Spike Cohen | |
|---|---|
 Cohen speaking with attendees at Revolution 2022 | |
| Born | Jeremy Cohen June 28, 1982 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Political party | Libertarian |
| Spouse | Tasha Cohen (m. 2010) |
| Website | Official website |
Jeremy "Spike" Cohen (born June 28, 1982) is an American libertarian political activist, entrepreneur, and podcaster. He was the Libertarian Party's nominee for vice president of the United States in 2020, serving as Jo Jorgensen's running mate. [1]
Cohen was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1982. [2] [3] Cohen's father is Jewish, and he was raised as a Messianic Jew, including having a bar mitzvah. [4]
He purports to have chosen the nickname "Spike" at the age of 3, after the character from the 1986 children's film My Little Pony: The Movie . [3]
In 1998, at the age of 16, Cohen began learning web design and subsequently started a profitable business within a few years. [3] [ self-published source ] [5] In 2016, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Cohen sold his web design business and turned his focus to libertarian messaging, entertainment, and activism. [3]
By 2017, Cohen's retirement culminated with him becoming the co-owner of, and a podcaster on, Muddied Waters Media. He is the co-host of The Muddied Waters of Freedom, and the host of My Fellow Americans. [6] [3]
Cohen ran as the proposed running mate of presidential candidate Vermin Supreme in the 2020 Libertarian presidential primaries, and was actively involved in campaigning. [7] [8]
After Supreme lost the Libertarian presidential nomination to Jo Jorgensen on May 23, 2020, Cohen remained in the race for the party's vice presidential nomination. Despite Jorgensen having expressed a preference for John Monds to be her running mate over Cohen and Ken Armstrong, Cohen defeated Monds with 533 delegate votes to Monds' 472 after three rounds of voting. [9] As the Libertarian Party's vice presidential nominee, Cohen became the first Jewish vice presidential nominee of a political party since Joe Lieberman in 2000. [4]
Cohen has asserted that his and Jorgensen's platform was derived from the Libertarian Party platform. This includes reducing the national debt by reducing the size of government, extensive criminal justice reform and the immediate release of those incarcerated for victimless crimes, demilitarization of the police and the creation of police accountability programs. [10] [11] [5]
Cohen supports presidential pardons for Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Ross Ulbricht, and Leonard Peltier. [12] [13] [14]
Cohen, a former ally of performance artist and perennial candidate Vermin Supreme, ran during his vice presidential primary campaign on a largely satirical platform promoting free ponies, mandatory tooth brushing, "zombie power", killing "baby Hitler" and "baby Woodrow Wilson", and promoting anarchy. [15] [3] [16] Cohen promised that should these not be achieved within the first 100 days of his vice presidency, he would resign and be replaced with Baby Yoda. [3]
After officially receiving the Libertarian vice presidential nomination, Cohen acknowledged that such humor tactics were "all fun satire to bring people in", adding "(t)hen you hit them with the actual message. The actual Libertarian message of self-ownership and non-aggression and voluntary solutions and property rights, and so forth." [11]
Cohen has been married to his wife, Tasha, since 2010. [17] He lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. [15]
Jo Jorgensen is an American libertarian political activist and academic. Jorgensen was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2020 election, in which she finished third in the popular vote with about 1.9 million votes, 1.2% of the national total. She was previously the party's nominee for vice president in the 1996 election, as Harry Browne's running mate. She is a full-time lecturer of psychology at Clemson University.
The 2004 presidential campaign of Michael Badnarik, software engineer and candidate for the Texas legislature in 2000 and 2002, began on February 17, 2003, three months after starting an exploratory committee on November 17, 2002. He spent over a year traveling the country, totaling over 25,000 miles prior to the 2004 Libertarian National Convention. On the second night of the Convention, he participated in a debate with the other Libertarian candidates, broadcast on C-SPAN.
