Robert J. Healey Jr., of Barrington, announces his candidacy for Rhode Island’s lieutenant governor from a sand sculpture at a beach at Punta del Este, Uruguay, on March 16.

Photo courtesy Robert J. Healey Jr.

PROVIDENCE — A guy sitting on a couch at the Starbucks in the Providence Biltmore hotel looks over at Robert J. Healey Jr. and says, “You remind me of Allen Ginsberg. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Later, Healey says his round glasses and long hair and beard have led others to mistake him for John Lennon, Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia, Tiny Tim and Jesus — but never the dead Beat poet Ginsberg. “Remember,” he says in an e-mail, “as Tom Robbins once pointed out, only Dopey had a clean-shaven face.”

Healey, the Cool Moose Party founder who ran for governor three times, is now in the midst of his second campaign for an office he would like to abolish: lieutenant governor.

No one has ever mistaken him for a conventional, blow-dried politician. Four years ago he handed out condoms with the words “Nothing never felt so good” on the wrapper. This year he’s handing out bumper stickers displaying his face and the words “Lt. Governor? Lt. Governor? We don’t need no stinkin’ Lt. Governor.”

Healey brings to bear a Bartlett’s-like collection of quotes and quips. In arguing that the lieutenant governor’s main task is to wait for the death or incapacity of the governor, he quotes Will Rogers: “The man that has the best job in the country is the vice president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, ‘How’s the president?’ ”

But while he was mistaken for Ginsberg, Healey does not want voters to mistake his candidacy for a joke. He comes to the Starbucks in a dark suit, red tie and black wingtips, and he talks about a 42-page “Platform Document” detailing the principles he’d follow if the governor died while he was lieutenant governor.

“I’ve been doing this 25 years,” Healey says. “If it were just a joke, then it would be done and over. Like any joke, it only plays well the first time. To expend my own time and energy over two-and-half decades is perseverance. As Michelangelo said, ‘Genius is eternal patience.’ ”

Healey, 49, of Barrington, sums up his philosophy this way: “I’m fiscally conservative, socially liberal, with a libertarian streak and I believe in small, efficient, open government.”

He maintains that he is the most qualified candidate in key areas such as economic development, the law and education. For example, he notes he was co-owner of a liquor wholesaler, Global Horizon Inc., from 1995 to 2002, and owns and develops property in Uruguay. He notes he has a law degree from New England School of Law and has practiced law for 22 years.

While he’s lost all his races for governor and lieutenant governor, he notes he was elected to the Warren School Committee in 1982 and served as chairman. He has a bachelor’s degree in English and secondary education from Rhode Island College, a master’s degree in reading education from Boston University, and a master’s degree in English literature from Northeastern University.

Healey says that, at first, people take his campaign as a joke. “But when they listen to me, they realize they are wasting their tax dollars on this office,” he said.

While it would take a constitutional amendment to eliminate the office, Healey vows that if elected, he won’t accept a salary or hire a staff, thereby saving Rhode Island at least $958,767 per year. He hands out fake money that says, “Elect Healey lieutenant governor and save Rhode Island a million bucks!”

Healey argues that aside from waiting for the governor to die or become incapacitated, the lieutenant governor’s duties have dwindled over the years and now amount to little more than “busy work” created by the General Assembly.

He says the Democratic candidate, state Sen. Elizabeth H. Roberts, wants to emphasize health care, and the Republican candidate, former state Adjutant Gen. Reginald A. Centracchio, wants to emphasize emergency management. And he asks, “Where else could you get a job, with a $1-million budget for the office, where you say, ‘I think I’m going to do this’ instead of the boss telling you what responsibilities you are going to have? It’s absurd.”

Healey accepts no contributions and plans to spend about $1,200 of his own money on this campaign. As a result, he says, he’s not beholden to anyone. “I have no political plums,” his Web site says. “I won’t be able to give someone’s drunken, deadbeat brother-in-law a job.”

But Healey says he stands a shot of winning in this three-way race. In 2002, he received 19 percent of the vote, while Republican John A. Pagliarini Jr. received 25 percent and Democratic Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty received 54 percent. “I’m the long-shot candidate,” he says. “But as Wilt Chamberlain said, ‘No one roots for Goliath.’ ”

Healey also quotes Albert Einstein, who said insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Healey says, “I always thought the insanity was voters voting the same way over and over in a two-party system.” But, he adds with a laugh, “I might be in error in that the insanity is my repeated attempts at elected office.”