. . . . Put in someone who is so over the top, he or she will leave the national media shaking its collective head and the general populace shaking on the floor in laughter.”9 An editorial one state to the west said, “What might get Texans to warm up to Sharkey is his anti-terrorism campaign,” which it then related entailed public impaling.10 A university instructor of journalism in Missouri observed:
Election day in the United States is . . . more about relief that the stupid thing’s over no matter who won. Why? Because our candidates don’t address issues anyone cares about. . . . What I wouldn’t give for a Truman Democrat and a Reagan Republican duking it out for office. . . . The closest we’ll come to that is a vampire. . . . I’m not sure how [Sharkey] stands on taxes, but he wants to execute convicted murderers and child molesters by impaling them on a wooden pole outside the state Capitol . . . and he wants to do it personally. I’d kinda go for that.11
However, Sharkey’s candidacy soon hit a brick wall. With all the publicity, he came to the attention of a U.S. marshal who recognized him as wrestler Rocky Flash, wanted on two warrants in Indiana, one for flight following his arrest for the other: stalking. One month into his gubernatorial campaign Sharkey was arrested, extradited, and jailed pending trial.12
Six months later he was acquitted. But by then his gubernatorial campaign was left in the dust of the publicity now focused on Minnesota’s two most mainstream candidates, Democrat Mike Hatch and the ultimate victor, Republican Tim Pawlenty.
Sharkey sought to make his way back into the spotlight when the nation turned its attention to the 2008 presidential election. One article on his candidacy began, “Seated in a window booth inside an Elizabeth (New Jersey) luncheonette calmly discussing social issues and foreign policy, it’s easy to forget for a moment that Jonathon Sharkey is a vampire.”13
Is a vampire? Where previous news articles dropped child molesters and repeated drunk drivers from those Sharkey sought to impale, this reporter opted not to insert alleged or self-professed before vampire. Picky perhaps, as it’s less entertaining that way; makes it sound a tad newsy.
News, as seen here, was a decreasing priority in election coverage.
During Sharkey’s presidential campaign, a low-budget film about the candidate was released, titled Impaler. Relatively few saw the documentary as it was mainly shown at film festivals. It did, however, get reviewed in some newspapers, ranging from the Minneapolis Star Tribune to the Washington Post.14 Despite less than rave cinematic assessments, the film did provide an astonishing view into the life of Jonathon Sharkey. That view, however, was not the kind that wins votes. In addition to a mass of tangled relationships and some eye-widening accusations by family members, audiences also saw that, to some degree, Sharkey’s rage was showmanship, able to be turned on and off at the flip of an inner switch. Or, more typically, the click from a camera.
Other than the film and a few pieces in the news, Sharkey’s presidential campaign never regained the traction it had prior to his arrest. In part his renewed effort floundered because he did not raise the stakes, as it were, either by adding new proposals or altering those involving impalement. Internet bloggers and news outlets had now been-there-done-that. Sharkey did receive a small flurry of attention a month before the election. Unfortunately for him, it followed his being arrested again. This time the charge was threatening the life President George W. Bush, whom Sharkey had repeatedly declared he would impale.15
Jonathon Sharkey no longer had a bit part on the presidential stage. But even though he exited, his rage remained. So too did his prototype. Its characteristics were inadvertently but aptly described by U.S. Marshall Jason Wojdylo, the man who recognized him as the fugitive Rocky Flash. In 2007 Wojdylo said of his quarry, “Jonathon often has this idea that he was untouchable. And from my point of view it was unfortunate that the media . . . were giving him the forum that he so much desires. . . . It’s a snowball effect. You give him a little bit and he . . . believes, in his mind I think, that he’s becoming more powerful.”16 True, but not true enough. The fact is, Sharkey—and those who tromped in his tracks—were becoming more powerful.