Florida's write-in had name in presidential race

TARPON SPRINGS

The vice presidential candidate is worried. It's 4 p.m. on election eve and he can't find his running mate.

"I haven't talked to him in a few days," he says.

The Man Who Would Be President doesn't have a cell phone. Or e-mail. Or a computer.

On the state's Division of Elections Web site, he lists a home address and number in Tarpon Springs. But a woman who answers says, "He doesn't live here. I just let him stay here for a while."

She doesn't know where he has gone, or if he will be back. And no, she is NOT going to vote for him.

Just after 4 p.m., the vice presidential candidate drives to campaign headquarters, hoping to run into his running mate.

"I'm sure he'll show up here soon," he says. It's almost Happy Hour.

This year, Florida voters could choose from 13 presidential candidates, many from parties people never knew existed.

Voters also had a 14th option — a blank line next to the words "Write-in." The possibilities might have seemed endless. But if you penned your own name, or nominated your pit bull, your vote was as worthless as your 401(k). Even write-in candidates have to collect signatures and get prequalified by election officials.

In the whole state of Florida, there were only two legit names you could have written in:

John "Gary" Nettles for president of the United States. And William Bradford "Brad" Krones for vice president.

They live in Tarpon Springs. They met at a bar.

• • •

The vice presidential candidate is excited. It's 11 a.m. on Election Day and he has finally found his running mate. They're slouched on stools near the Bud tap inside their campaign headquarters: T-Fly's Family Sports Bar & Grill.

"Where you been?" Brad asks, ordering a Diet Pepsi.

"Oh, hell, I don't know," grumbles Gary, on his second beer.

The bar is in a forgotten strip mall off the town's historic main street. It's long and dark, smells like cigarettes and stale beer.

The place is empty except for the bartender, a photographer, a reporter and the future leaders of the free world.

"Did you vote yet?" asks the vice presidential hopeful.

The potential president drains the rest of his draft. "It's still early," he says. "Let's have another round."

• • •

Their campaign was born six months ago, on these very bar stools. It started as a rant, grew into a challenge, and wound up becoming an exercise in democracy — if hoisting beers is exercise.

The regulars were all sitting around, grumbling that they didn't like any of the choices for president. Gary, 58, is a divorced, retired teacher, iron worker and repo man, a self-described "bomb-throwing liberal." Brad, 54, is a bachelor insurance salesman whose viewpoints fall "just right of Attila the Hun." But they agreed: "I don't want to vote for any of those major party guys."

The whole bar drank to that.

A few days later, the refrain began again. "Hillary? Obama? McCain?" Brad said. "Heck, Gary would make a better president than any of them."

Gary hadn't showed up that night. By the time he got there the next afternoon, Brad had plastered a poster above the bar:

"Sickened by the clowns who are running for President this year? Send 'em a message that they won't forget. Vote Gary Nettles for President. We have no party affiliation. But we do love to party." He had pasted in a photo of Gary, a beer can clutched in his left hand.

Gary was content with his presidential poster and the 250 business cards Brad printed off his computer. The cards say: "Not paid for by disgruntled voters of Tarpon Spings." You read that right: Spings.

But Brad was determined to make his buddy's candidacy count. He downloaded the write-in candidate form from the state's election site, filled in Gary's name. The form didn't ask for a party affiliation, a filing fee or background information. It required only signatures from 27 people who would serve as electors. So Brad printed out the form and passed it around the bar.

"We just had to promise a bunch of ambassadorships to warm islands," Gary says.

Brad mailed the paperwork to Tallahassee. The first week in August, he got a letter: 2008 General Election President of the United States, Gary Nettles, Write-In, Running Mate: Brad Krones. Status: Qualified.

"It's so easy, I can't believe we were the only ones who did it," Gary says. "I figured some other communist or vegetarian would want to be a write-in too."

Brad says, "We're proof of the American Dream."

• • •

It's 3 p.m. on Election Day and the future president has already finished six drafts.

"So when we get to the White House, the first thing we have to do is send airplanes to Iraq and bring our boys home," Gary says.

"We've got to finish that war first," Brad says.

"And we need to save health care," Gary says. "Health care is dying."

Back and forth they go, floating ideas to save the economy, to educate migrant workers. Wasn't this what the Founding Fathers intended? Not lifelong politicians strapping their careers to some big party elephant; just a couple of guys trying to change their country 12 ounces at a time.

"Of course I voted for Gary," says Rosie Comerford, owner of Rosie's barbershop. "I mean, to look at him you wouldn't think he had a brain in his head. But he's extremely intelligent. And he offered me a cabinet post."

"The White House needs a good barber," Gary says.

Just after 4 p.m., the vice presidential candidate drives his running mate to the polls.

The Man Who Would Be President lost his license years ago.

• • •

On the morning after Election Day, Brad rises early to check the state election site: 20 votes.

He can't wait to tell Gary. It's not enough to carry Florida, or Pinellas County, or even Tarpon Springs.

But at T-Fly's Family Sports Bar & Grill, it's a landslide.

Lane DeGregory can be reached at degregory@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8848.