California man Barack Obama Mandela has jumped into the race for the Republican nomination for the late Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat, according to a listing on Ballotpedia.
Ummm, yeah this is real, or at least real enough. There’s a Barack Obama Mandela listed as an “inactive” member of the California State Bar. It would appear from some apparently self-published books that his real name is “Mark Charles Hardie,” and in 2014 the Times of Israel reported that Hardie, a Black convert to Judiasm, had legally changed his name in Israel to “Barack Obama,” writing that “his lawyer in the United States is working to have his name legally changed in the US to Barack Obama as well.” However “Mark Charles Hardie” still ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 under his original name, so we guess he finally got the paperwork done and added the “Mandela” after that. Republicans might as well try to nominate him. It could end up working out.