Gloria Estela La Riva

 Above: Washington State Voters Pamphlet 1984; Below, 1988

 Moorehead and La Riva

 La Riva confronts President Clinton, 1996

 Above, 1996; Below, 2000

Gloria Estela La Riva, August 13, 1954 (Albuquerque, NM) -

VP candidate for Workers World Party (aka Independent) (1984, 1988, 1996, 2000)

Running mate with nominee (1984, 1988): Lawrence A. Holmes (b. 1952)
Running mate with nominee (1996, 2000): Monica Gail Moorehead (b. 1952)
Popular vote (1984): 15,329 (0.02%)
Popular vote (1988): 6,908 (0.01%)
Popular vote (1996): 29,083 (0.03%)    
Popular vote (2000): 4,795 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign (1984):

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.

The Holmes/La Riva ticket made it to the ballot in at least 7 states and DC, with their strongest popular vote results in New Jersey 0.26% and Mississippi 0.12%.

The campaign (1988):

Same ticket as before, meaning yet again the Party nominated an under-35 VP candidate. Naomi Cohen served as the stand-in running-mate for Michigan, this time obtaining ballot status, and as the official write-in VP for Ohio.

The WWP platform included: $10 per-hour minimum wage, prohibit plant closings, require all businesses to provide day care for employees, public funding for abortions, reduce the defense budget.

As in 1984, the WWP said they would step aside and endorse Rev. Jesse Jackson in the event he won the Democratic nomination. But 1988 was the year of Dukakis.

The WWP had to go to court in a well-publicized successful effort to gain a spot on the New Mexico ballot. Eileen La Riva, Gloria's sister, was state chair of the WWP at the time.

The Holmes/La Riva ticket was listed on the ballot in four states, here in order of popular vote percentages: Washington 0.08%, New York 0.06%, New Mexico 0.05%, and New Jersey 0.03%.

The campaign (1996):

The team of Monica Moorehead and Gloria La Riva was touted as the first ticket in US history to be comprised of women of color.

By 1996 the WWP had very enthusiastically added the new dynastic regime in North Korea to their roster of admired states.

La Riva was arrested and briefly jailed Sept. 30, 1996 for trespassing when she refused to leave a grocery store parking lot in Salt Lake City while campaigning. Moorehead was also present. "This never would have happened to Clinton, Dole or Perot," La Riva said.

In October La Riva heckled President Clinton at a New Jersey campaign stop. Clinton responded and the heckling morphed into a shouting match lasting several minutes over the Cuban and Iraqi trade embargo. Some reports indicate La Riva might have been arrested.

On the ballot in a dozen states, the Moorehead/La Riva ticket finished strongest in Ohio 0.24%, Washington 0.10%, Louisiana 0.09%, Arkansas and Michigan 0.08% each.

The campaign (2000):

This was a relatively quiet campaign for the WWP. With no arrests or dramatic confrontations to report, journalists pretty much ignored the WWP. Ralph Nader's Green Party had sucked out most of the energy the major media outlets were willing to expend on any other third party coverage.

On the ballot in only four states, the Moorehead/La Riva ticket finished here in order of popular vote percentages: Washington 0.08%, Rhode Island 0.05%, Wisconsin 0.04%, Florida 0.03%.

In the subsequent splintering of the WWP, Moorehead would remain with the Party while La Riva shifted to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Election history:
1983 - Mayor of San Francisco, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1991 - Mayor of San Francisco, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - primary - defeated
1992 - US President (Workers World Party) - defeated
1994 - Governor of California (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated
1996 - Peace and Freedom Party nomination for Vice-President - defeated
1998 - Governor of California (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated
2008 - Peace and Freedom Party nomination for President - defeated
2008 - US President (Party for Socialism and Liberation) - defeated
2010 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated
2012 - US President (Party for Socialism and Liberation) - defeated
2016 - US President (Party for Socialism and Liberation) - defeated
2018 - Governor of California (Peace and Freedom Party) - primary - defeated
2020 - US President (Party for Socialism and Liberation) - pending

Other occupations: author, filmmaker, artist, typesetter, union activist, civil rights activist

Notes:
Winner of the 1983 race was Diane Feinstein
Winner of the 1994 race was Pete Wilson
Winner of the 1998 race was Gray Davis
Winner of the 2010 race was Nancy Pelosi
In 2012 was a stand-in candidate for US President in several states.
First person to run as a third party VP in four elections

Milton Vera

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.

