A city council man from North Pole, Alaska, who's legal name is Santa Claus (I'm not making this up) is running for Alaska's lone U.S. House seat following the death of Republican Don Young.
Don Young held the seat since 1973, and his recent death has brought 48 candidates to the ballot who hope to represent the largest U.S. state by land mass.
The 72-year old Santa Claus who hopes that name recognition will carry him to Washington, and you can be sure that if he wins, the name will be the reason for it – not his stance on policies.
Santa is running on a Bernie Bros platform. Santa told Fox TV:
"A lot of my platform resembles Bernie's, but rather than add 20 pages to my website SantaClausForAlaska.com, I just refer people to Berniesanders.com/issues if they're really interested."
He also mentioned his affinity for Bernie on Twitter:
Of course, Santa has not always been called Santa Claus. He had his name legally changed when he physically started resembling the mythical toy maker, and he had a mystical experience. You see, Santa is a monk of the order of Anam Cara, and at some point,
...as he was asking for guidance from the ether, someone drove by and screamed 'Santa! I love you!'
'That was the answer to my prayer,' continued Claus, who promptly called up the county clerk and legally changed his name to Santa Claus.
Oh, that ether is a tricky thing. I tell you.
Anyway, this isn't Santa's first foray into national politics. In 2012, he campaigned in Nevada running for president, and he's held various positions in government that he has won as a write-in. And, the takeaway there is that It's only funny to write in Santa Claus on the ballot until a Socialist Democrat changes his name to Santa Claus to get your vote.
I'll have to stop doing that now.
On a positive note, Santa does at least seem to have a good message:
Reflecting on his time helping his community, he said he just wants to help share the spirit of Christmas the way he believes it was originally intended.
"The spirit of Christmas embodies love: love in God, loving one another and expressing forgiveness, and protecting children," said Claus.
That's nice. There's nothing wrong with that.
But at this point, I'm so jaded; I really, really want him to define what he means by "loving God," "loving one another," and even "protecting children." Given the rest of his party's positions on these topics, I'm skeptical we would see eye-to-eye on them.
In the end, with 48 candidates running against him, I doubt old Santa has a chance, but maybe if it's a foggy election night, and a certain red-nosed reindeer is available... well, anything could happen.
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