Naomi Cohen in 2013
VP candidate for Workers World Party (1980, 1988)
Running mate with nominee (1980): Deirdre Griswold (b. 1937)
Running mate with nominee (1988): Lawrence A. Holmes (b. 1952)
Popular vote (1980): 938 (0.00%)
Popular vote (1988): 3896 (0.00%)
Electoral vote (1980, 1988): 0/538
The campaign (1980):
The Workers World Party had been around since 1959 but didn't enter the realm of Presidential elections until 1980. They began as a splinter group from the Trotskyist-turning-Castroist Socialist Workers Party. The WWP described themselves as Marxist-Leninist but they should have added Stalinist and Maoist as well. Unlike the SWP, the WWP supported the Soviet crackdown on the Hungarian Revolution, Mao's "Great Leap Forward," the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the government of North Korea.
Prior to running candidates for office, the WWP used mass demonstrations as a way to influence the political system. They were perhaps the earliest political party to openly protest the Vietnam War. They were also civil rights activists and took up the cause of soldiers and prisoners for a time.
The nominees for the first Presidential run of the Party were Deirdre Griswold for President and Larry Holmes for VP. Several sources, such as Wikipedia, claim Gavrielle Holmes (b. 1949) was the VP in 1980 but I have seen no primary sources to back that up.
For some reason Left-wing political parties seem to almost enjoy complicating the ballot registration process by presenting nominees who are below the Constitutionally mandated age of 35 for President and Vice-President. In some states this creates a major roadblock so then a stand-in is supplied. Such was the case with Larry Holmes who turned 28 in 1980.
Naomi Cohen of New York became the stand-in VP, but if I am connecting the right dots I believe if she wasn't below the required age herself she must have been right on the cusp.
This role as a place holder hurt the WWP effort to attain ballot status in Michigan. US District Courty Judge Philip Pratt denied the Griswold/Cohen ticket a place on the ballot based on lack of required documents and added that all the WWP literature touted Larry Holmes as the VP. "The court has been presented with nothing which might demonstrate that Cohen is a serious candidate at all."
Cohen, who had been a co-editor of the Workers World tabloid with Griswold, was on the ballot as VP only in New Hampshire (I think) and Ohio. She was also considered the write-in running mate in Michigan.
Although I don't have a lot of information about Cohen, it would seem that in the event of a Griswold/Cohen victory the fact they resided in the same state (which it looks like they did) could have presented a Constitutional problem.
Ohio gave them 0.09%.
The campaign (1988):
Yet again the Party nominated an under-35 VP candidate in the person of Gloria Estela La Riva (b. 1954). Cohen served as the stand-in running-mate for Michigan, this time obtaining ballot status, and as the official write-in VP for Ohio.
The WWP platform included: $10 per-hour minimum wage, prohibit plant closings, require all businesses to provide day care for employees, public funding for abortions, reduce the defense budget.
The Larry Holmes/Naomi Cohen ticket presented the same Constitutional residence problem as it had with the Griswold/Cohen ticket in 1980.
They finished with 0.02% in Michigan.
Election history: none.
Other occupations: author, co-editor of Workers World, Youth Against War & Fascism activist 1960s-1970s, clerical worker, lecturer
Notes:
Attended Barnard University.
Joined WWP in 1966.
A pitfall in researching Naomi Cohen online is that I keep running into Ellen Naomi Cohen, better
known to us Boomers as Mama Cass Elliott.
