Jimmy McMillan stands out in N.Y. governor debate

If you can win a debate on buzz alone, Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party was the undisputed victor in Monday night's New York gubernatorial debate.

McMillan appeared alongside six of his competitors, displaying notable facial hair as well as black gloves. Throughout the forum, the candidate rattled off soundbites that are still reverberating Tuesday.

"Listen! Someone's ... child's stomach just growled! Did you hear it?" he shouted in his opening statement, before being cut off by the moderators and eliciting laughter from the audience.

You can watch a clip of his appearance here, courtesy of ABC News:

McMillan has long been a fringe fixture in New York politics, running for mayor of New York City in 2005 and 2009. During the 2005 campaign he ran under the moniker "Prince Jimmy McMillan (a.k.a. Papa Smurf)," the Village Voice reported at the time. In 2000 he tried to qualify to run against Hillary Clinton for Senate but was bounced from the ballot, the newspaper said; in 1994, he walked across the state in a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, but was kicked out of the state convention for heckling former Gov. Mario Cuomo. And in a 1993 run at the New York City mayorship, McMillan scaled a cable on the Brooklyn Bridge, the paper said (police coaxed him down, and he was hospitalized).

[Photos: More moments with candidate Jimmy McMillan]

So Monday night's debate marked McMillan's debut before a mainstream political audience. There's no doubt he made the most of it, with his fiery opening remarks and his striking appearance. He was hard to miss on the crowded seven-candidate stage, sporting a grandiloquent array of gray facial hair and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He also wore heavy black gloves throughout the proceedings--and in a follow-up spin session with reporters, he explained that they were a form of psychosomatic protection against harmful chemical exposure he may have suffered during his tour of duty in Vietnam.

[Photos: More images from all the 2010 campaigns]

"The chemicals of Agent Orange -- dioxin and a lot of other chemicals mixed up -- I would get sick," he explained. "When I get home tonight, I know I'm not going to be able to breathe if I take them off. It could be psychological, I don't know, but I just put 'em on and wear them anyway."

[Rewind: Candidate deals with fallout from anti-gay comments]

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