Ken Marcure, a Montanan who has lived in Japan for 35 years and who lost a long-distance bid for the U.S. Senate in 2006, announced he is running as a write-in candidate for president this year.

Marcure informed Secretary of State Brad Johnson of his plans in a 88-page e-mail that he also forwarded to Lee Newspapers State Bureau.

Alan Miller, elections specialist in Johnson’s office, said Marcure has until April 25 to complete a write-in ballot form.

A write-in candidate is not required to pay a filing fee.

It is up to Marcure to decide whether to run for president in the November general election only by filing as an independent or in both the June primary and the November general election by running on a partisan ticket.

Marcure ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in 2006, finishing last in the five-candidate primary with 940 votes, or less than 1 percent of the total. Marcure returned to Montana briefly to campaign and participated in at least one debate. Jon Tester won the Democratic primary and went on to unseat Republican Sen. Conrad Burns in November.

The candidate said he is running for president “in the hope that somehow conventional wisdom can be challenged and to ‘force’ people and the leading senators to do a ‘(U.S. Sen. Mike) Mansfield’ and answer my questions.”

“I really do think that thought in the U.S.A. is bamboozled, but hope that change is in the air and that someone can define it properly,” Marcure wrote.

He called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney “for they are really sadistic hypocrites hiding it in a pretense of national security and fear.”

Marcure wrote that he is running for president for several reasons.

“One is that I am haunted by a series of dreams before the war in Iraq which uncannily mirrored reality after the war in Iraq began,” he said in the e-mail.

While living in Kyoto, Japan, Marcure said he also felt the soft touch on his shoulder of a late aunt who often spoke of common sense, and his University of Montana adviser, Marguerite Ephron, who always stressed thought and reason. He said the two women whispered to him: “Sit down and write.”

“At that moment, I felt as if the walls of this tea house which is my room no longer existed and that I could ‘see,’ ” Marcure wrote.

A Missoula native, Marcure, 60, is a permanent resident of Japan but has been registered to vote in Montana. He teaches English at several Japanese universities, while his wife is a full-time law professor there.

He is a UM graduate who received a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii.