Jonathon Sharkey

Sharkey filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for President of the United States twice as an Independent candidate (in 2004^[14] and in 2008^[15]) and once as a Republican candidate (in 2012^[16][17]). He ran for Congress in at least three states—his home State of New Jersey (1999–2000, Republican),^[18] Indiana (Reform Party, 2000)^[19] and Florida (2001–02, Republican).^[20] In 2006, he ran for governor of Minnesota.^[21]

Sharkey once served on the Hillsborough County, Florida, Republican Party's executive committee. A. J. Matthews, who also served on the committee, described Sharkey as someone who believes in "Republican values" but said that Sharkey needs to focus on campaign issues rather than "extreme behaviors".^[22]

Sharkey strongly criticized President George W. Bush, whom he described as a "wuss" and a communist who was responsible for the deaths of innocent Americans in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. He has expressed a desire to try, and convict, and impale Bush,^[11] and has since said that "Obama is even worse than Bush, and I never thought anyone could be worse than Bush. He has no idea how to run a country, nor should he be running a country."^[7]

Sharkey said that he would ban abortion and the teaching of evolution in public schools. On other social issues, he leans libertarian; he supported equal rights for gays. He opposed President Obama's health care reform and said that he would replace it with a plan of his own in which the poor would receive free medical and dental care; the expenses would be paid with government taxes on marijuana and prostitution, which Sharkey supports legalizing and regulating. On foreign policy, he wished to bring American troops home from foreign war zones. In keeping with his belief in the goddess Hecate, he supports environmentalism and "protecting Mother Earth". He said that his ideal running mate would be former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman. During the 2012 election, he criticized Republican rival Michele Bachmann as "too flakey for me".^[7]

He described his policy on crime as follows: "Certain criminals, instead of being put in jail, they should be brutally tortured and impaled.... Upon them being found guilty of their crimes I'll beat them, torture them, dismember them and decapitate them."^[10] In an appearance on Tucker Carlson's television show, he agreed with the host's description of him as "not simply a vampire, [but] a right-wing vampire" and said his policy for dealing with drug dealers is to "go to Sicilian families and have them attack the drug dealers for me".^[11]

Sharkey was investigated by the United States Secret Service for threatening to impale President George W. Bush. Agents visited Sharkey at his home for questioning. A spokesman for the Secret Service said that he didn't believe the investigation was an overreaction.^[23]

He was also jailed in Tennessee for making threats against an Indiana judge. Investigators confiscated two rifles and a wooden stake with spikes at his house.^[12][13]

Sharkey's 2006 bid for Minnesota governor was cut short after Sharkey was arrested by Minnesota police on an outstanding Indiana arrest warrant, sent to Mille Lacs County jail and extradited to Indiana.^[1]

He has also been accused of "brainwashing" a 16-year-old girl in Minnesota, whose family sought a restraining order against him, and admitted to harassing another 16-year-old Minnesota girl online.^[22]

In 2010, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children issued an alert after a 16-year-old girl, Paige Brewer, from Faribault, Minnesota ran away with Sharkey. The alert described Brewer as an "endangered runaway". Brewer's mother eventually won a court order keeping Sharkey away from her daughter, who was taken into custody by police^[24] and returned home.^[25]