Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, we go to 1998 and the Republican Senate primary in Vermont. GOP candidates are vying for

the slot to challenge longtime Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy,

and on the Republican side, it has come down to two main candidates who have emerged.

One is a man named Jack McMullen, who's a very wealthy businessman who just arrived from Massachusetts, by the way.

And then the other is a Vermonter, a farmer named Fred Tuttle, who is 100% running basically as a joke.

Kind of, at least at first.

And then some weird things happen.

So shout out to listener Owen, who suggested that we talk about Fred Tuttle.

And here's the basic backstory.

Tuttle was an elderly Vermont farmer.

He's 80 years old when all this goes down. He had recently

been the star of a movie, a mockumentary in which his character runs for the House of Representatives

in Vermont. It's kind of like Spinal Tap meets Michael Moore or something. Anyway, this film

becomes a bit of a cult classic, at least in Vermont film circles. Now, let's cut to a little bit later when

the filmmaker, John O'Brien, is trying to come up with ways to keep promoting this film,

and he and Tuttle cook up a brilliant scheme. Hey, what if you actually ran for office? Which

Tuttle actually does, and he actually wins the Republican primary.

There are so many twists and turns around this tale of the political candidate, not actually trying to win, but here to discuss, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.

Hello there.

Hello, Jody.

Hey there.

...