MANCHESTER, New Hampshire—As of this writing, 1,500 people have declared with the Federal Election Commission their candidacy for president of the United States. But in this so-called democracy, you only ever get to hear about 20 or so. Outrageous!

Tuesday night at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College in Manchester, roughly two-dozen of the unknowns were given a chance to introduce themselves and bypass the political-media establishment complex’s efforts to suppress their voices. Below we have listed some of the choicest quotes from the official Lesser-Known Candidates Forum. All we’ll say is that cranky white men absolutely love to run for president.

William H. McGaughey Jr., Democrat, of Minneapolis introducing himself:

It’s very contentious, but our politics is completely polarized, or largely polarized, by gender and race. … I decided to run as a Democrat partly on the issue of dignity for white people.

Stephen B. Comley Sr., Republican, of Rowley, Massachusetts, introducing himself:

I’ve been a private investigator in Washington for almost 30 years. Because of it, there have been threats on my life. And I’ve had people come up and scare my wife and kids while I’m in Washington. … and I’m not too happy about it.

Edward O’Donnell Jr., Democrat, of Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, introducing himself:

[shouting] Look at a small child on Christmas morning. All people who have ever lived want two things: happiness and healing. The first step to that is for all of us to treat everyone with love, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, kindness, respect, dignity, friendliness, chivalry, courtesy, and old fashioned manners. … Our job is … to bring the message of Christmas to as many people as possible.

Tim Cook, Republican, of Browns Summit, North Carolina, on the scourge of mass shootings:

I don’t like seeing gun deaths of children, but also, there’s 6 million reasons in Europe that we shouldn’t have gun laws.

Comley Sr. on the scourge of mass shootings:

I’ve had armed forces come to me. And you know what they say? They say, ‘Mr. Comley, we understand that you protect informants. We’re gonna give you some information that the American public should know about, but you can’t give up our identities.’ I said, ‘of course I won’t. If you let me, I will. If you don’t… I’m out of business; if I give up your name, I’m out of business.’ You know what they told me? They said, ‘the Obama administration and past administrations, and Bush, have helped enroll people to sign up for ISIS.’

Cook, on whether he would keep the prison at Guantanamo Bay open:

I would put Hillary Clinton in there.

Cook, closing argument:

I could beat Hillary Clinton one-on-one.

Comley, closing argument:

There’s more information coming out, and the government’s going to be after me again, because I’ve admitted to the tape recordings that they say I have for over 30 years. And the only person I’m going to give those tape recordings to is Obama.

• 2016 Campaign