Marianne Williamson is one of the two dozen or so people running for the Democratic party nomination for president. I had never heard of her until she announced her candidacy and knew little about her. This week she created some controversy by making anti-vaccination comments. As she probably desired, this brought her some publicity and this article by Shira Feder gives us some background on this person and one thing you can say about her is that she is not your run-of-the-mill politician. No, sirree! She seems to be some kind of new age guru spouting spiritual mumbo-jumbo.

As she gained fame, Williamson—who once called herself “the bitch for God”— was accused of harsh treatment of her employees in the past. “Marianne is a tyrant,” one of her former associates told People magazine in 1992. “Her own ego is going to destroy her.” The magazine said one staffer was fired soon after a double mastectomy. article described how Williamson’s employees attempted to unionize to protect themselves from Williamson’s bad temper. She fired one staffer, Regina Hoover, after a double mastectomy, leaving Hoover to navigate the medical expenses. In an Entertainment Weekly story that same year, she was accused by an insider of using her AIDS charities as a platform to “spiritual work to ”sell her book and increase her own fame.”
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Some see Williamson’s rhetoric as cult-like. “I have these slavish followers,” she said in a 1997 Mother Jones article, railing against people suspicious of her success. “ In any other field, if you’ve got a large audience, people would say you must be good at it.” For $149, you can take one of Williamson’s online courses like “The Law Of Divine Compensation” or “The Aphrodite Training.” In 2014 LA County Democratic Party chair Eric Bauman said, “She has some very unusual beliefs about the world, a cult following, but she’s not a credible candidate.”

Not a credible candidate? What nonsense! She has quite a few celebrity supporters such as Kim Kardashian, Alanis Morrisssette, Katy Perry, Nicole Richie, Steven Tyler, Frances Fisher, Jane Lynch, and Gwyneth Paltrow and she also officiated at the eighth wedding of Elizabeth Taylor. What more credentials do you need in this age of reality TV candidates?

Oprah Winfrey has said she bought 1,000 copies of her book and claimed to have experienced 157 miracles as a result of reading it. Impressive! That must be some kind of record, though why the almighty would bestow so many miracles on one of the wealthiest people in the world when there are so many desperately needy people has to be put down to one of those inscrutable mysteries that the deity is famous for.

With those credentials, my feeling is Williamson really should aim to become Donald Trump’s running mate, a much better fit for her.