Sarah Palin (left), Santa Claus.Photo: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg via Getty; Santa Claus for Alaska/Twitter
Among the many challengers inSarah Palin’s race for an Alaska congressional seat is another candidate with a famous — if unlikely — name: Santa Claus.
The potential legislators include a man legally named Santa Claus, who has a long white beard and lives, naturally, in the North Pole.
As he explained toTheGuardianin a story published last week, Claus changed his name from Tom O’Connor in 2005 after, he said, he was praying for guidance and pondered what to do with his life, having left behind a career in law enforcement.
As fate would have it, someone shouted at him, “Santa, I love you!” and he made the decision then and there.
“That’s about as fast an answer to your prayer as I’d probably ever get,” Claus toldTheGuardian. “So next day, I called up the county clerk to change my name legally.”
Claus has no party affiliation but admits that he has a very different political outlook than Palin: “Let me put it this way: being a Bernie supporter, we have disparate views on a variety of subjects,” he toldTheGuardian.
Win or lose, Claus told the paper (with tongue firmly in cheek) that he won’t exactly be busy come Christmastime.
“There are plenty of my beloved helpers throughout the world who sort of stand in for me with their in-person visits,” he said, adding that he hoped instead “to interact more with adults with respect to legislation.”
This is Palin’s first bid for office since she left politics in 2009 when she resigned as governor of Alaska; she was previously the mayor of Wasilla. She publicly weighed a run for president in 2012 but decided against it.
source: people.com
