he was the American Party's presidential nominee on a ticket with Rufus Shackelford. They finished sixth in the general election with 158,724 votes. The campaign received its best results in Virginia, where Anderson-Shackleford received 16,686 votes. The ticket also finished third in three states: Kentucky, North Dakota and Indiana. In 1978, Anderson ran as the American Party-endorsed candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee, but victory went to Republican Howard Baker, Jr. who won his third and final term in the chamber. He appeared on the ballot as an independent due to state law which requires a minimal number of signatures to appear as an independent but requires a full party petition consisting of tens of thousands of signatures to appear on ballot with party label. Anderson received 45,908 votes. Later life Anderson remained active in conservative politics and was widely popular as a speaker, appearing on various TV and radio programs and delivering more than 1,500 speeches between 1947 and 1994. He lived his later years in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Blowing Rock, North Carolina. He was known for a great sense of humor: in some circles he was called "a modern-day Will Rogers," in others "the barefoot wit of the John Birch Society." One of his most famous aphorisms was "Politicians are like cockroaches: It's not what they steal and carry away; it's what they fall into and mess up." A colleague of Anderson's wrote: "Tom Anderson is not a common man. He is of the uncommon stock that conceived and created this republic. He is deeply devoted to the principles proclaimed in the U.S. Constitution. Tom Anderson is unaffected, practical and poetic. If you want style and daring with the kick of a Tennessee mule, then Thomas Jefferson Anderson is your man. A smile. A grin. An earnest patriot. A shot of adrenalin in sluggish patriot veins. By example of his life as well as by his word, Tom Anderson has made a permanent contribution to the literature and liberty under law." Anderson liked to tell the following story "A farmer was being plagued by a group of wild hogs. He decided to capture them one by one. He built a corral in the woods leaving an opening for an enclousure. Next he put corn in front of the corral. At first none of the hogs showed any interest. Finally some of the young ones begin to