VP candidate for Socialist Labor Party (aka Industrial Government Party aka Independent) (1972)
Running mate with nominee: Louis Fisher (1913-2001)
Popular vote: 53,814 (0.07%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The 1972 Socialist Labor Party ticket consisted of Midwesterners Louis Fisher from Illinois and Genevieve Gunderson from Minnesota. They ran a serious and energetic campaign.
The SLP platform for this election cycle was basically a historical essay on the birth and (as the SLP saw it) soon-to-arrive death of capitalism. The Party regarded their electioneering efforts more as a form of public education rather than an attempt to win office. Long isolated from other parties on the Left, the SLP had the luxury of appearing ideologically pure compared to their progressive competitors but on the other hand the SLP was also regarded as having an inflexible internal structure that members of the New Left found offputting.
Gunderson had been a long-time Party activist and eventually was employed by the Party itself in California. SLP National Secretary Robert Bills delivered her eulogy on Nov. 10, 2001 in Alameda, Calif. The following selection is of interest because I believe Bills is eloquently describing an experience shared by many third party Vice-Presidential candidates of all stripes:
It was there, at Detroit, that she accepted the party's nomination for vice president of the United States. I don't know if you can imagine what a grueling ordeal that can be. It means weeks of constant travel, of living out of suitcases, of being shuttled to places and engagements about which you have no warning to do things for which you often have no time to prepare. It means being prepared to speak in public at a moment's notice, to have microphones thrust into your face and to be sat down in front of television cameras. It means being challenged and sometimes verbally abused by hostile and cynical reporters and radio and television personalities. It means having to think on your feet, not only to contend with attacks designed to catch you off your guard, to embarrass you and to cause you to think simply of defending yourself, but to keep your composure, to deflect and counteract antagonism, arrogance and ignorance that distorts your message before you have a chance to deliver it yourself. Genevieve met and overcame those challenges in ways that made every SLP man and woman proud that she had been chosen to represent them in that campaign. And she did it repeatedly from the day after Labor Day, when the campaign began, until it ended on Nov. 5. Her success as the party's vice presidential candidate is a testament to that inner strength that was so much a part of her makeup. Genevieve Gunderson was a woman of substance.
On the ballot in a dozen states with significant write-ins from several others, the SLP ticket finished strongest in Virginia 0.68%, Colorado 0.46%, Illinois 0.26%, Minnesota 0.24%, Ohio 0.17%, and New Jersey 0.15%.
Although the Fisher/Gunderson 0.07% Election Day result was not even close to being the highest percentage of the popular vote ever received for the SLP, their 53,814 national poll was indeed the highest number of votes the Party would ever earn in a Presidential election. The highest actual percentage for the SLP was in 1900 when the Malloney/Remmel ticket gained 0.29%.
Election history:
1969 - Mayor of Minneapolis, Minn. (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1974 - Governor of Minnesota (Industrial Government Party) - defeated
Other occupations: cereal packer, union organizer, fire department dispatcher, bookkeeper
Buried: ?
Notes:
Fisher died only two months after Gunderson in 2001.
Joined the SLP in 1945.
Moved from Minneapolis to California in 1975
Ran as a write-in in her 1969 mayoral race.
Although the press called her "Miss Gunderson" she was born Genevieve Peterson.
Father and maternal grandparents were Swedish immigrants.
Living with her sister's family in Minneapolis by 1940.
