One of the more colourful candidates for the US Presidency is neither Republican nor Democrat, but a former vice-president of the Southern Baptist Convention – California-based minister and radio host Rev Wiley Drake.
Drake is running as an independent candidate with Blossom Brackman, chair of of the Congressional Women of Sovereign Authority International, as his vice-presidential candidate.
Announcing his candidacy, Drake said: "It's time for the Judeo-Christian voice to be heard by our policy makers. They can try to kick the word of God out of politics, but they will never stop the voice of God through 'We the People of the United States.' We are the People of His Presence."
Drake is a controversial character. A prominent member of the "birther" movement which sought to argue that President Obama was not born in the US and so was not eligible for the presidency, he fought a long-running court battle in an attempt to prove his point.
He is also known for promoting "imprecatory prayer", once saying on his radio programme the murder of a doctor who carried out abortions was an answer to his prayers against an enemy of God. He also admitted to praying against "the usurper in the White House", Barack Obama. He suggested in 2009 that the death of Congressman John Murtha, who opposed the Iraq war, was another result: "Maybe God took him out," he wrote. "Maybe God Answered our IMPRECATORY prayer that we prayed every 30 days."
His website says that the Republican and Democratic parties have both become the proponents of "big government, crushing taxation, dictatorial federal power, waste and fiscal irresponsibility, unwholesome and disastrous internationalism, compromise with our nation's enemies, and authoritarian regimentation of the citizens of this Republic".
His manifesto includes commitment to freedom from the "lawless oppression of Liberal rule", with opposition to gun control, gay marriage and abortion. In what appears to be a coded anti-environmentalist message, he says: "God gave Man this earth to make of it a well-tended Garden – not to leave it an uninhabited wilderness." In an apparent backing for the death penalty he says: "To take a life justly is the most somber obligation God ever imposes."
Drake has said in an interview: "We need to get a pastor back in charge. Politicians used to be right men. Now they are wrong men."
He has also said that one of his goals would be to abolish the US welfare system and instead institute "Church-fare" – churches, not the taxpayers, should be helping the less fortunate.
"We've been doing that at our church for 28 years," he said.
