WOODBRIDGE -- Summer may be winding down, but there's one public pool still open for business, and a Connecticut teen is diving in.
"My fellow Americans. As some of you may know, I, Jeff Gallo, am officially running for the president of the United States," the 16-year-old said in a recent YouTube announcement.
Gallo is looking to bring more heat to the campaigning for 2016.
"There's been a couple of joke candidates on the Internet this past year and I thought like, one of them was 15, and I thought to myself, 'If they can do it, why can't I?' But take it a little more seriously and see what can happen," he told Fox CT.
Even though the last digits of the election year match the Amity High School junior's age, Gallo shares views with people many years his senior.
"Our basic platform is essentially equality, pretty much just want everyone in the United States to be treated equal," he said.
Gallo's right hand man, lacrosse player Ryan Rattley, is passionate in the political field, too.
"There's been a drop in the number of young people voting," the vice presidential candidate said. "Having other young people so involved and so interested could inspire more people to be interested in this."
The duo launched a Gallo 2016 website, which was officially registered with the Federal Elections Commission and publicized their positions.
"We're running as Independents so we're not going to be at any big rallies or anything for Democrats or Republicans. We're just doing this on our own and we're doing pretty good, I think," said Rattley.
Gallo's mother said her son's campaign "snowballed" over Labor Day weekend.
"Yea, we're proud of him. We're proud of everybody who is involved and hopefully they learn a lot from it and other kids can learn from it too," said Maryjo Gallo.
It might be more than a lesson -- after all, polls are saying many voters want non-politicians running things.
"Our slogan is 'We Can Win,' though technically we're not able to take office but it is more of a morale type of thing," said Gallo. "It's pretty fun so far and we're going to take it pretty far, I think."
