The Thaddeus McCotter presidential campaign of 2012 began when he filed papers on July 1, 2011, to run for the Republican Party's 2012 nomination for President of the United States. He officially announced his candidacy the next day at a rock festival near Detroit. McCotter, who had been a congressman from Michigan since 2003, was first mentioned as a potential presidential candidate on an April 2011 episode of the Fox News show Red Eye. During the campaign, he focused on reform of government and Wall Street. Commentators noted that McCotter's lack of name recognition hindered his chances for nomination. When included in Republican presidential preference polls, he regularly received less than one percent support. Following a last place finish in the Ames Straw Poll and the lack of any invitation to presidential debates, he dropped his candidacy on September 22, 2011, and endorsed Mitt Romney. He resigned from Congress in July 2012 amid a fraud investigation surrounding his congressional re-election campaign. Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_McCotter_presidential_campaign,_2012> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 238: Because of his father's advanced age, Gordian II was proclaimed joint Roman emperor with Gordian I. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_I> 1765: The Parliament of Great Britain passed the Stamp Act, requiring that many printed materials in the Thirteen Colonies in British America carry a tax stamp. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765> 1943: World War II: Almost the entire population of the village of Khatyn in Belarus was massacred by Nazi forces, with participation from their Ukrainian and Belarusian collaborators. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatyn_massacre> 1995: Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov of the Soyuz programme returned from the Mir space station after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeri_Polyakov> 2004: Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian imam who was a founder and the spiritual leader of Hamas, was killed by a missile from an Israeli helicopter gunship as he left early morning prayers. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Yassin> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: long drink of water: (Scotland, US, slang) A tall person. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/long_drink_of_water> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   Most Americans, in their sweet innocence, think that class has to do with money. But a glance at Donald Trump and Leona Helmsley will indicate that it has very little to do with money. It has to do with taste and style, and it has to do with the development of those features by acts of character.   --Paul Fussell <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Fussell>