E-Mail This Article to a Friend PARTY POLITICS Vote for Mike BY CHRIS WRIGHT

When asked why he climbed Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary is said to have remarked, "Because it was there." Michael Strauss, the standard-bearer and sole member of the Massachusetts-based Mike’s Party, uses a similar construction when asked why he’s making his latest bid for the presidency: "Because it’s easy."

Running for president is indeed much less complicated than one might imagine. "All you have to do is fill out two forms," Strauss explains. "Being a citizen and being over 35, all that is only if you get elected. To run, you don’t even have to be an animate object." There are, however, financial issues involved. "I have a slogan: ‘Give the President Your Two Cents’ Worth,’" Strauss says. "So I collect campaign donations in two-cent increments. But when someone sends me two cents, I feel obliged to send them a thank-you note, which costs 37 cents." He adds: "Taking out TV ads has been a little tough."

A 46-year-old mathematical consultant, Strauss is in the midst of his fourth presidential run. In 2000, he says, he got somewhere in the region of two votes — not exactly a landslide. Like any good candidate, though, Strauss knows how to put a positive spin on things. "One of my slogans is ‘Vote for Mike or Don’t Vote at All,’" he says. "If you look at the results of all the elections I’ve run in, the electorate has responded very well to that. Either 50 percent of voters have either voted for Mike or not at all. In fact, if you look at the last election, more voters followed my advice than those who voted for Al Gore and George Bush combined."

Strauss, whose running mate is his dog, Husker — "Because we go running together every day" — insists that there is no element of protest to his campaign. He runs for president, he says, for a very simple reason: he enjoys it. "I got a call from a student in Worcester," he recalls with a chuckle. "The professor had said that anyone who gets a presidential candidate to talk to the class gets an A. How could I turn him down? These other candidates talk about a bill here and a bill there, but I actually helped a student get a better grade. I am the real educational candidate."

Though Strauss insists he will "roll through this election like all the others," he does allow that he faces a stiff challenge from Howard Dean. "Howard’s very good, he’s a doctor," he says. When asked about Dean’s infamous temper, Strauss responds, "I would try not to be in the same room as him. But has he invaded any small countries lately? I’d say Dean’s anger issues are smaller than others we see in the field." Strauss is also keeping a close eye on President Bush. "I think his strength is that he has the office right now," he says, "and his weakness is that he has the office right now."

As for the candidate Strauss, it seems he may have reached his political zenith back in the 1996 election, when cartoonist Bill Griffith published a strip in which Zippy endorsed Mike’s Party — albeit after the election. This year, however, even Strauss’s own wife — the potential First Lady — is reluctant to get behind the Strauss campaign. In fact, he says, "She prefers not to think about it."