Lawrence A. Holmes

Lawrence A. Holmes, 1952 (Roxbury, Mass.) -

VP candidate for Workers World Party (1980, 1992)

Running mate with nominee (1980): Deirdre Griswold (b. 1937)
Running mate with nominee (1992): Gloria Estela La Riva (b. 1954)
Popular vote (1980): 12,347 (0.01%)
Popular vote (1992): 181 (0.00%)
Electoral vote (1980, 1992): 0/538

The campaign (1980):

The Workers World Party had been around since 1959 but didn't enter the realm of Presidential elections until 1980. They began as  a splinter group from the Trotskyist-turning-Castroist Socialist Workers Party. The WWP described themselves as Marxist-Leninist  but they should have added Stalinist and Maoist as well. Unlike the SWP, the WWP supported the Soviet crackdown on the Hungarian Revolution, Mao's "Great Leap Forward," the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the government of North Korea.

During the Iranian Hostage Crisis, which was taking place during the campaign, the WWP Presidential candidate supported Iran. She also defended the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

Prior to running candidates for office, the WWP used mass demonstrations as a way to influence the political system. They were perhaps the earliest political party to openly protest the Vietnam War. They were also civil rights activists and took up the cause of soldiers and prisoners for a time.

The nominees for the first Presidential run of the Party were Deirdre Griswold for President and Larry Holmes for VP. Several sources, such as Wikipedia, claim Gavrielle Holmes (b. 1949) was the VP in 1980 but I have seen no primary sources to back that up.

For some reason Left-wing political parties seem to almost enjoy complicating the ballot registration process by presenting nominees who are below the Constitutionally mandated age of 35 for President and Vice-President. In some states this creates a major roadblock so then a stand-in is supplied. Such was the case with Larry Holmes who turned 28 in 1980.

Griswold and Holmes ran as a ticket for the Peace and Freedom Party nomination in California but lost out to Dr. Benjamin Spock.

On the composition of the ticket, Holmes remarked, "We are a likely combination. We get a lot of support. We find that people see a woman and black man as symbolic. The people must be against racism and sexism. We appeal to two large constituencies, women and minorities."

Holmes had earlier been discharged from the US Army as "undesirable" for his anti-war and unionizing activities. In explaining his actions he wrote, "I did it to protest the fact that I have been forced to enter the U.S. military machine which is perpetrating the genocide of the peoples of Indochina and other oppressed peoples around the world."

Although the WWP foreign policy was a tad bit unusual, on the domestic front they were not much different than most other Leftist political parties: gut the Pentagon budget and nationalize the energy industries, then use the money for social services, education, health care, etc. The WWP was also one of the earliest political parties to make Gay rights one of their priorities at the dawn of the Age of AIDS.

The Griswold/Holmes ticket could be found on the ballot in 9 states and DC. In Mississippi they earned 0.27% of the popular votes, in all others they were 0.04% or less.

The campaign (1992):

Holmes ran for President himself in 1984 and 1988, then in 1992 he was back in the role of running mate. In the meantime the WWP had approved of the Chinese government's crackdown at Tiananmen Square, had supported the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu before he was executed in 1989, and praised Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the Khmer Rouge, Idi Amin, and Muammar al-Gaddafi.

The Presidential candidate in 1992 was Gloria La Riva, who had been Holmes' VP in the previous two elections, so they basically switched places. La Riva characterized national elections as "just a transfer of power from one rich capitalist to another."

1992 did not seem to be a year where the Party put a lot of energy into a Presidential campaign. They were hopeful of making the ballot in Michigan, but that fell through. The only state where the La Riva/Holmes ticket was an option in the ballot was La Riva's home state of New Mexico where they had 181 votes.

