The year Dizzy Gillespie ran for president—spoiler alert, he didn’t win — dangerousminds.net

In 1964 the “fate of the free world,” ahem, came down a contest between two men, Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Republican challenger, Barry Goldwater, U.S. Senator from Arizona. History tells us that the contest was decided in favor of Johnson, but the whimsically inclined can entertain another outcome in a parallel universe—John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie as U.S. President. In that heady year the notion of Dizzy for President was a little bit of a thing in the culture, as the famous trumpeter, by then synonymous with bebop itself, announced his intention to become chief executive of the land. Dizzy even announced that his running mate would be Phyllis Diller. As Barry McRae wrote in Dizzy Gillespie: His Life and Times:

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