At Least George Pataki Has Deez Nuts' Support

The road may be over for former New York Gov. George Pataki, but that doesn't mean he can't revel in the small things. In an interview with The Des Moines Register on Monday, 16-year-old Brady Olson, better known to voters as fake independent presidential candidate Deez Nuts, said he supported George Pataki to take the White House in 2016, just one day prior to the former governor's drop-out announcement. Alas, poor Yorick, Deez Nuts knew you well.

"If Brady were old enough to vote, and if he caucused with Republicans, he'd either vote for Kasich or former New York Gov. George Pataki — because they're moderates," the news outlet explained this week, noting that the teen was leaning more "toward Kasich" as "Pataki has failed to qualify for several states' primary ballots." Regardless, it's something — especially for Pataki, who's had trouble gaining endorsements from anyone at all (including in his home state... yikes).

Olson, who first filed the fake candidacy paperwork in his hometown of Wallingford, Iowa, this past August, wasn't eligible to run for the presidency himself. But that didn't stop him from launching a humorous bid for the Oval Office and garnering nearly 10 percent of the prospective vote in a general election poll in North Carolina that same month.

"We didn't know it was a 15-year-old at first," polling analyst Jim Williams joked to Reuters reporters after seeing the Public Policy Poll results, which showed that more than 9 percent of voters would consider voting for Deez Nuts over traditional party front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. "We saw the official filing statement, so we went with it. If it's good enough for the FEC, it's good enough for us." Of course, 9 percent is a whole lot more than Pataki ever managed to muster in the polls, so I think it's safe to give the kid a little credit.

Conversely, Pataki, who has been polling at a whopping 0 percent since mid-August, has struggled to gain traction since the early days of his campaign. Things never really improved for the beleaguered candidate either, as more outspoken and controversial candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz quickly managed to commandeer media headlines with derogatory rhetoric and aggressive campaign tactics.

In a his drop-out speech on Tuesday, Pataki noted that the next president needed to be one who could rally Americans under the same banner, rather than dividing them along party lines. "If we're truly going to make America great again, we need to elect a president who will ... unite us again in our belief in this great country," said Pataki. "I know when we stand together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish."

Given that both Pataki and Olson both seem to favor that moderate, flexible approach to politics, maybe the two can run together again in 2036. Fingers crossed!