In the 1985 movie "Brewster's Millions," Monty Brewster, played by Richard Pryor, has to spend $30 million in 30 days without buying or acquiring a single asset. Brewster decides to run for mayor of New York, spending lavishly, urging people to vote for "none of the above."
Paul T. Farrell Jr., a Huntington lawyer, said Thursday that he can do better than Monty Brewster.
Dissatisfied with the 15 national candidates currently running for president, Farrell filed paperwork Thursday to run as a Democrat in the West Virginia presidential primary.
"There is nobody on the presidential ballot I want to vote for," Farrell said. "I'm a better choice than 'none of the above.'"
Farrell, 43, is a partner at Greene Ketchum, the former firm of state Supreme Court Chief Justice Menis Ketchum.
He is a former president of the West Virginia Association for Justice, the state's leading plaintiff lawyers' group. His father, also named Paul Farrell, is a Cabell County Circuit Court judge.
While presidential campaigns and super PACs make Brewster's $30 million spending spree look downright modest, Farrell has no plans to join them.
He said he will not raise funds for his campaign, or spend any money at all - although he did have to spend $2,500 to get on the ballot.
He said the idea to run stems from the 2012 primary when West Virginia Democrats, so dissatisfied with President Barack Obama, nearly voted for a felon, sitting in a Texas prison, instead.
That man, Keith Judd, won 42 percent of the vote in West Virginia, a vote that Farrell said was akin to "none of the above."
Farrell described this year's choice of candidates as "a socialist [Sen. Bernie Sanders], a felon [Judd, out of prison and on the ballot again], an alleged immigrant [Sen. Ted Cruz], a reality television star [Donald Trump] and a long list of scandalized career politicians."
He said that none of the candidates share "West Virginia values."
"None of them have had to wake up in the morning down in Boone County and wonder whether or not the coal mine's going to re-open," Farrell said. "The presidential candidates are getting further and further away from anybody that I recognize."
Farrell will not get on the ballot in any other state but, if he wins enough votes, West Virginia's delegates to the Democratic National Convention can support "someone that shares our West Virginia values and will help end the war on coal."
He said he considers himself a moderate and doesn't vote based on party. He's running as a Democrat because "my dad's a Democrat and his dad was a Democrat and just about everybody that I've known for a very long time has been a Democrat."
Farrell doesn't plan a big kickoff announcement, or even to run a campaign of any kind. But, he said, "the penalty for not getting involved is to be ruled over by lesser men."
Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.