Political satirist Stephen Colbert briefly campaigned, in character, as a presidential candidate in 2007 during broadcasts of his show, “The Colbert Report,” on Comedy Central.

His road to the Oval Office met a roadblock in his home state South Carolina when he tried to run for both the Republican and the Democratic nomination. In South Carolina, the Republican Party requires a $35,000 filing fee to run for presidential office, so Colbert opted to try for a place on the state’s $2,500 Democratic ballot fee instead. The South Carolina Democratic Party executive council, however, denied Colbert a place on the ballot, bringing his campaign to an end.

“The general sense of the council was that he wasn’t a serious candidate and that was why he wasn’t selected to be on the ballot," the party's director, John Werner, told news sources. Council member Waring Howe, Jr. was more emphatic, stating that Colbert would appear on the party’s ballot “over my dead body.”