Oddball Spotlight: Daniel Imperato

Daniel Imperato has filed to run for Governor of Florida as a candidate with No Party Affiliation.

Some may remember him from his hilariously offbeat campaign for President in 2008.  He was, at various stages, claiming to seek the nomination of the Libertarian, Green, Constitution and Reform parties.  Eventually he decided he was an independent candidate, but he never actually got on the ballot in any state.

Imperato claims to be a lot of things.  He says he’s a Papal Knight and a Knight of Malta, and also claims to be a knight of the Orden Bonaria. Whatever that means.

He’s also got ties to the Pope, the United Nations and numerous billionaires and celebrities.

Imperato’s one real trick is his ability to issue poorly worded press releases and have them picked up by search engines. So a simple search of his name will turn up all sorts of crazy stuff. At one point he issued a press release that he’d been spotted eating at a restaurant with celebrities. He also claimed to be involved in numerous film and television projects and, if memory serves, claimed that a company wanted to make him the start of a reality show. 

The press releases were just hilarious:

September 20, 2007 – Last Night Imperiali Organization Founder and 2008 Leading Independent Presidential Candidate along with his wife, Lady of Zenobia Jan Imperato, were seen dining at New York City’s Cipriani’s Restaurant.  Amongst their company were George Clooney and his lady friend.

The Imperato’s and Clooney were seated next to each other at the posh Manhattan eatery while enjoying a late night dinner.  Although the subject matter of the conversation remains unknown, Imperato may have been discussing his upcoming i1films release, “The Red Worm”, with Clooney.  Clooney is best known for his roles on ER, Batman, Ocean’s Eleven, Good Night and Good Luck, and Syriana.

Adding Clooney to the cast of “The Red Worm” adds to a high powered dynamic list of actors and producers that have expressed interest in participating with the film that includes Al Pacino, John Daly, Julio Herzer, and Sean Connery. Imperato is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings as well as his “Gathering the Nations” reception for dignitaries, ambassadors, business leaders, and special invited guests.

The event will launch the Imperato Worldwide Association, a project of the Imperato Foundation and will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue.

At various points, he or his “Imperiali Organization” — a company that may or may not actually exist — claimed to own a semi-pro basketball team and be involved in laying fiber optic cables under the ocean.  He traveled to Monaco to watch races and held imaginary high-level discussions with UN ambassadors.

The homepage for the Imperiali Organization now just features a weird logo and the phrase “we do it best” in the bottom left corner.

What was particularly damaging about Imperato’s 2008 campaign was that he traveled around to a number of state Libertarian Party conventions. He was given time to speak at many of them, despite being clearly off his rocker. He would then contact the local media and inform them that he was the party’s candidate for President. So they would send a totally uninformed reporter out to interview him and he’d get actual press out of it… and make the LP seem like a bunch of kooks at the same time.

At the Libertarian convention he polled 4 out of 677 convention delegates. He picked up a single vote at the Constituion Party’s convention.

Now he’s back.  Just as crazy as ever, but this time he’s trying to become governor of Florida.

A quick Google search finds little evidence of his past exploits, other than his 2008 campaign and goofy press releases.  No movies, no basketball teams and no reality shows ever came to fruition. 

But just a few weeks ago he did put out a rather crazy press release designed to look like a local news story. In the story, the “reporter” (it was probably written by a paid writer) compares Imperato to Charlie Crist and goes on and on about the influence that Imperato had on the 2008 race.

Here are some selected quotes:

Catching up with Daniel Imperato while bicycling around his hometown, this reporter was still unable to confirm plans to get on the statewide ballot for the November Governors race.

From 2005 to 2008 he crisscrossed the country soliciting support for an independent run for president. He reenergized the reform party, challenged the leadership of the Libertarian Party, flirted with the various Green parties and engaged members of the Constitution party. Because of this outreach, he chose to stay independent and is still committed to expanding the independent cause.

“Charlie Crist can use my global expertise to help him in the senate. He did a decent job governing the state but was slow to act as were most previous governors of our casual state. It is time for Florida to Be First! We can be the first independent governing team in US history, something that is long overdue. Political party power is passing back to the people.”

Elaborating on his plans, Imperato referred to the biking, “I guess I better get back in shape for another run. If my supporters succeed in drafting me to join Charlie Crist as the people’s independent Governor while he serves in the US Senate, then I would honor them with a platform highlighting vision, fact and humanity.”

It seems that Imperato’s supporters, also known as the two-dozen voices inside his head, have been successful in drafting him for run for Governor.  He’s filed paperwork to be a candidate with No Party Affiliation.

The only question now is who will be picked to be his running mate?  I’m sure we’ll get 20 press releases between now and when he has to formally name someone to the position.

