1960s
1970s
1984
Century 21
Charles E. Perry, February 8, 1946 (Bismarck, ND) - June 28, 2018 (Grand Forks, ND)
VP candidate for Populist Party (1984)
Running mate with nominee: Robert E. Richards (b. 1926)
Popular vote: 996 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The far-Right anti-Establishment group Liberty Lobby had served as a haven for opponents of Communism and big government since the 1950s. It was also a safe place for anti-Semites, tax protesters, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, Posse Comitatus, John Birch Society members, Christian nationalists, and alternative medicine advocates who opposed "Big Pharma." In an attempt to soften the image and broaden their appeal they took a distinct small-l libertarian populist stance in the 1980s and formed the Populist Party.
This Populist Party had no relation to the party of the same name that existed nearly a century earlier, but their platforms did share a nationalist / anti-immigrant / pro-tariff policy with racist undertones. The newer version of the Populist Party also opposed the personal income tax and advocated the elimination of the Federal Reserve. The original Populist Party was aiming for the agricultural labor force where the modern Populist Party was trying to connect with an angry white lower middle class that felt abandoned by the major parties. And they denied they were racist or anti-Semitic in spite of the track record of many leading Party activists.
Their 1984 Presidential nominee was Bob Richards, a noted pole vaulter and decathlete in the Olympic Games 1948-1956 (and first athlete to appear on the front of a box of Wheaties), and VP nominee was Freedom of Health Choice activist Maureen Kennedy Salaman. Both were celebrities in their own professional territories but neither had run for political office before-- but they were photogenic like right out of a 1950s toothpaste ad, and knew how to work with the press.
Acting as an umbrella party for the extreme Right in many respects, the new Populist Party absorbed what was left of the American Independent Party and ran under that label in California and Rhode Island. In Kansas it was with the Conservative Party, in Wisconsin the Constitution Party.
It could be argued that by 1984 the Republican Party itself had co-opted a lot of the issues previously advocated by Christian nationalist political parties of the past, except in more subtle ways. One major difference from the Reagan administration and the Populist Party was the latter's antipathy toward large corporations and desire for the U.S. to stay out of foreign military conflicts.
Salaman's place on the ticket is interesting and challenges the notion that New Age-type beliefs are strictly in the realm of the Left (although in her case the same sort of modern metaphysical notions and disdain for professional expertise were adapted to fit into a Christian model). She was continuing to promote distrustful views against the medical establishment that were expressed earlier in the 1950s and early 1960s by the American Vegetarian Party, particularly with 1960 AVP running mate Christopher Gian-Cursio. Today we see this same subculture expression in the anti-vaccination movement.
Salaman actually lacked any accredited education in the field of nutrition but she was a master in promotion and activism. The Internet-based Quackwatch.org ("Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions") has included her in their profiles of subjects.
Charles "Chuck" E. Perry of New Salem, ND was the running-mate on the ballot only in West Virginia, where he was filed as a stand-in prior to Salaman's nomination. Perry's political history as a Democrat and advocate for farmers suggests he might have been more at home with the 1890s traditional Populist Party than the 1980s Populist Party, although he was definitely in tune with the economic anti-corporate and pro-tariff views of the modern incarnation of the Party.
The Party did not give itself a lot of time to campaign as third parties go having named their ticket in August. But it was enough of a spell for Richards to start distancing himself from the Liberty Lobby and claim they had little influence, a move that did not sit well with a segment of the Party base.
The Populist Party was on the ballot in 14 states, with Salaman as the running-mate in all but West Virginia where Charles Perry was the VP. The Richards/Perry ticket placed third out of five in West Virginia with 0.14% of the vote. Richards placed third in only two other states, Kansas and Rhode Island.
Election history:
1986 - US Senate (ND) (Independent Nonpartisan League) - defeated
Other occupations: farmer, officer with the United Plainsmen Association, farmers' rights activist, assistant to ND State Tax Commissioner, ND Tourism Dept., ND Highway Dept., ND Governor's Office, North Dakota Citizens Against ABM
Buried: Beaulieu Cemetery (Cavalier County, ND)
Notes:
Was a campaign manager for James R. Jungroth's independent bid for the US Senate (ND) in 1974.
Ran as a write-in in 1986
Attended the Democratic national conventions of 1968 and 1972
While a student at George Washington University he had a job running the elevator in the US Senate.
