The first time Captain America ran for president was in Roger Stern and John Byrne's 250th issue of Captain America, published in 1980. The cover features a Captain America for President campaign pin with Steve's smiling face emblazoned on it.

The issue features the "New Populist Party" trying to get Captain America to run for president as their candidate. Steve is quite hesitant, but the idea takes the media by storm. In the end, Cap gives a public speech in which he declines the candidacy, saying that it is his duty to represent the American dream. Basically, he's there to be a symbol that other Americans aspire to, and the reality and compromises of being a politician are the opposite.

Of course, the question is deliberately vague about Cap's political leanings (if any). That is why a third party is invented that tries to draw it; the story never concludes what the NPP actually stands for (besides wanting to break up the two-party duopoly), they're just there so the issue doesn't tie a hat to either the elephant or the donkey. "Populist" is a vague description which both lefties used and fascists, but that does suggested someone on the side of the little guy like Cap. (This is why all factions of the political spectrum are trying to exploit it). the 1950s, both sides tried to recruit America's true World War II hero - Dwight D. Eisenhower (which, of course, went for the Republicans.)

On the Captain America Letters page no. 250, Stern revealed the story of this edition, and also that the idea for it was not all his own. A few years earlier, Captain America writer Roger McKenzie and artist Don Perlin came to Stern (who was the book's editor) with a pitch: Captain America was going to run for president, and win. Then, the next four years of "Captain America" ​​will follow him as president in Washington

Stern dismissed the idea out of hand, saying it would be "too much of a distortion of reality." The Marvel Universe should reflect the real world in fundamental ways, such as who is currently in the White House. Then, a few years later, when Stern became a writer on Captain America and issue #250 was approaching, he sarcastically suggested that they do the "President's Hat" story that Mackenzie and Perlin had published. Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter agreed, saying they could use the issue to show why Cap as president I wouldn't work. Stern agreed, and the rest (including story credits for McKenzie and Perlin) was written in colored ink.