O, look out! It’s your other rivals
NY unknowns join the prez race
Tippecanoe — and who are you?
Not thrilled with Obama, Romney or Santorum? No problem! Eleven New Yorkers also are making a run at the White House, filings with the Federal Elections Commission show.
The stealth candidates include a one-time rapper, an ex-correction officer and even a former president — of the student body of Long Island University.
“Everyone knows cigarettes kill and cause cancer, and I want to use the power of my running for president to get the word out,” Queens candidate Ronald Marullo, 52, told The Post.
Marullo, currently unemployed, has another motivation as well — gaining a first lady.
If he can find the right vice-presidential candidate, “I am open to marrying her,” he admitted.
Like Teddy Roosevelt, Brooklyn’s Michael “Kid Mikey” Dename Jr. says the United States should speak softly and carry a big stick.
“I think we should throw Castro in the pool and open up Cuba to tourism,” said Dename, 42, an exrapper and DJ.
Libertarian Carl Person, 75, boasts that he invented the paralegal field in 1972.
The Harvard- trained lawyer was LIU’S studentbody president in 1958-59 and says he has a formula to create 20 million jobs.
“My ideas are powerful because they’re natural,” he said.
So far, 10 White House wannabes who submitted statements of candidacy to the FEC are based in New York City, with an 11th on Long Island.
It doesn’t cost anything to express interest — but actually getting on the ballot will be tricky. The Constitution doesn’t mandate one presidential ballot, so individual states must decide the process.
In New York, Democrats and Republicans choose a nationally known candidate who needs to file a petition with at least 5,000 signatures from across the state. Independents and other parties need to col- lect 15,000 signatures statewide, said John Conklin, a spokesman with the state Board of Elections.
Two of the more famous members of the bunch are ex-mailman Jimmy McMillan, 65, who has tweaked his “rent is too damn high” gubernatorial slogan to “the deficit is too damn high,” and Andy Martin, 66, the lawyer who first demanded the release of President Obama’s birth certificate.
“I’m a guy that’s conservative but wants to live and let live — spend less and tax less but do it with a smile,” said Martin, a Republican who has raised about $5,000 for his New York-based campaign.
Luis Alberto Ramos Jr., a Democrat from Flushing, Queens, said he has found inspiration in Knick stud Jeremy Lin.
“He made it, and I’m going to be next,” said Ramos, 51, an amateur featherweight boxer who works for the Navy. “If I make it, I’m willing to cut my salary in half and use the money to pay for job creation.”
But not everyone is going to hit the campaign trail.
“It was a goof. I have no platform and no political agenda,” admitted Lowell Goldberg, 64, a former hospital administrator from Brooklyn who signed up just to see if he could.