Bozo the Clown (also known as Bozo) is the name of a clown whose widespread franchising in early television made him the best-known clown character in the United States. Although the generic name Bozo is reckoned "of uncertain origin" by the Random House Unabridged Dictionary and given an earliest use of c. 1915–20, when it was a common term referring to hobo or tramp clowns, the equation of "Bozo" and "dunce" may be credited to Anselm of Canterbury, who laid out many of his treatises in the familiar form of a dialogue, between A, who was Anselm, and B, who was Boso, who never got it right. Bozo has been named in several US presidential elections as a write-in candidate when people felt they were choosing between the lesser of two evils. Constance B. Bouchard, "The Bosonids or Rising to Power in the Late Carolingian Age" French Historical Studies 15.