you know you are joke candidate when

You get put in jail (where your sentence could keep you in jail until after election day) and it barely gets a mention in the press.

John Renteria, a perennial candidate for public office who has never won an election, was booked into the Salt Lake County Metro Jail on Friday on a violation of his probation from a previous traffic conviction.
Renteria pleaded guilty in November 2005 to one count of attempted failure to stop at an officer's command, a class A misdemeanor; one count of incorrectly positioned plates, a class B misdemeanor; and one count of failure to obey a traffic-control device, a class C misdemeanor.
[...]
Renteria's attorney, Patrick Corum, said Renteria admitted to 3rd District Judge Sheila McCleve on Friday that he twice drove despite his license having been revoked and that he has drunk alcohol, both in violation of his probation.
[...]
But Corum said he hopes Renteria can go before the judge again to plead his case in the near future.
"I'm very optimistic that we'll be able to get him out," Corum said.
He did not know how Renteria's arrest would affect his run for mayor.
"I've never talked to him about his candidacy," Corum said.

Patrick Corum is a Salt Lake County Legal Defender or as we call them in the biz an LDA. That means that Renteria is really poor, like food stamps poor. To get a public defender, you need to be almost on welfare.

Rolly states the obvious. "Renteria was considered a second-tier candidate and not given much of a chance to win. The last campaign finance disclosure indicated he had raised no money." Note the past tense WAS CONSIDERED. Now he is not going to be even considered, except as a trivia pursuit question.