Jan D. Pierce

Jan D. Pierce, May 20, 1937 (Ohio) -

VP candidate for Independent (aka Independence Party) (2004)

Running mate with nominee: Ralph Nader (b. 1934)
Popular vote: 90,948 (0.07%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Expressing a desire to not become beholden to the platform of any party, Ralph Nader announced he was running for President in 2004 as an independent. Yet he also sought the endorsement (rather than the nomination) of several already established third parties as a way to more easily acquire ballot access. The Reform Party, Independent Party of Delaware, and Independence Party did just that, making him their de facto nominee. Some parties were simply invented as a 2004 one-shot deal due to local requirements. For example, Nader ran in Alaska, Arkansas, and Maryland under the Populist Party name, apparently unconcerned of the legacy of white nationalist policies connected with the recent party of that name 1984-1996 and still a fresh memory.

Although Nader never joined the Green Party, it was under their banner that he was perceived, perhaps unfairly, as being the spoiler in the 2000 election and handing the White House to George W. Bush especially in Florida. The Green Party had some significant differences of opinion within their ranks on how to proceed in 2004. Generally speaking there were three factions at play here.

The first group desired to endorse Ralph Nader's independent run. Nader himself had announced in Dec. 2003 he would not seek the Green nomination, but later he realized the Party's endorsement would come in handy in terms of ballot access although he had no intention of joining the Greens himself. The pro-Nader faction was energized when a week before the Green convention Nader had selected GP activist Peter Camejo as his running-mate. Camejo in fact had won the most popular votes in the Green Party primaries for President.

The second group wanted to run a campaign with a "pure" Green candidate (David Cobb was the frontrunner) rather than ride on the star power of a political celebrity who was not necessarily in line with the Party platform. Cobb, a California attorney and Party activist, had worked hard to gain the nomination as he electioneered across the country gathering delegates.

The third group promoted the idea of sitting out the 2004 Presidential contest and instead concentrate on elections at the grassroots local level. A leaflet from this faction at the convention included, "Choosing No Candidate will allow Greens to build strength at the grassroots, avoiding a punishing national media fight we cannot win ... Our best route to national influence is building local power."

On June 26, 2004 Cobb won the nomination on the second ballot. He named Pat LaMarche, a Green Party activist in Maine, as his running-mate.

Unlike Nader/Camejo the Cobb/LeMarche ticket adopted a "safe state" strategy of not campaigning hard in swing states where they thought they could possibly tip the scales in favor of Bush. Cobb rationalized, "In California, Cobb-LaMarche's message is going to be, 'Progressives, don't waste your vote.' Because if a progressive casts a vote for the corporate militarist John Kerry in California, it does not help to unelect Bush, and you can only send a message that you actually support policies that you don't. That's a wasted vote. Simple message: progressives, don't waste your vote. In the other states where it's very much closer, we have the same, in-depth, scathing critique of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and then conclude with, 'but think carefully before you cast your vote.' You know, that is completely respecting the voter, and it is really challenging those voters to think about why we have a system where I have to vote against what I hate, rather than support what I want."

LaMarche suggested she just might pull the level for the Democrat on Election Day, "If the race is tight, I'll vote for Kerry."

A swath of the Left felt the Greens were capitulating to the Democrats far too much. The Vermont Green Party broke ranks and endorsed Nader/Camejo. Other Greens appeared to migrate to the Socialists in 2004, giving them a larger popular vote than usual.

Jan D. Pierce was initially a stand-in VP in several states, but by Election Day he remained on the ballot as the running-mate in a couple states. With Pierce's background as a union activist, Nader planned to place him in his Cabinet, "Jan Pierce, former Vice President of the Communication Workers of America, will be my Secretary of Labor." Pierce had been a supporter of the Democratic Socialists of America and an effort to build the New Party in the 1990s (not the same as the New Party of the 1960s).

In the four years since Nader last ran 9/11 had happened and the Bush administration was wrapping up their first term. Although President Bush called himself a uniter, not a divider, his economic policy, military initiatives, and interpretation of civil liberties under the Constitution seemed to widening the polarization of the country. Many in the Progressive side were willing to overlook Sen. Kerry's centrism and spent not a small amount of energy attempting to get Nader out of the race or off the ballots.

