White House Dream Is a Long Shot--but a Guy’s Got to Try

Angus McDonald rolled into town recently on a Greyhound bus for the California leg of his write-in campaign for the White House.

Never heard of him?

Well, McDonald himself figures he has about a “snowball’s chance in July” of winning and counts just six votes wrapped up so far in the Golden State--five from friends he knew before coming here and one convert.

“People say I’m crazy for doing something like this, but I love my country,” said the 65-year-old wheat and corn farmer from West Virginia, who has spent $40,000 of his own money to finance his second shot at the Democratic nomination. He has never, he admits, held elected office; not even “local dogcatcher.”

It’s sort of like playing the lottery, in McDonald’s mind. He knows the odds of his ending up in the White House are about the same as of winning a bazillion dollars--maybe a little worse, actually--but what the hell?

“I haven’t got too much time left to do something like this,” said McDonald. “It makes life more interesting.”

And so it was that he and his mule came to stump the parking lot of a Ralphs supermarket at Ventura and Laurel Canyon boulevards, just up the street from Andrei Sakharov Square, an intersection eccentrically chosen as the proper site for a plaque memorializing the dissident Russian physicist. Actually, the parking lot may be better known as the spot where rap star Vanilla Ice once pulled a gun on a panhandler and asked him, please, to back off.

McDonald’s California campaign manager, his cousin Erin Sheffield, explained the odd choice of campaign venue: “Los Angeles is not a city where people walk around much,” she said. “We wanted a place where they would be out of their cars.”

Hence, the parking lot in Studio City. Standing next to a rented mule wearing a sandwich board that read “Kick the jackass out of Washington,” McDonald preached federal fiscal responsibility to whoever would listen. There were not many.

Women in workout clothes, tights clinging to aerobicized bodies, clutched Evian bottles and scooted obliviously past McDonald and mule. Unshaven writer-types, wearing clothes worth more than their cars, sputtered through the lot in battered little imports, eyes focused dead ahead through wire-rimmed spectacles.

John J. Flynn Jr. of North Hollywood stopped out of curiosity. “Angus--that’s a great name. That’s a cow, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” McDonald said sheepishly, his black jacket covered with stray mule hair.

“Do you have more to offer than Perot?” Flynn asked, referring to Texas billionaire Ross Perot, whose renegade presidential flirtation has catapulted him to the top of public opinion polls.

“Well, he’s stealing my thunder,” McDonald complained.

Earlier, another man, squinting through his glasses, had a one-word query.

“Perot?”

McDonald, who apparently did not hear the question, tried to strike up a conversation.

“Do I sign?” the squinter asked impatiently.

When he realized that McDonald was campaigning for McDonald and not the jug-eared billionaire, the man sauntered off.

So it goes on the campaign trail.

“I’m not a very good campaigner,” McDonald said. “I’m kind of the shy type. Most people don’t like politicians anyway. They figure they’re full of bull.”

Every time his star appears to be rising, something sends it crashing back down to earth.

During his first campaign in 1987, when a CBS News crew was dispatched to interview him for Dan Rather’s newscast, they drove to Charleston, W. Va., instead of McDonald’s home of Charles Town, more than 250 miles away. With that, they gave up, he said. His appearance on “The Montel Williams Show” was preempted by the Los Angeles riots. And a newspaper campaign ad somehow ended up reading “visual responsibilities” instead of “fiscal responsibilities.”

But he has had his successes. He garnered about 10,000 votes in the West Virginia primary, and another 268 in South Carolina--the only states outside of California and Florida where he has campaigned.

McDonald figures his only chance is if the Democratic convention deadlocks and he is called on to save the day, as his uncle was in 1924. McDonald says he is the nephew of John W. Davis, a lawyer and statesman who argued more cases before the U.S. Supreme Court than anyone. In 1924, Davis was chosen on the 103rd ballot to lead the Democratic ticket against Calvin Coolidge, losing by 246 electoral votes and 7.3 million popular votes.

McDonald is unmarried--divorced--which would make him the first bachelor in the White House since James Buchanan in 1856. He has no plans to marry before Election Day because “it just wouldn’t be appropriate to find a First Lady on such short notice.” But once in office, McDonald said, “I’m sure I could find somebody to fill the position, somebody qualified.”

His First Lady, however, would not be his first lady in the conjugal sense. She would be a hired hostess, reporting to work every morning just like the chief of staff and press secretary.

“It wouldn’t be proper for the President to live with someone unmarried.”

And not to be outdone by his big-spending rivals, McDonald has taped a campaign song summarizing his platform. Since his name is McDonald and he does own a farm, the only logical choice was . . .

Old McDonald has a plan,

Ain’t got IOUs.

Angus says to pay our way,

That means me and you.

With a cutback here and a trim down there,

Let’s make taxation really fair

Old McDonald has a plan,

Ain’t got IOUs.