James Paul Powers, July 22, 1948 (Jersey City, NJ) - February 27, 1977 (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
VP candidate for Berkeley Defense Group (aka Defense Party) (1968)
Running mate with nominee: Kent M. Soeters (b. 1946)
Popular vote: 17 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
In an effort to cut down in the time-consuming task of counting frivolous write-in votes, the State of California began the now familiar process of requiring write-in candidates to line up Electors and register. One of the few write-in parties to comply with this new set of rules was the Berkeley Defense Group running a ticket with Kent M. Soeters and James P. Powers.
Soeters attended Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, Calif. and was apparently an outstanding student in academics and an excellent chess player. He worked with early computer systems and was active with ham radio at a young age.
The only information of any value I located online on this subject was in this news article from Nov. 2, 1968:
The youngest presidential hopeful is Kent M. Soeters, 22, a UCLA dropout who is both nominee and founder of the Berkeley Defense Group. Soeters ran for President in 1964, while he was still a high school student.
He classified himself as "Anti-Establishment," pitches his campaign at opposition to the draft system and the tax structure, and has registered a slate of electors in California, though he is 13 years shy of the minimum age required by the constitution.
A political button collectors periodical included the Berkeley Defense Group (or "Defense Party" as they called it) as one of the conservative political parties without any supporting documentation or stated reason. Another source vaguely tied the new political party to the creation of the People's Park in Berkeley about that same time. As it turns out, both assumptions were erroneous.
Now that I am up to 1968 in this project, I figured at some point I should start finding candidates for the first time who are still living. Given their youth, the odds of Soeters and Powers remaining above ground were pretty good, so I set out to find them. It wasn't easy let me tell you. Turns out both of them were and are known by other names which makes the research a bit more challenging but all that much more rewarding once the dots are connected.
Mr. Soeters is now Kent C. McKinney and by coincidence just a few months ago he and his wife moved up here to Washington State as a retirement destination. We both live in tiny rural rain-soaked communities only 40 minutes apart. What are the odds of that?! I called him and we had a very fun and delightful chat about his run for President and other things.
The name of the party was just something that sounded good at the time, since the term "Defense" was sort of a buzzword within the monikers of other political organizations in that era. McKinney was able to recite the 1968 platform used in the above article almost word for word on the phone and said they were coming at it from a Leftist perspective, but as he talked about their campaign activities it also seemed there was a bit of conceptual art activity taking place as well.
His running mate was James "Jim" Powers, a housemate in their group house at the time. Powers arrived in California from Back East in order to experience the Bay Area life. "I'm sure when he came to California he didn't expect to be a Vice-Presidential candidate," McKinney told me. With Soeters at age 22 and Powers age 20, they were among the youngest tickets in American history. Not only were they both way too underage to serve in the White House, but they resided in the same state, which is another Constitutional roadblock. McKinney said they had that figured out with several scenarios, the most likely being that the Democratic Speaker of House would serve in their stead if they won.
Two campaign events related by McKinney captured the essence of the Berkeley Defense Group:
First, they sent out a press release and gave a news conference at the Emeryville Mudflats during the era when it was festooned with amazing folk sculptures. Against this backdrop while atop a Ken Kesey-type converted school bus, with Jim Powers playing Jazz on a saxophone, Soeters gave his presentation which was covered by local television networks. On the phone McKinney pointed out that this was long before Bill Clinton regaled the nation with his sax music during the 1992 campaign. This brings to my trivia-obsessed mind the fact that the Soeters/Powers team was the very first complete Boomer ticket in US history. Yet another point ahead of Clinton/Gore.
Secondly, members of the Berkeley Defense Group held an event where potatoes and clocks were smashed by sledgehammers on the steps of Sproul Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Now there's something you don't see every day.
On the ballot as a registered write-in in California, the Soeters/Powers ticket earned a whopping 17 votes. One of those votes did not come from Vice-Presidential candidate Jim Powers because in 1968 those under the age of 21 did not have the right to vote. That did not turn into reality until the 1972 election.
At some point shortly after the election, as McKinney pointed out, they had to get real jobs although he continued to run for other, mostly local, public offices including Mayor of Berkeley.
Powers appears to have left California in the early 1970s. He moved around a lot, recorded as residing in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utica, NY. He seemed to have a lot of connections in Syracuse, NY according to McKinney. Oh, and just to confuse things, Powers had another name-- James Paul Trakas. I have not learned the story behind that.
On Feb. 27, 1977 while crossing a street in Ann Arbor, Mich., Powers who was then known as James P. Trakas of Utica, NY, was killed in a hit and run accident while he was crossing the street. McKinney told me it was drunk driver who fled the scene but was later apprehended.
Election history: none
Other occupations: just hanging out
Buried: West Chester Cemetery (West Chester, Ohio)
Notes:
Sometimes listed as James F. Powers.
Special thanks to Kent C. McKinney for contributing his time and memories.
