EVERETT — If you haven’t heard of Keith Sprankle, you’re not alone.
That isn’t stopping the Everett man from working to lead the free world as the next Republican president.
The 49-year-old retired Maytag repairman has plenty of time on his hands to offer Americans market-based universal health care, slash gas prices and restrict access to Internet porn.
He’s embraced the newest style of campaigning: his videos are all over YouTube and MySpace. He’s also been told his name will appear on the ballot in Connecticut.
And this week he flies to a fair in Oklahoma to sprinkle the “Sprankle 2008” message in the heartland.
Still, passersby at last month’s Evergreen State Fair, where the local GOP gave him some table space, had a common response to his campaign, Sprankle said.
They’d pick up “Keith Sprankle for President” brochures and say, “I’ve never heard of Keith Sprankle.”
Such is life running a micro campaign with scant support, no political connections and a $200 war chest.
“No one takes a person who is not in politics seriously,” Sprankle said.
As the nation’s chief executive, Sprankle, who has multiple sclerosis, would drill for oil at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, add troops to win the war in Iraq, and build a fence stretching hundreds of miles on the Mexican border to end illegal immigration.
He’d pay for computer programmers to invent an algorithm to restrict all porn on the Internet, only letting it be viewed by adults with passwords.
Tax incentives and international investment opportunities would pay new to build new public universities across the country
Sprankle said he will push for public funding of new oil refineries and research on alternative forms of energy.
He joins a crowded field of more than 230 people who have filed papers with the Federal Election Commission seeking nominations for the 2008 presidential race. It doesn’t cost anything to file as a candidate for a federal office.
He knows he’s up against big money, not to mention Ivy League-educated titans groomed for greatness since birth.
Still, whatever Sprankle lacks, he believes he makes up for it in passion and character.
Sprankle, who was born in Chicago, doesn’t have a college degree, although he took some technical courses at Ohlone College in Fremont, Calif., where he grew up.
He became a father at 18, and left school and took up a career in appliance repair in order to support his young family.
At Maytag, Sprankle eventually worked his way up to regional manager before his illness forced him to retire in 2003.
“I’ve been a struggling family man all of my life and I know the decisions that people make when they’re low on money,” he said, sitting in his Everett home last week, his energetic English springer spaniel, Nick, at his side. “This is something our leaders are not looking at.”
Sprankle sees inflation creeping into the economy in the form of higher food and fuel costs, and believes Americans are paying too much for health care.
A few years ago, he and his family moved from Phoenix to Snohomish County, where his wife Donna grew up. He said the Northwest’s cooler climate is better for his medical condition than the heat of the Southwest.
Before he decided to run for president, Sprankle, an avid sailor who owns two sailboats and a 40-foot motor cruiser, founded the company Sea, Sun ‘N Fun. He hoped to bring a paddleboat to Seattle and eventually buy a cruise line.
Central to Sprankle’s platform is his universal health care plan, funded through investment income, rather than taxes.
Like everyone who runs for president, Sprankle’s own life experience influenced his decision to seek higher officer.
Frustration with the health care system compelled him to find a solution.
For instance, he said, doctors prescribed a drug to slow the degenerative effects of his disease, which grows more severe over time. However, at $1,300 a month, he cannot afford the medication.
Insurance company rigmarole, he said, also prevented him from seeing a specialist for two months at a time when he almost lost the ability to walk. He saw three doctors and was prescribed three medications before he finally was allowed to see a neurologist who promptly diagnosed and treated the problem.
He’s spent the past year researching and writing his 600-page health care plan. He declined to share it for this story — he’s still working on it — but said it would add regulations and measures to stop “runaway costs of medical treatment and prescription drugs.”
He notes that other presidents had their share of health problems, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.
Ray Gale, Sprankle’s brother-in-law, said the candidate’s thoughts on health care should resonate well with the public.
“He’s had such a hard time with his medical issue and it shouldn’t be that way,” said Gale, 47, a Machinist who lives near Lake Stevens. “It don’t matter Democrat or Republican, we all have to deal with medical issues at one point or another.”
Most of Sprankle’s campaigning comes in the form of family members handing out flyers, calling political organizations and advertising on free Web sites.
Sprankle’s son, Richard Sprankle, is his campaign manager.
The 24-year-old truck driver encouraged his father to join a number of popular social networking Web sites, including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He sought campaign volunteers on Craigslist.
He also persuaded the elder Sprankle to film 21 video standups articulating various policy positions on YouTube. There’s Sprankle standing before the flagpole overlooking Port Gardner Bay. There he is again, at Everett Marina. In others he wears a dark suit as he spells out his ideas from his comfortable sitting room.
How does Richard Sprankle see his father’s chance of success?
“There’s nothing in the Constitution that says you have to be an experienced politician to be elected president,” he said.
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