9 Comments

  1. Pingback: The Return of Daniel Imperato | Independent Political Report

  2. daniel imperato says:

    thank u for your kind words, your release is amusing and very childish,
    thank u for thinking about me.why u don’t stop wasting your time publishing
    non sense and find out the facts before u r sued for slanderous statements
    against my character.at least i have the guts to stand up and try to help our
    country.

  3. ^ ahahahaha

    OP: this is hilarious. I first heard of this guy in like, late 07. I enjoy learning about fringe candidates and all that jazz.

    If above poster is Imperato; it would be nice if you backed up some of the claims made in the articles you released. Press releases are fine and all – but some third party confirmation would be nice.

  4. You like press releases? Here’s a good one for you…

    Rick Scott Ignores Daniel Imperato’s Request to Come Clean. Imperato En Route to Tallahassee to File Complaints on Underhanded Tactics and Threats

    By Joseph Oddo, 703-338-0200
    Contact: Daniel Imperato: 561-317-3210

    Tampa — Following up on the controversy stirred up in the Florida governor’s race, I asked Daniel Imperato if he heard from Rick Scott. He stated that Scott has not responded which leaves Imperato to believe that he must be part of the threats and scare tactics to get Imperato out of the race.

    In Daniels’ words, “Scott is running scared. Because as Col. McCalister said if I stay in race I will take conservative votes away from Scott. Along with other key constituencies that Scott is relying on such as the tea party and Christian votes.”

    Imperato changed the subject to suggest that Scott should voluntarily return a pro-rated amount of his golden parachute back to the shareholders of HCA. “Why? Because HCA was fined $1.2 billion and Scott took those funds before the judgment. That puts the shareholders in a position to file a lis pendens lien on his bank accounts. At the very least the shareholders of HCA should file a class action suit against the company and Rick Scott.”

    Another suspicious disclosure that McCalister declared was that Scott is a billionaire, and he quotes McCalister has stating that “he has many monies hidden from FEC state filings.”

    Along with the threats made against Imperato to drop out of the race in front of witnesses in a public restaurant were a series of slanderous remarks about Bill McBride and Alex Sink. These, Imperato suggested, amount to a probable criminal complaint for the threats against Imperato’s security, and for slanderous statements against Alex Sink. On top of which, his team is inquiring with the state election board to determine whether the McCalister delivered threats and intermeddling could be construed as tortious interference in a state election contest.

    Imperato granted the Scott team three days to openly and publically apologize since he was not sure that Scott was directly involved. But having no response from Rick Scott himself, Imperato believes he was involved and will have no choice but to file these complaints with Attorney General Bill McCollum and the State Election Commission upon his visit to Tallahassee next week.

    Daniel has informally notified all parties of his intentions. Now he will follow through since Scott seems unwilling to apologize openly in the press to Team Imperato and Daniel’s family.

    Daniel concludes, “This is all about principles and integrity. I have a moral responsibility to do what is right for Floridians. I must protect the people of Florida from allowing these types of underhanded tactics to continue unchecked. At this point I don’t care if this hurts my chance of getting elected or who wins. I just want to help Floridians and set record straight.”

    Back Story: http://www.draftimperato.com

    ###

  5. Grade: C-

    The first letter of every sentence should be capitalized.
    “U” is never an acceptable substitute for “you.”
    “UR” should be “you are.”
    “I” should be capitalized.
    Texting slang and shortcuts are only for Twitter and cell phones.

    Because I care,

    Mrs. Claxton
    English 101

  6. Ok – went to http://www.draftimperato.com to check the “back-story”. It actually states that Imperato is “surging in the polls while Rick [Scott] and Alex [Sink] sink” Not only is that a truly bad pun, its not true. I’ve never even heard of Imperato before today. So, um, NO I don’t think I will be voting for this guy. Weird…really. After further research, it didn’t get any better. I get this image of juvenile attention-getting behavior rather than a mature person who is ready to take on leading a state. Ridiculous.

  7. daniel imperato says:

    sorry your comments are just a joke in it self , using negative publicity against me will end up in a negative spiral against such person. the sec. case is bogus and false and when i suit them for 2 bb. i will spend it on people who like to use internet to get them sited . geet a life

  8. christopher giguere says:

    I had the opportunity to work with Mr. Imperato, and while it might be easy to dismiss him as someone who is crazy or out of touch, doing so might be a mistake. This is most often seen with people of great intelligence. Most do not understand them or the subject matter at hand. Quite often highly intelligent people are dismissed with the same regard. Pay attention because if you don’t understand him you might miss something good.

    Its hard to see the intelligence and vision of someone who is way ahead of ourselves, maybe even our time. But don’t dismiss him and don’t think he isn’t capable of anything great. I found it in him, I had to look deep, but I’m glad I did.

    He doesn’t write very well with a keyboard or text very well on a phone. His greatness doesn’t show through in electronic devices. It sure does come through if you pay attention and think deep.

  9. Pingback: Florida Investment Con Man | Boca Raton Investment Fraud Attorney

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