Before Trump there was Bridgeport's PT Barnum, and he almost ran for president

If P.T. Barnum had actually run, there might have been a President of the United States from Bridgeport.

It was a real possibility, as an article in the New Yorker details.

“Toward the end of his life, Barnum toyed with the idea of running for President,” the article says. “His running mate, he suggested, should come from a state like Indiana. Barnum called himself the ‘Prince of Humbugs,’ which, generously and perhaps presciently, left open the possibility that one day there would arise a king.”

Born in Bethel, Barnum has long been associated with Connecticut and with Bridgeport. In addition to being a showman — famous now for his “sucker born every minute” quote — Barnum was a politician.

He served two terms in the Connecticut legislature in 1865 as a Republican from Fairfield, and was elected in 1875 as mayor of Bridgeport. He was named after his grandfather, a veteran of the American Revolution, who had bought much of the land around Bethel.

Barnum is buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery.

The New Yorker piece, “What P.T. Barnum Understood About America,” compares the showman, and the tactics he used to gain fame, wealth and power, to those used by president Donald Trump.

“Barnum lied easily and often,” writes Elizabeth Kolbert. “When he was not fabricating, he was exaggerating; he routinely inflated how much he’d spent on his various business ventures. He may or may not have said, ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity,’ but certainly he believed in this maxim and welcomed any imbroglio that would be noticed by the press.”

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/The-time-Bridgeport-s-PT-Barnum-considered-14256846.php