Meet the clowns, cranks and ghost candidates running in New Hampshire

No, Taylor Swift is not on New Hampshire's Republican ballot.

But Rachel "Mohawk" Swift of Hagerstown, Md., is.

Swift is rather preoccupied with ... pens. Her presidential agenda? Unclear.

Swift personifies an age-old quirk in tonight's first-in-the-nation primary contest, where some minimal organization and $1,000 — zero dollars if you can prove indigence — will get you on the official GOP ballot alongside the twin headliners of Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.

In all, 24 Republican Party candidates appear on the New Hampshire ballot.

Among them are several familiar folks whose names remain despite them having already dropped out — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum among them.

Texas businessman Ryan Binkley, an all-but-unknown Republican candidate who competed in Iowa to little effect but still is running, appears on the ballot, too.

If none of these options appeal to a particular New Hampshire primary voter, that person may cast his or her ballot for, say, Mary Maxwell of Concord, N.H., who really loves the Constitution.

Or Glenn J. McPeters of Essex Junction, Vt., who is concerned about migrants "building sleeper cells."

Or Peter Jedick of Rocky River, Ohio, who wants to cancel all student loan debt and institute term limits for Congress.

Meanwhile, the denuded Democratic Primary, which President Joe Biden is boycotting and the national Democratic Party has all but stripped of relevance because of New Hampshire's refusal to pass it's first-in-the-nation crown to South Carolina, is arguably wackier.

Perennial performance art candidate Vermin Supreme is back with his megaphone and rubber boot hat.

Someone who's apparently already president — President R. Boddie of Atlanta — is also on the ballot.

So is Paperboy Love Prince of Brooklyn, N.Y., whose detailed, all-caps campaign platform includes "putting an end to junk food" and guaranteeing the rights of students to learn to swim in school. Prince has a very trippy website.

They're among the 21 named Democratic candidates on the ballot, which also includes nominal Biden challengers Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, the author, spiritualist and 2020 presidential election also-ran.

Keep an eye, too, on the Democratic ballot blank with no name at all: the "write-in" line.

While plenty of New Hampshire's Democratic voters are expected to fill in the blank space with Biden's name, others are angling to cast protest votes.

Don't be surprised if "cease-fire" — being pushed as a write-in vote by some far-left New Hampshire activists in protest of Biden's Israel-Gaza policies — finishes in the top 10.