You see them in every election cycle: people who decide to run for governor or the U.S. Senate, even though they have never been elected to office before, have little money and are mostly unknown to the voters .

You have to figure that most of them know they have no realistic chance of winning. These are “vanity candidates,” because the only thing they can hope to accomplish with a political suicide mission is the gratification of their egos.  

It’s a rare vanity candidate who draws more than 1 percent of the actual vote, but still they pay a large qualification fee and devote a lot of their energy to the effort.

In some cases, it’s an effective way for them to drum up public notice and promote their businesses or professional careers. Herman Cain is a good example. The businessman launched his first campaign in 2004, when he ran in the Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat.

Cain was an energetic campaigner and dynamic speaker, but it was clear he had no real chance to win a statewide GOP primary. The media attention Cain received as a black conservative candidate, however, gave his career a huge boost. He got a job as a talk radio host in Atlanta, launched another losing campaign for the presidency and was invited to make numerous appearances on Fox News.

Saxby Chambliss’ decision to step down from the U.S. Senate next year created an opening that has attracted vanity candidates like a jar of honey attracts flies. There are several current or former officeholders running in the Republican primary for the seat: U.S. Reps. Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston, along with former secretary of state Karen Handel. Each of these candidates is fairly well known to voters, and they have anywhere from $300,000 to nearly $3 million in their campaign bank accounts. David Perdue is an obscure businessman who might normally be dismissed as a vanity candidate, but his decision to put $1.1 million of his own money into the race means he should be taken seriously.

There are other candidates in the primary who probably should not be taken as seriously.

Eugene Yu was born in Korea but emigrated with his family to the Augusta area more than 40 years ago. He’s a former Richmond County sheriff’s deputy who now runs his own business. Yu has raised less than $40,000 in contributions, although he says he has lent his campaign $202,000. I don’t think that money is going to do him much good.  

Derrick Grayson is a DeKalb County minister who also says he’s running for the GOP nomination, but he’s raised less than $5,000. That isn’t going to take you very far in a statewide race.

On the Democratic side, Michelle Nunn has emerged as a frontrunner who has raised more than $1.7 million. She has some name recognition as the daughter of retired Sen. Sam Nunn. She has energized the Democratic Party base, with many of the party’s activists and elected officials already supporting her. It appears she will win the nomination without breaking much of a sweat.

There are other folks running as Democrats, such as Branko Radulovacki, a naturalized citizen from what was once known as Yugoslavia who’s now an Atlanta psychiatrist calling himself “Dr. Rad.” Dr. Rad has raised $103,458, which is a commendable amount for a novice candidate, but in this race, the chances that he can overtake the frontrunner are slim and Nunn.

Todd Robinson of Columbus and Steen Miles of DeKalb County also claim to be running for the Democratic nomination, but they probably won’t make much of a dent in the race.

You have to admire them for trying—and maybe that’s what really matters to a vanity candidate.