John Stachow
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John Stachow is a politician and activist from Ontario, Canada. He was a fringe candidate in the 2000 leadership election of the Canadian Alliance party. His campaign was centred around a "social credit" ideology, advocating a message similar to the Canadian Action Party.
Stachow called for the government of Canada to assume direct control over the nation's money supply, rather than leaving this responsibility in the hands of private banks. He had little to say on any other subject (on one occasion, he even responded to a question on abortion by referencing monetary theory).
A poor orator, Stachow had little success at the Canadian Alliance leadership convention (about half of the convention's attendees walked out during his speech, which was the last of the evening). He won 211 of the 120,557 ballots cast on the first ballot, 0.18% of the total. He did not recover the deposit he had paid to run as a candidate, and did not run as a candidate for the party in the 2000 federal election.
Later, a rumour surfaced that some news reporters (who were not themselves Canadian Alliance members) had voted for Stachow to demonstrate the insecurity of the party's voting system. These reporters did not regard Stachow as a serious leadership contender, and cast their ballots simply to demonstrate a journalistic point.
It is not known how many votes, if any, were cast for Stachow in this manner.