Japanese Upper House Election: Taro Yamamoto Doesn't Need Teleprompter to Appeal to Voters

He knows his stuff forwards and backwards, it seems.

Taro Yamamoto, a 38-year-old actor turned activist turned aspiring politician, is in the race from Tokyo. He lost in the December 2012 Lower House Election against Shintaro Ishihara's son, but he managed to get more than 70,000 votes which was very significant in that particular district in Tokyo.

He relies only on volunteers for his election campaign, and from Day 1 they have been out on the streets. Yamamoto is running as independent. It's a tough race in Tokyo, with 20 candidates vying for 5 slots and LDP expected to win 2.

I think he originally planned to run as a nation-wide candidate in the proportional representation part of the election, but somehow that fell apart. I think it had to do with him not part of an established party.

It will be a blast if Yamamoto wins...

From his website, here are his three simple core policies and election promises:

1. No one will be exposed to radiation.
2. No Transpacific Partnership (TPP)
3. No one will go hungry.

He is about the only one candidate I know who has been speaking about the danger of radiation exposure from contaminated food and contaminated environment, and demanding government action to stop distribution and sales of contaminated food and goods (such as cement mixed with ashes that contain radioactive cesium).

For that alone, he has my support.

His website: http://imahahitori.com/
His Twitter: @yamamototaro0
His campaign live cast: http://twitcasting.tv/yamamototaro0

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