James Britton Buchanan Boone Cranfill, September 12, 1858 (Whitt, Tex.) – December 28, 1942 (Dallas, Tex.)
VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1892)
Running mate with nominee: John Bidwell (1819-1900)
Popular vote: 270,879 (2.24%)
Electoral vote: 22/444
The campaign:
In addition to their main anti-alcohol focus, the Prohibition Party Platform also included promoting equal wages for equal work for both genders, government ownership of railroads and communication, and stricter requirements for immigration.
VP nominee Cranfill was an active campaigner, assigned to work the South. He personally felt his talents were squandered and he should have been touring nationally. In order to make the point the two major parties were alike, in Wesson, Miss. Cranfill tricked a hostile audience of Democrats into raising their hands in agreement to a text he read that they believed was the Democratic Party platform, but in fact to their chagrin it was the Republican's platform.
1892 was the high-water mark (forgive the unintentional pun) for the Prohibition Party in terms of presidential election votes. Their 2.24% has not been matched since then.
On the ballot in all but three states, they had their top showing in Minnesota (5.31%). Although the Populists owned the West, the Prohibition Party was the third party of choice in the East. They placed third, ahead of the People's Party in Michigan (4.48%), Wisconsin (3.54%), Rhode Island (3.11%), Ohio (3.06%), Illinois (2.96%), New York (2.86%), Maryland (2.76%), Maine (2.63%), Vermont (2.55%), Pennsylvania (2.50%), Connecticut (2.45%), New Jersey (2.41%), Massachusetts (1.93%), and New Hampshire (1.45%).
Election history: none
Other occupations: cowboy, teacher, medical doctor, newspaper publisher, Baptist minister, author, editor, old-time country fiddler
Buried: Grove Hill Memorial Park (Dallas, Tex.)
Notes:
If elected VP, Cranfill would have been too young to serve according to the US Constitution.
Was a Democrat prior to 1886
Known as "JB"
Wrote a nearly 500-page autobiography in 1916.
Vegetarian.
Phrenologist.
Old-time country fiddler and contributed to recordings in the 1920s including with Eck Robertson.
Active fundamentalist anti-Darwinian on the political sidelines during the 1925 Scopes trial.
