Milton Stover Eisenhower, September 15, 1899 (Abilene, Kan.) – May 2, 1985 (Baltimore, Md.)
VP candidate for Independent (1980)
Running mate with nominee: John Bayard Anderson (1922-2017)
Popular vote: 111,613 (0.13%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
John B. Anderson had been a US Representative from Illinois for nearly two decades when he ran in the Republican primaries for President in 1980. Initially a very conservative member of the Illinois delegation in the 1960s he shifted to the Left and by the 1970s was considered an animal that is nearly extinct today-- a liberal Republican.
Finding himself out of step with his own party and with no hope of winning the nomination he decided to run as an independent candidate. Basically a centrist, he was more conservative than the Democrats on fiscal matters and more liberal than the Republicans on environment, women's issues, and civil rights. His articulate, direct delivery and opposition to draft registration made him particularly popular with many college and university students.
In two states he was forced to keep surrogate running-mates in order to qualify for early filing. In Texas he selected Milton Eisenhower, in South Dakota it was Nancy B. Flint.
Milton, called by his sibling President Eisenhower "the brightest of the Eisenhower brothers" turned 81 years of age during the campaign. In addition to Texas he had also originally been included as the VP in petition drives for the Florida, Illinois and Virginia ballots, and probably other states as well. But only in Texas was Anderson not allowed to remove Eisenhower's name to be replaced by Lucey. If he had legally challenged this decision he might have won as he did in other states but I suspect he had to pick his battles.
Eisenhower was perhaps the best known among a group of center-to-Left Republicans who backed Anderson in the Republican primaries. In 1980 he was a resident of Baltimore. Eisenhower was among the last of the Northeastern "Codfish Cadre" moderate Republicans that had been in control of that party before the center of power shifted South and West. Rather than the start of a new era, Anderson's campaign seemed to be more of a swan song for a political philosophy that celebrated practical compromise, an appeal to the brain more than the gut. Endorsing that sort of thinking would not be as favored by the voters in the coming decades as America grew more polarized and partisan.
The Anderson/Eisenhower ticket earned 2.46% of the Texas vote, Anderson's 8th worst result.
Election history: none.
Other occupations: Director of Information for the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Director of the War Relocation Authority (displacing and imprisoning Japanese-American civilians as if they were enemies during WWII), Associate Director of the Office of War Information, President of Kansas State University, President of Pennsylvania State University, President of Johns Hopkins University,
Buried: Centre County Memorial Park (State College, Penn.)
Notes:
Perhaps one of the last third party VPs born in the 1800s.
Voted for Walter Mondale in 1984.
