Norfolk man launches a home-grown bid for the Oval Office

NORFOLK

J.D. Criveau has a lot to say about his run for the presidency, and he'll get to that in just a minute.

"You're the only one," he promises, "who'll see the truth of what this is."

But first, he wants to give a tour of his backyard.

"You see those apple trees?" he says, pointing to a couple of nearly dead ones. Those trees took a beating when heavy winds came through and they absorbed the fall of a bigger tree. They saved his house.

"You see that pond?" He points to a koi pond in the side yard. It's made out of an old skylight. He gestures to rubber snakes, on the roof near the house dormers, hanging from branches in fruit trees, looped over a utility wire above the front sidewalk. They keep the squirrels away, in a natural manner.

"I'm not an ecology freak," he says. "There's a place for it, and not a place for it."

Criveau, a 60-year-old former Navy technician who lives near Norfolk Industrial Park, just wants you to see that he doesn't think like everyone. He thinks beyond that first instinct, beyond the second.

Certainly, he thinks beyond any convenient term for labeling his candidacy.

"Don't vote Republican, Don't vote Democratic," his campaign card reads. "Vote American."

Criveau is officially a candidate for the presidency. He filed a statement with the Federal Election Commission on July 15. He's the only such person from Hampton Roads, though FEC records show that more than 70 people across the country (and one from Rome) have made the same filing.

Criveau's campaign, which began about a month ago, has largely been a MySpace and YouTube effort. A prolific one. He has used his home web-cam to record about 100 video position papers.

In those eight- and nine-minute spots, he rails against mainstream candidates Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. If you punch his name into the YouTube search bar, you'll see him lash out about oil drilling, the loss of manufacturing jobs, the environment, No Child Left Behind, the Iraq war, any war.

"If you want to attack us, expect war," Criveau says, meaning when he's the president. "I don't mean war like you see, a little bit here, a little bit there. I'm talking about, go and get the videos of World War II. THAT'S what I mean."

You'll see Criveau in his polo shirt, in a T-shirt, with a ball cap on.

"Excuse my appearance," he says on one. "I guess you're going to see me as a regular person today. This is my Sports Authority hat. Outside, cuttin' grass."

You'll see his face get blurry as he gets animated and lurches forward at the webcam, then come back into focus when

he sits back. You'll hear, sometimes, whatever is on TV in the background in the Criveau house. At the six-minute mark, you'll hear a "beep, beep, beep," a timer Criveau sets to remind him to bring things to a close - then you'll hear him go on for two or three more minutes.

One night last week, Criveau sat at his computer checking on a video he was uploading, wearing the same burgundy polo he was wearing when he made the video, explaining what he had said in the video, making it impossible to know whether to watch the Criveau on video or look at the Criveau in the chair.

He was upset. He thought someone had been ripping off his ideas.

"If you look at my videos, and look at something one of the major candidates says four or five days later, it's the same," Criveau said. "I'm getting tired of it."

He looked up, shook his head from side to side, jabbed his finger in the air. He has a plan for getting more domestic oil, and what to do with the proceeds, but he asked that it not be laid out in print.

"I'll give you an idea, but you can't report on it," Criveau said, "because Obama will jump all over it."

Criveau's realistic about his chances; he says he's got a better chance of winning the lottery than the presidency. But he plans to keep trying. Right now, he needs 5,000 signatures from Virginians to get on the ballot here and 5,000 in many other states to get on the national ballot.

His wife, Barbara, who works at Dollar Tree, said she supports her husband's effort and wasn't surprised by it: J.D. had always told her that if he didn't like the candidates he was going to run.

"My mother is for it," Barbara Criveau said, "but I think everybody else thinks, 'hmmm.' "

Since posting on YouTube costs nothing, their only financial outlay has been for "JD FOR PRESIDENT" business cards.

"And when they run out..." J.D. said.

"We wait for another payday," Barbara said.

For sure, if the Criveaus took over 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., they'd liven up the place. Moving in with them would be 6-year-old daughter Samantha, along with two white cats, three Shetland sheepdogs and a big, white Moluccan cockatoo named Coco.

Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com