By WILLIAM JOHNSON
Globe and Mail Correspondent
MANCHESTER, N.H.-With three days to go before the New Hampshire primary, the eight major Democratic candidates for the presidency have monopolized all the attention. But they are not the only ones who are seeking to become President of the United States.
William King from Naples, Florida, is one of 24 names which will appear on the ballot for Democrats on Tuesday. He is not as well known as Walter Mondale or John Glenn, two other names on the list. But on Thursday, Mr. King was in Manchester to speak on behalf of his candidacy.
He is running for President, he said, because God asked him to. And he wants to alert the United States to an international conspiracy to impose a world government and force Christianity underground. According to Mr. King, the conspiracy is headed by Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada.
To appear on the ballot, candidates must pay a $1,000 fee. According to William Gardner, New Hampshire's Secretary of State responsible for administering the primaries, all 24 have paid up.
"If we didn't have a fee, we would have more than 200 people running," he said.
The Republican ballot contains five names, including that of President Ronald Reagan. None of the total of 29 running in the New Hampshire primary is from New Hampshire.
Another candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is David Kelley, of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Mr. Kell[e]y, who describes himself as a writer, made an impression on the day for filing nomination papers. Reporters and cameramen filled the corridor outside the Secretary of State's office, waiting to catch sight of Senator Ernest Hollings, who had promised to be the first one to file. In strode Mr. Kelley wearing a Confederate soldier's hat and a pair of new blue overalls with the price tag still on them. His great bush of a grey beard and his intense eyes gave more impact as he enunciated his platform: to balance the budget, eliminate the income tax and have all black people go back to Africa.
Another would-be Republican presidential candidate is not altogether unknown to Mr. Reagan. He is Gary Richard Arnold, who ran for Congress in California in the 1982 elections. Mr. Reagan held a reception for all the Republican candidates at the White House, and Mr. Arnold loudly and repeatedly taxed Mr. Reagan for being too liberal. After a time, the President gave up trying to ignore him and said: "Shut up and sit down!"
Hugh Bagley lives in California where he operates a flea market. He hopes to win the Democratic nomination with a platform of annexing Mexico. His campaign literature makes the point graphically: it consists of a $51 bill, with a portrait of himself in lieu of one of the Fathers of the Republic, and on the back the message: Mexico, U.S.A.
Mr. Bagley faces one additional problem in his campaign: at present he is in a California jail, arrested for failing to pay traffic fines and unable to post bail of $1,000.
Richard Kay, a lawyer from Florida, and Cyril Sagan, a chemistry professor from Pennsylvania, are running on moral issues. Mr. Kay wishes to have homosexuals barred from the armed forces and from teaching school. He would also have English declared the only official language of the United States. Mr. Sagan stresses prison reform, and wants prisons to be situated near churches and synagogues so that inmates would have their hearts uplifted when they cast their eyes outside through the barred windows.
According to Mr. Gardner, there are three categories of people who appear on the ballot. Some are people who simply want to be able to tell their grandchildren that they ran for president and have a certificate from the state of New Hampshire to prove it. The $1,000 seems a reasonable price to pay for the honor.
"It's the American dream, that anyone can grow up to be president," he said.
Others have a religious motivation, or want to speak to the population on a single issue. There is one candidate, for instance, who wants to change the calendar so that there would be just six days in the week and five weeks in the month, so every month would have 30 days.
And, finally, there is the minority--those who really have a chance to be chosen as their party's nominee for the presidency.
(article accompanied by photograph of Walter Mondale delivering speech and captioned:
Former vice-president Walter Mondale campaigns for Democratic leadership in Manchester, N.H., in preparation for first-in-the-nation primary.)
(text of February 25, 1984 Globe and Mail article)