The Can't-idates

At 2:31 a.m. ET on Nov. 9, 2016, Donald Trump was declared president. By 2:32 a.m. ET, every pundit worth his or her cable news contract told us exactly why he won. It was simple, really. Voters who felt ignored for too long by career politicians like Hillary Clinton opted to elect a political novice who appeared to be “just like them.” If these experts had taken the pre-election journey that veteran journalist Craig Tomashoff did, though, they would have learned the answer was far more complex. 

The Can’t-idates: Running For President When Nobody Knows Your Name is Tomashoff’s deeply personal and profoundly inspiring chronicle of his 10,000-mile journey across the country to find a unique group of people who know better than most of us what’s really happening in “forgotten America”—some of the 1,800+ FEC-approved 2016 presidential candidates. The media and politicians dismiss these people as tin foil hat-wearing loonies who live in mom’s basement. And sure, most of them will never get more votes than they can count on their fingers and toes. 

However, from the biker in Boise to the would-be rapper in Las Vegas to the street preacher in Cleveland, Tomashoff got to know a fascinating group of Can’t-idates (citizen candidates who keep getting told what they can’t do) whose faith in a system that excludes them can actually make America great again.