The Dark Horse is a Real Life Super Villain (with only the best of intentions) and independent Candidate for Governor of Ohio in 2022. The Dark Horse is an idea, not a person, as such we can never die. Also as such, we have to use stand ins for votes for the Dark Horse to be legally counted though we are considering pursuing a write-in campaign instead where we will encourage all votes to be cast directly for the Dark Horse rather than whatever flunkey ultimately registers (currently it’s Timothy but that can change, hint hint) and then we’ll see the SOS in court over counting and clear intent of the voter!
The Dark Horse is nothing new and totally tame, the next generation Vermin Supreme but accompanied by serious, substantive policy furthering a somewhat villainous, definitely self-serving agenda and a real plan for electoral victories.
A political duopoly ensures you cannot deviate from the two simplistic presentations of reality provided to you by the Democrats and Republicans. It would be the height of irrationality for you to throw your vote away on a candidate outside this system as they cannot win and so your least favored outcome would become more likely to occur. Yet, by accepting this choice election after election, a severe degradation in the quality of government and the civility of politics manifests. You want to break out, those around you want to break out, you find yourself trapped by the rules of the game into an intolerable, unsustainable equilibrium supported by an incoherent, angry, partisan minority of party loyalists. The only ones foolhardy enough to break from this system are an even angrier, more incoherent, smaller fringe minority (think Greens, Libertarians, DSA, etc.). The Dark Horse is the exogenous shock to the political system to break you out of your grim reality.
By offering a new politics based in new economic thinking we stand apart from the old left-right paradigm. This allows people to consider us outside of their preconceptions, to give us thought without being able to retreat to their tribal prejudices. We are not fringe, we do not pander, we offer something novel, reasonable, practical, and we demand results.
By accentuating the absurdity we gain the advantage. As their popularity has waned and their policies grew dated, Republicans and Democrats have relied on negative partisanship, on turning the other into the enemy and speaking in apocalyptic terms to frighten voters into voting for them. To succeed, to keep people in line, they must constantly raise the stakes of each election. By revealing the ridiculousness of their claims we lower the stakes. By running a laughable campaign we lower the stakes. By having fun with it, we lower the stakes. And when we lower the stakes, people feel freer to vote for us.
By being innocuous we are dangerous. No Democratic or Republican candidate would dare to acknowledge us. It would only give us more legitimacy and make them seem desperate and small. We can operate freely, spreading our ideas, learning, growing.
The Dark Horse does not seek to liberate nor conquer. The Dark Horse aims only to know and be known. An entity from outside your reality now ever present within it. Love each other.
Anyone can be The Dark Horse and we mean this literally in that, should someone be suitably inspired prior to the filing deadline and following a careful vetting process and pending the approval of a wise council of elders, they may assume the mantle of the Dark Horse in place of Timothy Grady and all resources of the Dark Horse campaign will be handed off to them and Timothy Grady will assume the more suitable responsibilities of a campaign manager.
THE DARK HORSE FOR OHIO 