Outside the Beltway

Loretta Nall Campaigns For Alabama Governor on Cleavage

James Joyner · Monday, October 23, 2006 · 3 comments

No, it’s not Lucy Baxley, the current Democratic lieutenant governor, or incumbent Bob Riley. It’s a candidate who couldn’t even get on the ballot but is nonetheless getting national attention.

Loretta Nall, the Libertarian Party’s write-in candidate for governor of Alabama, is campaigning on her cleavage and hoping that voters will eventually focus on her platform. “It started out as a joke, but it blew up into something huge,” said Nall, a 32-year-old with dyed blond hair.

Her campaign is offering T-shirts and marijuana stash boxes adorned with a photo of her with a plunging neckline and the words: “More of these boobs.” Below that are pictures of other candidates for governor — including Republican incumbent Bob Riley and Democratic Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley — and the words: “And less of these boobs.”

Her Web site has a cartoon of someone stuffing bills down the front of her low-cut top. And for $50 donation she apparently offers to show a cartoon of herself flashing her breasts.

Nall, who spoke in an interview Friday on the Capitol steps, realizes that is about as close as she is going to get to the governor’s office. But her outrageous antics have helped her attract attention not normally enjoyed by write-in candidates.

Nall is calling for the withdrawal of the Alabama National Guard from Iraq, tax credits for sending children to private school and home schooling, opting out of the No Child Left Behind Act, legalizing marijuana, and not complying with the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act.

The Libertarian Party could not collect the 40,000 voter signatures needed to get her name on the ballot, and she has not reached the $25,000 threshold in contributions that would require her to file a campaign finance report.

Despite the political handicaps, she knows how to get free attention. Early in her campaign, she talked about how her misdemeanor arrest for marijuana possession in 2002 led her to start the U.S. Marijuana Party. Then she entertained readers of her campaign Web site with lots of information about her personal life, including a discussion of why she doesn’t wear panties.

Going beyond the mainstream media reports, I have searched for more information, especially photographs, to provide added value to the readers. It turns out not to be much of a service:

via Bill Jempty

Gone Hollywood

UPDATE: The Nall campaign is getting more national attention, including an appearance on Keith Olbermann’s show Wednesday the 25th. Here’s the video:

Jeralyn Merritt is impressed with her candidacy and notes that if Nall loses, she’s already planning to run for Congress in 2008. One imagines some sort of double entendre about Capitol Hills will be employed.