The Libertarian Party of the United States was formed in Colorado Springs in the home of Luke Zell by a group of individuals led by David Nolan on December 11, 1971, after several months of debate among members of the Committee to Form a Libertarian Party, founded July 17. The formation was prompted in part by price controls and the end of the Gold Standard implemented by President Richard Nixon. The Libertarian Party viewed the dominant Republican and Democratic parties as having diverged from what they viewed as the libertarian principles of the American Founding Fathers. This group included John Hospers, Edward Crane, Manuel Klausner, Murray Rothbard, Roy Childs, D. Frank Robinson, Theodora (Tonie) Nathan, and Jim Dean.
John Monds is an American politician and activist. He was the Libertarian nominee for Governor of Georgia in 2010. He was the first African American to appear on the general election ballot for Governor of Georgia.
Vermin Love Supreme is an American performance artist and activist who has run as a candidate in various local, state, and national elections in the United States. He served as a member of the Libertarian Party's judicial committee. Supreme is known for wearing a boot as a hat and carrying a comically large toothbrush, and has said that if elected President of the United States, he will pass a law requiring people to brush their teeth. He has campaigned on a platform of zombie apocalypse awareness and time travel research, and promised a free pony for every American.
The 2016 Green National Convention, in which delegates of the Green Party of the United States chose the party's nominees for president and vice president in the national election, was held August 4–7, 2016 in Houston, Texas. In August 2015, Houston was chosen over a competing proposal from Toledo, Ohio. The convention was located at the University of Houston with the theme, "Houston, We Have A Solution: Vote Green 2016". The convention formally nominated Jill Stein as the party's presidential nominee and Ajamu Baraka as her running mate.
The 2020 United States Senate election in Arkansas was held on November 3, 2020, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Arkansas, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate, elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
The 2020 Libertarian Party presidential primaries and caucuses were a series of electoral contests to indicate non-binding preferences for the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in the 2020 United States presidential election. These differ from the Republican or Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses in that they do not appoint delegates to represent a candidate at the party's convention to select the party's presidential nominee.
This article lists third-party and independent candidates, also jointly known as minor candidates, associated with the 2020 United States presidential election.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Vermin Supreme began on June 26, 2019, and ended during the 2020 Libertarian National Convention; Supreme failed to win the nomination.
The 2020 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated. Alabama voters chose nine electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence, against Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, United States Senator Kamala Harris of California. Also on the ballot was the Libertarian nominee, psychology lecturer Jo Jorgensen and her running mate, entrepreneur and podcaster Spike Cohen. Write-in candidates were permitted without registration, and their results were not individually counted.
The 2020 United States presidential election in Alaska took place on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated. Alaska voters chose three electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence, against Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, United States Senator Kamala Harris of California. The Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Alliance Party nominees were also on the ballot, as was an Independent candidate.
The 2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas took place on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Arkansas voters chose six electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence, against Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, United States Senator Kamala Harris of California. Also on the ballot were the nominees for the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, American Solidarity, Life and Liberty, and Socialism and Liberation parties and Independent candidates. Write-in candidates are not allowed to participate in presidential elections.
The 2020 Libertarian National Convention delegates selected the Libertarian Party nominees for president and vice president in the 2020 United States presidential election. Primaries were held, but were preferential in nature and did not determine delegate allocation. The convention was originally scheduled to be held from May 21 to May 25 at the JW Marriott Austin luxury hotel in downtown Austin, Texas. On April 26, all reservations at the JW Marriott Austin were canceled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the convention oversight committee to seek another venue for a possible July date.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Jo Jorgensen was formally launched on November 2, 2019, at the South Carolina Libertarian Party convention. Jorgensen had previously been the Libertarian Party's vice presidential nominee in 1996, when she ran on a ticket with author Harry Browne. Currently a senior lecturer of psychology at Clemson University, Jorgensen had owned a software company at the time of her 1996 vice presidential candidacy.
The 2021 Libertarian National Committee chair special election was held on July 11, 2021, by the Libertarian National Committee (LNC), the governing body of the United States Libertarian Party, to elect their next chairperson, after their previous chair, Joe Bishop-Henchman, resigned due to an internal party controversy.
The 2024 Libertarian National Convention is a political event to select the Libertarian Party nominees for president and vice president in the 2024 election. It is scheduled to be held from May 24 to 26, 2024, at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C.
