Some Candidates’ Views Need A Good Airing One Cites Visit From Space Aliens; Another Offers To Pose For Playgirl

Space aliens have not kidnapped President Clinton. Bob Dole has not offered to pose nude in Playgirl magazine. Ross Perot is not transsexual.

This election season has been perfectly normal - at the top of the ballot. Some even call it dull.

But lurking elsewhere on ballots around the country are unusual, interesting or downright weird races - contests that put the camp back in campaign and the crass in democracy.

Consider the campaign for Volusia County Council in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. Nothing unusual here except that incumbent Lynne Plaskett says she was rousted from her bed one night by space aliens, who levitated her and cured her of cancer. Her opponent says he’s glad she was cured.

Or the race for Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, where Republican John Kimble, running in heavily Democratic territory, said he’d pose nude for Playgirl if radio shockmeister Howard Stern would help him raise $1 million. The response was uncharacteristic silence from Stern.

Or Southern California’s 27th Congressional District, where Libertarian Elizabeth Michael is trying the scattershot approach to identity politics. She identifies herself as a transsexual and lesbian of black, white and American Indian ancestry and as a practicing Jew who accepts Jesus as the Messiah. Her heroes include former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Civil War Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail:

The smell-o-rama campaign. In Alabama, a 30-second TV spot for state Supreme Court incumbent Kenneth Ingram makes a judicious, reasoned argument against his opponent. It opens with an image of a skunk and a narrator intoning, “Some things you can smell a mile away.”

But the personal touch means so much more. Mickey Conroy, a candidate for board of supervisors in Orange County, Calif., made an obscene hand gesture when he spotted his GOP runoff opponent at a rally.

No-jack city. In the 9th Congressional District of Texas, G. Jack Brooks dropped out of the race after a judge refused to allow him to appear on the ballot under that name. Actually, G. Jack is no Jack at all. He is Gary A. Brooks and no relation to the district’s former 21-term congressman … drumroll, please … the Hon. Jack Brooks.

The name game. Famous names on Tuesday’s ballot include Harry Connick Sr., father of Jr., running for re-election as district attorney in New Orleans; and Steve Keillor, brother of Garrison “Prairie Home Companion” Keillor, running for the Minnesota state Senate.

The name game, it never ends. Famous political names on the ballot include Phil Willkie, grandson of 1940 GOP presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, running for Congress in Minnesota; John E. Sununu, son of the former New Hampshire governor (and CNN “Crossfire” wit) John Sununu, running for Congress in New Hampshire; and Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, need we say more, who has outspent his Democratic opponent for lieutenant governor in Arkansas by almost 7-1. (Rockefeller, for those who have lost their Rocky family tree, is the son of former Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, the nephew of former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and the great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller.)

You think that’s outspending. In Rhode Island, Rep. Patrick Kennedy is outspending his opponent, Giovanni Cicione, by roughly 62-1. In Massachusetts, Rep. Joseph Kennedy has raised so much money - $1.7 million - in a race he could have won on a dime that Republicans are beginning to grumble that his GOP opponent is little more than a fund-raising gimmick for Kennedy.

Now tangerines, that’s another story. Finally, there’s the race for public weigher in Lubbock County, Texas. The public weigher is strictly charged with weighing locally grown oranges, but there’s a catch: Oranges don’t grow around Lubbock. Libertarian Michael Rubin, demonstrating no understanding whatsoever of the U.S. political system, says if he wins, he’ll eliminate the job because it’s pointless.