Bush's T-shirt challenger.

According to the mass media, George W. Bush has no opposition for the 2004 Republican nomination. This would be news to William J. "Bill" Wyatt, a goateed t-shirt designer from California who entered the New Hampshire and Missouri GOP primaries earlier this fall.

For those who care about politics, the notion of opposing an incumbent president's renomination for policy reasons dates from Eugene McCarthy's 1968 insurgency, which toppled President Lyndon Johnson. It's not as new as that, of course. Many 19th-century presidents served only one term?Pierce, Buchanan, Johnson and Arthur come to mind?because their parties dumped them to survive. In 1912, with an increasing number of national convention delegates chosen in primaries, former president Theodore Roosevelt challenged his handpicked successor, William Howard Taft. Both men lost to Woodrow Wilson. In 1952, Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee defeated President Harry S. Truman in the New Hampshire primary: Truman dropped out.

But, as Pat Buchanan learned from his 1992 challenge to George H. W. Bush, most intraparty presidential insurgencies fail, because a sitting president can mobilize massive fundraising and patronage powers to overwhelm his opponent. Also, real professional politicians only enter races they can win.

So, the only Republicans running against George W. Bush are not professional politicians. None is as colorful as the late Lar "America First" Daly of Illinois, who for more than 40 years campaigned for president, senator, governor, mayor and Congress while wearing an Uncle Sam suit, striped hat and all. According to Politics1.com, fewer than a dozen Republicans have even announced against Dubya. Some have actually entered primaries in the past. Thomas S. Fabish finished in 31st place in the 1992 New Hampshire primary. Rev. Lowell J. Fellure, who claims the United States is being "destroyed by atheists, Marxists, liberals, queers, liars, draft-dodgers, flag-burners, dope addicts, sex perverts, and anti-Christians," polled 34 votes in the 1996 Puerto Rican primary. Bob Dole, who beat him, polled 233,742. Others, like F. Dean Christensen and Keith Slinker, have repeatedly announced without getting on the ballot anywhere.

Then there's Bill Wyatt, a self-proclaimed Lincoln Republican. Wyatt lives in Mill Valley with his wife and three young children. He learned the art of silk-screening in college, which led to the t-shirt business. His skills have come in handy making campaign materials. Wyatt recently ran for office in the October 2003 California recall election for governor. Der Arnold polled 4,203,596 to come in first. Bill polled 281 votes, to come in 131st. Some might have found this discouraging.

But Wyatt had begun running for president even before running for governor. He threw his baseball cap in the ring in July 2003 when he realized Bush would not be challenged in the Republican primaries. Wyatt, who favors "No New Wars," said, "I want to deliver an anti-war message, a message of truth. I am not here to tell the world what I think is the right thing to do. I only want to do the right thing."

As for his other platform planks, Wyatt sounds liberal for a Republican. According to Politics1.com, he wants to "'guarantee a college level education to all...guarantee healthcare and medicine...guarantee a secure retirement...decriminalize the Internet...replace consumerism as our dominant industry...regain our civil rights...[and] develop our economy at home first.'"

As one might expect from a t-shirt designer who markets his wares on the internet, Wyatt is running an internet- and t-shirt-based campaign. "I plan to get my message out using t-shirts. I would rather distribute editorial-based t-shirts than spend money on inane, self-promoting advertisements," he wrote. Wyatt's website promises to send you a free campaign shirt if you'll pay for the postage.

He was the fourth candidate to file in New Hampshire, personally handing his nominating papers and filing fee to the Secretary of State in Concord, NH. Dick Gephardt was fifth, which didn't prevent the Missouri Congressman from claiming at a press conference that he had been the first. Wyatt tried to upstage him, saying, "What am I, chopped liver?" The crowd paid no attention. On his way back to California, Wyatt campaigned for a few hours in front of the White House. The only media paying attention to him was an Italian news network, which covered his attempts to get noticed on the campaign trail.

Whether Wyatt enters the New York Republican presidential primary under the state's recently amended election law depends on whether he can meet one of three criteria: qualify for primary season matching funds, be discussed in the news media or file a petition with 5000 signatures. In theory, at least, he has a chance. As one admirer emailed him: "Beating [the President] will be easy. Getting past the Secret Service is the tricky part."

By contrast, Republicans in Delaware and South Carolina have no presidential primaries in 2004. The state party bosses cancelled them after endorsing Bush with the kind of lickspittle bombast usually associated with North Korea's Kim il-Sung. However, those states are not alone. In the last year, Colorado abolished its presidential primaries; Kansas cancelled them; and Utah's legislature refused to pay for them. Democracy must cost too much here in these hard times.