Well, none of the DEFAULT characters have extreme stats, but that was added as a way to make it so that your character choice did not automatically decide the election, otherwise everyone would be using Lincoln or Jefferson. -999 might be little extreme, given the description in the intruction book for PM given in the scale of -999 to 999. Oddly enough, all the stats for default characters are between 1 and 10, but this means very little for most stats.
In the intruction book, it gives the descriptions for stats of -999, which ought to explain why -999 is not often used.
Here are the definitions.
_CHARISMA. - candidate is not just not pleasent to look at, but he has never showered, has a cackley high pitched voice, and an extemely bad comeover haircut.
_COMELINESS - Being in the same room with this candidate for 2 seconds will make you want to kill yourself.
_COMPASSION - Candidate doen't care if you live or die, but prefers that you die.
_COMPETENCE - Candidate does not know where he is, who he is, or that he's running for president, and he doesn't know hoe to say "nuclear"
_CREDIBILITY - You can tell this candidate is lying because his lips are moving
_DEMOCRATLOYALTY - if the republican were a KKK member, they'd still vote for him over this candidate
_EXPERIENCE - This candidate has no idea what he's doing, but doesn't plan on doing the job himself anyway.
_INTEGRITY - This candidate struggles enough with just getting out of bed in the morning.
_INTELLIGENCE - This candidate is literally, mentally retarded.
_JUDGEMENT - You would not likely find this candidate making a right decision, ever.
_MAINSTREAM - This candidate will find it difficult to find even an insane person to agrre with him.
_MEDIABIAS - This candidate could find a cure for cancer and the media would still attack him.
_MILITARYEXPERIENCE - This candidate avoided the draft, then pretended to join the Texas Air Guard and avoided that too.
_MINORITYAPPEAL - If this candidate were in the same room as a minority, one would be dead within 10 seconds.
_NATIONALISTIC - If we were at war with aliens, this candidate would be the first to join them.
_RELIGIOUS - Pure Aetheist, and hates anyone who beleives in any religion.
_REPUBLICANLOYALTY - If the democratic candidate was a Communist, they'd still vote for him over this candidate.
_WORLDAFFAIRSKNOWLEDGE - This candidate is on the way to discovering that the world is bigger than his house.
As you can see, a candidate fitting all of this will have somewhat of a hard time winning an election, so -999 was not used in the actual game.
PolMach Forums
That way he doesn't have to be from Alaska anymore)