Milton Vera, 1935-January 2014
VP candidate for Workers World Party (1984)
Running mate with nominee: Gavrielle Holmes (b. 1949)
Popular vote: 2656 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The Workers World Party waited to see if the Rev. Jesse Jackson attained the nomination of the Democratic Party, in which case they planned to endorse him. When that failed to become reality they could not back Mondale and nominated their own ticket for the second time in WWP history. The official nominees were Larry Holmes and Gloria LaRiva.
The WWP openly admired countries like the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua and Mozambique. They were suspicious of the Solidarity Movement in Poland, seeing it as a possible US-backed capitalist plot.
Other Leftist parties ridiculed the WWP for being willing to back Jackson, and continued to regard the Party as a neo-Stalinist cult.
Both of the candidates were under the age of Constitutionally mandated of 35 for holding the offices they were seeking. Holmes said, "If we were elected, I'm quite sure that our ages would be the least of our problems. It's not a serious issue. It's antiquated."
But their youth apparently looked like was a serious issue to some state election officials. Holmes' wife Gavrielle, age 35 and Milton Vera, age 49, were stand-in candidates in Ohio. Secondary sources say they were also on the ballot in Rhode Island and I'll just have to take it on faith that they were.
Gavrielle had made a run in the Peace and Freedom Party 1984 primary but placed a distant fourth.
Although the Holmes/Vera ticket was legal in the age issue, both candidates were residents of New York City, which posed a different Constitutional obstacle in the event they emerged victorious on Election Day. They earned 0.06 % of the vote in Ohio and 0.01% in Rhode Island.
Election history: none
Other occupations: discotheque manager (Dudes 'n' Dolls), mailroom supervisor at advertising firm,
Buried: ?
Notes:
Father of triplets
Once managed a club owned by Joe Namath
Joined the WWP around 1976
Called a "Puerto Rican revolutionary" in a memorial essay by his wife.
