Alpha Sunde Smaby, February 11, 1910 (Sacred Heart, Minn.) – July 18, 1991 (Saint Paul, Minn.)
VP candidate for Minnesota Progressives (aka MN Progressives) (1988)
Running mate with nominee: Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005)
Popular vote: 5,403 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The Pennsylvania-based Consumer Party had been around since the late 1960s as a statewide organization. In 1984 they endorsed the Citizens Party but in 1988 they were ready to try a national run with a goal of obtaining ballot status in over half the states. It didn't work out that way.
In 1988 they approached Eugene McCarthy, now 72, and asked him to be their standard bearer. It isn't clear if there was truly an official running-mate (McCarthy always had disdain for the office of Vice-President anyway and felt it should be eliminated), but it would appear Harlem legendary consumer advocate Florence M. Rice was the closest to being the choice of the Consumer Party.
The former liberal icon had changed quite a bit since his independent 1976 run for President. In 1980 he endorsed Ronald Reagan and later had some kind of financial connection with Right-wing cult leader Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church.
It was clear McCarthy viewed the nomination as an opportunity rather than a cause. He voiced a hope of broadening the campaign and going beyond Consumer Party in an interview with the Chicago Tribune: "I'd just as soon have a new name. It's like the Know-Nothings and the Barn Burners. I'm hopeful some other groups will come in. We've had some calls from the National Unity people-they're a sort of a (John) Anderson organization. And maybe some independent parties from around the country. I don't know about the Socialists and Vegetarians. The Peace and Freedom people might come in. I don't think they have a candidate. They're a pretty wild bunch."
McCarthy proposed shortening the work week, curtailing or eliminating the FEC, raising tariffs, and creating a national sales tax on "wasteful, socially undesirable consumption, not just of cigarettes and liquor, but also of oversized, overpowered and overfueled automobiles."
McCarthy's quotes from the campaign:
There is no real choice between Democrats and Republicans. If any new direction is to come, it must come through an independent party, the Consumer Party, and I have willingly offered myself to lead it.
I don't expect to lose. Sure I've lost before, but I didn't feel I wasted my time, and I expect to have a significant impact.
There are two kinds of people who don't make good presidents-- vice presidents and governors.
We are being controlled, and conditioned, over-advertised, dominated by corporate power, by the media. You watch the evening news, where you are supposed to be getting your information. They give you 35 seconds of news and then they give you relief for hemmorhoids. We spend more on advertising than we do on education.
Responsible political participants should challenge absolutely the concepts and historical judgments now used to justify militancy and the arms buildup.
The perception that American politics should be conducted within the framework of only two parties is a misconception. It's against what the Founding Fathers intended.
McCarthy's running-mate in his home state of Minnesota was Alpha Sunde Smaby, age 78, a former DFL member of the State House and 1968 McCarthy delegate. By 1988, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "She is no longer a Democrat. After numerous trips to observe the workings of governments in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, she is more comfortable labeling herself a socialist."
In early 1988 Smaby's book Political Upheaval : Minnesota and the Vietnam War Protest had just been released. The McCarthy/Smaby team ran under the Minnesota Progressives label.
When the media did cover McCarthy, which was not often, they spent most of their time treating him as the new Harold Stassen and a relic as they used more ink on his history than on his current platform. Many editorialists were not kind.
McCarthy was on the ballot in four states and a certified write-in for Arizona (apparently no VP with him there) and California. In total he had three running-mates and nationally earned 30,905 votes, placing sixth. The McCarthy/Smaby ticket placed third in Minnesota, the only state where they were on the ballot, with 0.26% of the vote there.
In the event they had won, Smaby would have died in office in 1991.
Election history:
1965-1968 - Minnesota State House of Representatives (Nonpartisan / Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party)
1968 - Minnesota State House of Representatives (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) - defeated
1969 - Minneapolis City Council (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) - defeated
Other occupations: teacher, Minnesota Governor's Commission on Status of Women, author
Buried: West Grace Cemetery (Peterson, Minn.)
Notes:
Supported McGovern in 1972.
