Richard Duncan stands outside Paul Brown stadium with a six-foot-tall sign that extolls his qualifications to become the next president of the United States.

As he hands out cards to the Bengals fans headed to Thursday night’s game against the Dolphins, he bellows out, “You have another choice!”

“I’m running for president.”

“Vote me for me, I’m on the ballot.”

He is mostly ignored, garnering a few laughs, bewildered looks and sarcastic endorsements as the fans walk toward the stadium.

Duncan is on the Ohio ballot for president as an independent candidate. This is his fourth candidacy. Because he appears only on the Ohio ballot - and not in any other states - he knows his chances of winning are non-existent. But, he said, must get his message out.

“The parties recently have not been helping out the people,” the 63-year-old Aurora, Ohio, resident said. “If I can at least accomplish that, I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

He is a self-funded candidate, spending around $5,000 of his own money, crisscrossing Ohio, obtaining the 5,000 signatures required to appear on the ballot.

On Sept. 1, he received a letter saying he made this year’s ballot. Ohio voters will see name alongside Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

'It's hard to come from nowhere in politics'

Duncan hatched the idea of running in 2004, helping his daughter, a then-senior at Aurora High School, with a government class project. He decided to run in that year’s election on his anti-two party platform. He received 800 write-in votes.

The next year, he began collecting petition signatures for the 2008 ballot. He needed 5,000, and he got around 13,000 over a three-year span. He ended up receiving about 3,900 votes that election.

In 2012, he did even better, getting 12,502 votes, good for fifth-place among the seven presidential candidates in the state.

In August 2015, he made up his mind to run again, and he hit the trail to get his required signatures. He visited fairs and festivals during the warmer months and stores and shops during the winter.

“I was going out three times a week instead of here and there,” Duncan said of the abbreviated petition window. “In a year’s time, the weather cooperated, and I collected my 13,000 signatures.”

Someone like Duncan could make some noise nationally in a presidential race. But the odds are heavily against independent candidates winning, said David Niven, a University of Cincinnati assistant professor of political science.

“They would have to start from a position of prominence,” Niven said. “That’s the biggest problem for candidates trying to bust their way in from the outside. Who is going to take the moment to give them the first bit of attention?

“Done well, someone in this position can make a little bit of a stink and a tiny bit of noise,” Niven said. “It’s really hard to come from nowhere in politics.”

Bill Clinton took his business card

Those odds haven’t deterred Duncan from driving all over Ohio and spreading his message.

He campaigned and collected signatures at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this past July. And he plans to keep campaigning until Election Day. He’s planning to be at Saturday’s Ohio State-Rutgers game in Columbus. He is also taking advantage of the Cleveland Indians making the playoffs, campaigning as long as the team’s season keeps going.

“I keep continuing on because I believe what I am saying,” Duncan said. “So I’m absolutely not going to stop. The two parties are starting to see that people are not happy with them, and they’re going to have to change because the people are supposed to be running this country.”

He attended a Hillary Clinton rally recently where former President Bill Clinton spoke. He had the opportunity to shake the former president’s hand, giving him a business card, which he said Clinton put in his suit jacket pocket.

“That was pretty rewarding for me to have a former president take my card,” Duncan said. “Maybe I’m doing something right.”

Thursday night, after almost 30-straight minutes of no responses from Bengals and Dolphins fans at the stadium, Duncan finally engaged a passer-by.

“I’ll take your card, and I will definitely check you out,” Jordan Boeing said. But Boeing is from Burlington, Ky., and is not registered to vote in Ohio.

Duncan hadn’t gained a vote, but at least one more person had heard his message.

“A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step,” he said.

Jeff O'Rear and Dean Lowry are part of a University of Cincinnati partnership helping The Enquirer cover the election. On Twitter: @UCPolReporters

About Richard Duncan

Age: 63

Hometown: Aurora, Ohio

Party: Independent

Web site: http://richardaduncan.samsbiz.com/

Highlights from his web page:

• "We as a country must maintain a strong position worldwide. I believe the current strategy in force of a continual offensive bombing is productive."
• "The goal of creating new jobs and preserving the ones we have in this country is crucial to everyone. I will do this by developing ZONES OR GEOGRAPHIC AREAS throughout the nation. Within these zones industries and businesses will be encouraged to locate therein by giving them incentives such as tax breaks and reduced rent or land cost prices. However, in return they must hire our U.S. citizens at a good wage and provide health care coverage.
• 10-year Congressional term limits
• "The morals in our country will be preserved with the pro life movement and maintaining the right to worship a God of ones choice."
• "Our Constitutional freedoms will be preserved such as gun rights (I am against gun free zones), unreasonable searches and seizures, free speech, free market trade and religious choice. Privacy may have to be sacrificed accordingly due to the terrorists recent use of cell phones and similar computer technology."