VP candidate for Independent (aka New Alliance Party) (1984)
Running mate with nominee: Dennis L. Serrette (b. ca1940)
Popular vote: 2,544 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
Fred Newman (1935-2011) was a Maoist with pretensions of being a psychologist (he wasn't) who had formed a communal movement around 1970 combining Leftist politics with New Age pseudoscience. Within a short time he had temporarily joined forces with Lyndon LaRouche, but personality-driven political parties can only tolerate one guru at a time, so they parted company-- or so it seemed. A possible subsequent Newman-LaRouche connection would forever be a point of conjecture.
From 1975-1978 Newman's group, now called the International Workers Party and claiming allegiance to Marx, Mao, and Lenin, attempted to work with the confederation of organizations and parties that collaborated under the umbrella of the People's Party. In 1976 the People's Party ran the Presidential ticket of Margaret Wright and Benjamin Spock. Apparently Newman and his entourage were shown the door out of the People's Party in 1978 by other progressive activists who held the IWP in low esteem.
In 1979 the New Alliance Party was formed by Newman with Lenora Fulani, who unlike her mentor was a real psychologist. Critics charged that the group was using a technique called "Social Therapy," designed to keep followers in line and manipulated with techniques such as large group awareness training, social isolation, and assignment of party-oriented tasks that were so time consuming there was little room for individual pursuits or critical self-reflection. There were charges that the supposedly defunct International Workers Party was simply operating on an underground basis and involved in secret authoritarian decision-making while using the NAP as a front organization.
Their first Presidential ticket was comprised of African American activist Dennis Serrette and Newman loyalist Nancy Ross. She had the distinction of being the first of Newman's followers to be elected to public office when she successfully gained a seat on the Community School Board 3 in New York City in 1977.
Ross was also head of the "Rainbow Lobby" (the lobbying branch of Newman's "Rainbow Alliance"), an opportunistic and unauthorized variant of the term "Rainbow Coalition" as popularized by the Jackson campaign. Rev. Jesse Jackson himself had co-opted the phrase from earlier more radical political elements. Later Jackson had to clarify that he had nothing to do with the NAP "Rainbow" incarnations.
Lifting the term "Rainbow Alliance," the NAP acted as if was continuing the work of Jackson, who had failed in his attempt to gain the nomination of the Democratic Party. Note Serrette's tactical use of the term "second party"--
We want to get enough votes so someone like Jesse can win in 1988. Let me make it clear. We're not going to win by numbers but by impact. We're starting the embryo of a second party that will express the needs of the people. We are taking up the issues the Democratic party has rejected. We will be out in the streets the day after election day building this second party momentum.
Realizing that many Democrats felt their party had compromised too much and drifted to the Right in order to attract centrist voters, Serrette and Ross attempted to woo this bloc of voters by stating they were upholding the true progressive ideals. "Mondale is not the lesser of two evils," said Ross, "He is the loser of two evils." Their rhetoric was Left of center but somewhat vague on details.
There was a bit of bad press surrounding the running mate question. Dorothy Muns Blancato, an interior decorator and Jazz pianist from Vanport, Penn. was selected as the VP and planned to be listed in three states: Alabama, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Although news reports indicate she was originally intended to be a stand-in candidate, in August 1984 she withdrew from the ticket without informing Serrette first and instead endorsed Sonia Johnson of the Citizens Party. Part of the result of this complicated episode was that Serrette failed to find a place on the Pennsylvania ballot.
Amazingly well funded compared to other Leftist parties, NAP managed to gain ballot positions in DC and 31 states. A very impressive achievement for a first-time national run. Ross was the running mate in all but three states. In Kansas the VP nominee was Naomi L. Azulay. Mississippi and West Virginia voters found a blank spot in the VP slot with Serrette where other parties included the name of the running mate.
Naomi Azulay was a New York-based campaign worker for NAP when she was used as a probable stand-in candidate for VP in Kansas. An April 1984 news account found her gathering nominating petition signatures in South Dakota, where the reporter said she had been for almost a month. As it turned out, South Dakota gave the NAP the highest percentage of their popular vote of any state in 1984 so she must have been a pretty effective volunteer.
The Serrette/Azulay ticket finished with 0.25% of the vote in Kansas, placing 5th out of 6. It was the 4th highest percentage the NAP won when compared to their other states. If elected Azulay would not have been to able take office since she was just barely under the Constitutionally required of 35 at the time.
Serrette broke with the NAP shortly after the election. In a scathing article written in 1988, he concluded with:
These few pages offer but an overview of a complex, and, in my opinion, dangerous organization. Dangerous, not only to the innocent, well-intentioned people who are caught in its grasp, but to the many it will try to exploit. Dangerous, because it uses a very progressive line, and untold millions of dollars, to prey on black communities, to attack black leaders and institutions, and to assault progressive organizations at whim. Dangerous because it can lie outright— lie about being black-led when blacks do not sit on the top, do not control the resources, do not control personnel; lie to its members about its participation with LaRouche; lie about Charles Tisdale; lie about me; lie about whatever serves Newman's interests, and put forth spokespersons who come to believe these lies. Dangerous because many members will do whatever they are told to do without ever evaluating what they have been told.
In conclusion, while I believe it is important that NAP be exposed for what it truly is, it is our job not to dwell on the organization, which craves controversy, but to concentrate our energies in our communities and organize, organize, organize. It is a vacuum that has been left open that allows NAP and other oppressive organizations to abuse our communities. We must fill that vacuum with genuinely progressive, community-controlled organizations.
Meanwhile, Fred Newman has been recognized by the Cult Education Institute as a historical cult figure and leader.
Election history:
1982 - New York City Council (Democratic) - primary - defeated
1982 - New York City Council (New Alliance Party) - defeated
Other occupations: physical therapist, activist with Committee for a Unified Independent Party, Texas coordinator for the New Alliance Party in 1988
Notes:
Later registered with the Independence Party of New York.
