Former Rep. Virgile Goode (R-VA) has confirmed to the Richmond Times Dispatch that he is running for president, as a candidate for the Christian right-wing Constitution Party.
Goode was first elected to Congress in 1996, as a very conservative Southern Democrat. He switched his status in 2000 to that of an independent caucusing with the Republicans, and became a Republican outright in 2002.
In late 2006, he garnered some infamy for his heated denunciations of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who had just become the first Muslim elected to Congress, and Ellison’s intention of taking a ceremonial oath of office on the Quran. Goode declared that “if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”
He then narrowly lost his seat in the 2008 Democratic wave, and in 2010 he went on join the Constitution Party.
