Hampshire, where she spent $7,000 ofnher own hard cash to finish secondnamong the GOP fringe candidates,nwith 120 votes. (Lyndon LaRouche,nthe Libertarian on the Democraticnticket, received only 24 more votesnthan she did.) Rachner blew all hernmoney in New Hampshire becausensomeone promised her she’d be includednin a CBS 48 Hours specialnreport on the fringe candidates. Thenprogram fell through, and to economizenshe teamed up with a willingnDemocratic candidate who happenednto have a car. For three days, she said,n”I’d steer all the Democrats to him,nand he’d send the Republicans to me.”nThis kind of pragmatic, oddball relationshipnis typical of Rachner, who isn’tngood at following rules. It worked outnparticularly well in New Hampshirenbecause the Democrat was conservativenand strongly pro-life, as she is,n(Rachner tried to get on the Nebraskanprimary ballot, but failed. “I hadncalled Kelly Girl to help me get petitionnsignatures,” she told a MinneapolisnStar Tribune reporter. “I got tonLincoln and this guy wearing danglynearrings came up and said he was thenKelly Girl who was there to help me. Inshould have known, in this day andnage. … I think he might have messednup and that’s why I didn’t get on thenballot.”)nRachner ran into trouble with anNorth Dakota billboard company innMay when she tried to buy space fornher anti-homosexual campaign. Shenhad a contract with a local company tonput up the messages in five of thenstate’s largest cities, but when the companynreceived her billboards, whichnhad been made up in Minnesota, it justncouldn’t go through with the deal. Thenmanager of the Bismarck branch saidnthat the contract gave the company thenright to refuse to place offensive messagesn(“Stamp Out Homosexuality”).nRachner thinks the North Dakota Republicansnhad a hand in the plot, butnthey deny it—except to note thatnRachner’s personal logo looks uncomfortablynlike the National RepublicannParty’s logo.n(“My elephant is . . . much, muchnprettier [than the party’s logo],”nRachner says. “My elephant has a rosenin its trunk and is wearing a crownnmade up of reversed R’s. The R’s standnfor Republican, Rachner, and Reagan-nite.” In a recent interview she comparednthe president, whom she idolizes,nto Yorkshire pudding, and herself tona popover: “President Reagan hasnmore experience; I have ‘air bubbles,’nblanks in my experience.”)nAt a news conference in Bismarck,nRachner said that ridding the world ofnhomosexuality would for her be a goaln”like getting rid of murder and war”n(although rest assured she’s big onnSDI). Homosexuality is a crime, shensaid, adding that we “need a law thatndefines anal intercourse as rape,” notnjust as protection against the spread ofnAIDS but also because of homosexuality’snthreat to “public health and sanity.”nMany of her prepared news releasesnuse the word “rape” in place of thenodious “gay sex.” One release statesnthat warning people to be carefulnwhom they sleep with isn’t enough:n”Those who already look crazed andnbrain-damaged can be spotted, butnmany carriers still look normal.”nSo what does she have against thenclearly if not obsessively heterosexualnGeorge Bush? Nothing personal; it’snjust that “he isn’t saying anything,”nand that he’s too elite. “George Bush isna country-clubber. I’m a K-Mart Republican,nlike most of them,” she says.nThe Republican Party, according tonRachner, has become as doggedly prohomosexualnand pro-feminist as thenDemocrats. Is this news? When shenran for the US Senate, she says, “I tookn’lessons’ from the Republican NationalnCommittee on how to be a congressionalncandidate, and they were very upsetnwhen I asked a question about homosexuality.nI was invited into a littlenwindowless room, and three men camenin and made it clear that I should dropnthat subject.”nShe chuckles and adds, “For annexample of a good political speechnyou’d think they’d have a video ofnReagan, but no, they had a video ofnTed Kennedy.”nWhat, precisely, did this womannwith air bubbles in her experiencenhope to achieve with her candidacy? Anfairly respectable writer (she’s beennpublished in The American Spectator),nshe rambles on the phone and at newsnconferences. Still, she manages to conveynthat she just wants to do somengood. “I’m past the age when peoplencare about fame and fortune,” she says.n”I ran for president for my own mentalnnnsatisfaction that something honest hadnbeen done in the realm of getting anpresident elected. There’s beennenough hypocrisy.”nYes, but what specifically did shenhope to accomplish? Basically, itnamounted to making sure that GeorgenBush didn’t get nominated on the firstnballot in New Orleans. If she’d gottennher 6 Vi percent in North Dakota (shenwon no delegates in New Hampshire),nat least one first-ballot vote would havenhad to go to Rachner, whose chancesnof getting some national media coveragenwould increase dramatically and —nshe had hoped—influence, at leastnslightly, the choice of a vice-presidentnand the party platform.nShe’d like the vice-presidency to benmore of a “co-presidency” or “twinpresidency,”nwith the vice-president asnsomeone who would form a team withnthe president and promise to leavenoffice when he did. “It’s important thisnyear to switch to a twin-presidencyn[because] it’s the only way to save thenpublic from the adolescent speculationnabout pillow talk which the medianinsists on using in order to turn wivesninto co-presidents. It is the president’snspouse, not his vice-president, whonshould be silent. I would be the perfectnco-president because, having no husband,nI would be my own spokespersonnand I would probably sleep with myndog. The dog would be quoted, ofncourse, but only as an unnamed WhitenHouse source.”nRachner has fantasies like all the restnof us, and leaves no doubt that ifnnominated she would have run and ifnelected she would have served. (Someonenonce said that if any one of usnreceived a phone call begging us to runnfor president, we’d feign surprise but innour hearts wonder why it had takennthem so long.) As president, Rachnernwould, she says, nominate Ronald Reagannto the US Supreme Court, issuenvoter identification cards so that peoplencould vote easily from wherever theynare, withhold voting cards from criminals,nand fine every non-voting citizenn$ 100 as a contribution to reducing thennational debt. Federal money to gaynand lesbian rights groups, even fornAIDS education and testing, wouldnstop: “That’s like giving money to anpornographic magazine in order tonstop pornography.” Under a 27thnAmendment to the Constitution, par-nN0VEMBEBI988I49n