In one the most famous incidents in the 2004 campaign Bill Maher and Michael Moore got down on their knees and begged Nader on the Real Time television program on July 31, 2004 to drop out of the race.

There were others who agreed--

Keeping the Bush circle out means holding one's nose and voting for some Democrat. ... In a very powerful state, small differences may translate into very substantial effects on the victims, at home and abroad. It is no favor to those who are suffering, and may face much worse ahead, to overlook these facts.
–Noam Chomsky

I am going to run around this country and do everything I can to dissuade people from voting for Ralph Nader. ... this election will come down to a relatively few votes. ... I consider four more years of Bush a potential horror show for this country.
–Bernie Sanders

If Kerry is elected, we'll have a little ledge to stand on.
–Howard Zinn

Last time around, Nader attracted the support of a stellar list of left-leaning celebrities; Phil Donahue, Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, Paul Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Eddie Vedder, and Ani DiFranco were all Naderites. That won't be the case this year.
-Mother Jones Magazine

A number of anti-Nader websites from the Progressive community sprang up: The Nader Factor, United Progressives for Victory, Vote2StopBush.org,  Dear Ralph, StopNader.com, Ralph Don't Run, Repentant Nader Voter PAC, Nader Watch Blog, Don't Vote Ralph, Ralph-Nader.info, Damned Big Difference, and Greens for Kerry (Change In '04).

"It's an ego-fueled Trojan Horse for the right wing," said Bob Gammage of StopNader.org, "The Republicans perceive (the Nader campaign) the same way we do: A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. They're hoping ... they can confuse enough people to take the election away from Kerry."

Nader met with the Congressional Black Caucus in June. It did not go well. The CBC had asked Nader to drop out of the election and by the end there were raised voices, Nader was told by one member of Congress to "get your ass out" of the meeting, and Rep. Melvin Watt said the candidate was "just another arrogant white man, telling us what we can do. It's all about your ego, another [expletive] arrogant white man." Nader later demanded an apology for the language used in the meeting but never got it.

Some of the other attendees had choice words as well:
"He ain't playing with a full deck"--Rep. James Clyburn
"I don’t think he gets it ... The meeting was about strategy and the pragmatic planning to defeat Bush ... We told him how at strategic level, his candidacy defeats a common a goal ... We were particularly offended by Nader's exhibitionism, his selfishness and egotism"--Rep. Albert Wynn
"If he didn't understand what the meeting was about, not only is he an egotistical maniac, he's dumber than I thought he was"--Rep. Gregory Meeks

There was evidence the Republicans and far-Right groups were doing what they could to help Nader along, which was an unsurprising and old political practice by political parties helping the enemy of their enemy dating back to the early 1800s in US politics.

But as it was Nader's 2004 showing was faint compared to 2000. Rather than setting the foundation for a new progressive party, he was starting to be perceived by many as a perennial candidate for a personality-driven movement.

Nader was on the ballot in 35 states + DC and a registered write-in in 12 states finishing third nationally with 465,642 votes (0.38%). Of those, the Nader/Camejo ticket was on the ballot in 32 states + DC and certified write-ins in half a dozen more. In New York, Nader was on two different ballot lines, each with a different running-mate (with Camejo in the Peace and Justice Party, with Jan D. Pierce in the Independence Party). Pierce was also on the ballot with Nader in Alabama. Documents suggest Pierce would have also been on the ballot in Illinois, Ohio and Arizona as the VP if Nader had prevailed and been made a printed option for voters in those states, but that did not come to pass. Karen Sanchirico was the running-mate in Montana. Nader had no VP at all in 6 write-in slots.

The Nader/Pierce ticket finished with 1.13% in New York and 0.36% in Alabama.

After the election my friend and shirttail relative Robert C. "Bob" Bailey, who had once been one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington State, said he was not surprised at the re-election of George W. Bush. "Voters don't like to change Presidents in wartime, no matter how bad they are," was his view.

Election history: none

Other occupations: Secretary of the Ohio Labor Party, union activist, co-chair Rainbow Coalition Labor Commission.

