American presidential elections will never seem the same again; the candidacy of Harold Stassen, who died on March 4th aged 93, will no longer figure as the last certainty in the increasingly confused quadrennial battles.
His nine forlorn bids for the Republican presidential nomination made him the butt of every wit in the country, yet his career between these eccentric diversions was long, distinguished and influential. At home, he was a political white hope who turned into a renowned and prosperous international lawyer. He played a critical role in creating the United Nations - he was the last surviving American signatory - and fought valiantly for arms reductions.
His tenacity and energy were astonishing. At 89, he was prepared to take yet another run at the governorship of Minnesota, the state which had put him in the record books as - at 31 - the youngest governor in US history. The reforms he had then introduced to his local Republican Party and the state government first drew him to national attention, and later to major positions under Democratic and Republican administrations.
Harold Stassen was the fourth of five children born to immigrant Norwegian farmers in West St Paul, Minnesota. Emerging with flying colours from high school at 15, he was still too young to go to university, and busied himself on the family farm. He then worked his way through the University of Minnesota, emerging in 1929 with an excellent law degree to start his own practice in St Paul. In 1930, he ran successfully for county attorney.
His victory came partly through his efforts to galvanise the state's young Republicans into overthrowing the party's notoriously right-wing leadership. As part of this strategy, he fought and won Minnesota's 1938 gubernatorial election, and immediately signalled the changed nature of the regime by appointing a Democrat as his chief-of-staff. Incredibly for the period, he appointed a black officer to the national guard.
He dismantled the corrupt patronage system established by the ousted Farmer-Labour Party, and cleared 7,000 political appointees from the state payroll in his first term. The tax cuts he was then able to introduce ensured his re-election for two more terms, though the third was interrupted by wartime service in the US navy.
On his return in 1945, President Truman appointed him to the American delegation at the San Francisco conference convened to establish the United Nations. He was regarded as one of the most influential voices in the preparation of the UN Charter.
In 1955, President Eisenhower chose him as his special assistant for disarmament, and he became the chief American negotiator at the London arms control talks in 1957.
The 1952 campaign that brought Eisenhower to the White House had, in fact, been Harold Stassen's best hope of the presidency. He had already put up a respectable show in 1948, when he fought for the nomination against the archconservative Senator Robert Taft and Governor Thomas Dewey of New York. Harold Stassen won the first four primaries, and seemed the likeliest winner until he was rejected in Oregon. Dewey's narrow defeat by President Truman left Harold Stassen as a favoured contender for the 1952 race - until Eisenhower announced his candidacy and he withdrew in the interests of party unity.
In 1958, he campaigned for the state governorship. When he lost that he tried to become mayor of Philadelphia, and then tried again for the governorship. Getting the feeling that he was not wanted by the Pennsylvanians, he returned to Minnesota, where he ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate, for the House of Representatives, and again for the governorship.
With the Republican Party increasingly turning to right-wing presidential candidates, Harold Stassen resumed his campaign for liberalisation. He was on the ballot against Barry Goldwater in 1964, Richard Nixon - whom he loathed - in 1968, Gerald Ford in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and George Bush in 1988 and 1992.
In spite of his repeated rejection by the electorate, he never lost his sense of humour. When the Republicans chose Bob Dole in 1996, Harold Stassen, then aged 89, offered to become the party's vice-presidential candidate. It would, he said, be a way to help the 72-year-old Dole look young.
Harold Edward Stassen: born 1907; died, March 2001