Election history:
1980 - Peace and Freedom Party nomination for Vice-President - defeated
1984 - US President (Workers World Party) - defeated
1988 - Peace and Freedom Party nomination for US President - defeated
1988 - US President (Workers World Party) - defeated

Other occupations: soldier US Army, porter, restaurant worker, mailroom clerk, founder of International ANSWER, founder of Millions for Mumia (Abu Jamal),

Notes:
Not the boxer Larry Holmes.

Naomi Cohen

 Naomi Cohen in 2013

Naomi Cohen, b. ca1946

VP candidate for Workers World Party (1980, 1988)

Running mate with nominee (1980): Deirdre Griswold (b. 1937)
Running mate with nominee (1988): Lawrence A. Holmes (b. 1952)
Popular vote (1980): 938 (0.00%)
Popular vote (1988): 3896 (0.00%)
Electoral vote (1980, 1988): 0/538

The campaign (1980):

The Workers World Party had been around since 1959 but didn't enter the realm of Presidential elections until 1980. They began as  a splinter group from the Trotskyist-turning-Castroist Socialist Workers Party. The WWP described themselves as Marxist-Leninist  but they should have added Stalinist and Maoist as well. Unlike the SWP, the WWP supported the Soviet crackdown on the Hungarian Revolution, Mao's "Great Leap Forward," the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the government of North Korea.

Prior to running candidates for office, the WWP used mass demonstrations as a way to influence the political system. They were perhaps the earliest political party to openly protest the Vietnam War. They were also civil rights activists and took up the cause of soldiers and prisoners for a time.

The nominees for the first Presidential run of the Party were Deirdre Griswold for President and Larry Holmes for VP. Several sources, such as Wikipedia, claim Gavrielle Holmes (b. 1949) was the VP in 1980 but I have seen no primary sources to back that up.

For some reason Left-wing political parties seem to almost enjoy complicating the ballot registration process by presenting nominees who are below the Constitutionally mandated age of 35 for President and Vice-President. In some states this creates a major roadblock so then a stand-in is supplied. Such was the case with Larry Holmes who turned 28 in 1980.

Naomi Cohen of New York became the stand-in VP, but if I am connecting the right dots I believe if she wasn't below the required age herself she must have been right on the cusp.

This role as a place holder hurt the WWP effort to attain ballot status in Michigan. US District Courty Judge Philip Pratt denied the Griswold/Cohen ticket a place on the ballot based on lack of required documents and added that all the WWP literature touted Larry Holmes as the VP. "The court has been presented with nothing which might demonstrate that Cohen is a serious candidate at all."

Cohen, who had been a co-editor of the Workers World tabloid with Griswold, was on the ballot as VP only in New Hampshire (I think) and Ohio. She was also considered the write-in running mate in Michigan.

Although I don't have a lot of information about Cohen, it would seem that in the event of a Griswold/Cohen victory the fact they resided in the same state (which it looks like they did) could have presented a Constitutional problem.

Ohio gave them 0.09%.

The campaign (1988):

Yet again the Party nominated an under-35 VP candidate in the person of Gloria Estela La Riva (b. 1954). Cohen served as the stand-in running-mate for Michigan, this time obtaining ballot status, and as the official write-in VP for Ohio.

The WWP platform included: $10 per-hour minimum wage, prohibit plant closings, require all businesses to provide day care for employees, public funding for abortions, reduce the defense budget.

The Larry Holmes/Naomi Cohen ticket presented the same Constitutional residence problem as it had with the Griswold/Cohen ticket in 1980.

They finished with 0.02% in Michigan.

Election history: none.

Other occupations: author, co-editor of Workers World, Youth Against War & Fascism activist 1960s-1970s, clerical worker, lecturer

Notes:
Attended Barnard University.
Joined WWP in 1966.
A pitfall in researching Naomi Cohen online is that I keep running into Ellen Naomi Cohen, better
 known to us Boomers as Mama Cass Elliott.