Notes:
Registered Democrat.

Julius Wilson Hobson

Julius Wilson Hobson, May 29, 1919 (Birmingham, Ala.) – March 23, 1977 (Washington, D.C.)

VP candidate for People's Party (aka Liberty Union Party aka Peace and Freedom Party aka Independent aka New Party aka Common Good Party aka Human Rights Party) (1972)

Running mate with nominee: Benjamin McLane Spock (1903–1998)
Popular vote: 78,759 (0.10%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

The People's Party was an attempt to form an umbrella political party for the far Left. It was comprised of elements from the Peace and Freedom Party (Calif, Idaho, Ind.), Liberty Union Party (Vt.), Common Good Party (NY), Human Rights Party (Mich., Utah), and the New Party.

The New Party attempted to draft consumer advocate Ralph Nader for President, but he refused to run that year. The Peace and Freedom Party, now mostly centered in California, joined the coalition to form the People's Party. Michigan's Human Rights Party declined to place Dr. Spock's name on the ballot in deference to Sen. McGovern. Efforts to place Spock on the ballot in New York and Utah came to nothing.

After seriously considering backing the nomination of US Sen. George McGovern (D-SD), the Party chose to nominate Dr. Benjamin Spock, with Julius W. Hobson as his running mate. Dr. Spock stated he was merely a stand-in candidate and would gladly step down if someone else with more stature such as Rep. Shirley Chisholm agreed to run in his place.

Hobson, who by 1972 was something of a political gadfly, had evolved into an increasingly militant activist to battle various manifestations of segregation in Washington, DC using original and effective tactics on the streets, in court, and serving in public office. The man had a unique blend of being part political theater showman and part researcher. In 1971 he was given just six months to live as a result of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the spine, but fooled everyone by surviving until 1977 although he eventually was restricted to a wheelchair. In at least one photo from the 1972 campaign Hobson can be seen using crutches.

The platform, according to the New York Times, included "immediate withdrawal of all American troops abroad; free medical care as a right; an end to tax preference; an allowance of $6,500 for a family of four; the legalization of abortion on demand and marijuana, and an end to discrimination against women and homosexuals." Unfortunately for the People's Party the Democratic Party nomination of McGovern, easily the most Leftist candidate that party has offered since FDR, absorbed a group of voters who otherwise would have supported Spock if someone like Hubert Humphrey or Henry "Scoop" Jackson had been chosen instead.

On the ballot in ten states the Spock/Hobson ticket finished strongest in California 0.66%, Vermont 0.54%, Idaho 0.29%, and Colorado 0.25%.

Election history:
1968-1969 - District of Columbia Board of Education
1969 - District of Columbia Board of Education - defeated
1971 - US House of Representatives Delegate (DC Statehood Party) - defeated
1975-1977 - Council of the District of Columbia (DC Statehood Party)

Other occupations: custodian, paper company worker, soldier (WWII), Library of Congress researcher, Social Security Administration economist and statistician, teacher, Chair of the District of Columbia’s chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), founder of Association Community Teams (ACT), author

Buried: ?

Notes:
Some sources give his year of birth as 1922
"For 25 hell-raising years, Mr. Hobson shook Washington in unorthodox, unpredictable ways. As
  often as not, he was the lone front-line fighter against some aspect of racial discrimination, the
 gruff-and-ready tickler for equal education. He was always fast with an irreverent quip, and he never
 let up on his lawsuits, his books, his thorough research, his provocative political activities and his
 extraordinary ability to intimidate, embarrass or fool officialdom into doing something about civil
 rights."--Washington Post obituary.
In 1981 the Washington Post revealed that Hobson had been a paid informer for the FBI in the 1960s.
 Many of his supporters suspect he was playing a game of supplying misinformation or using the
 Bureau to thwart his enemies.
In Vermont in 1972 Bernie Sanders was downticket running for Governor also as part of the Liberty Union slate.

Lawrence D. Hochman

Lawrence D. Hochman, October 18, 1929 (Detroit, Mich.) - January 25, 2009 (Livonia, Mich.?)

VP candidate for New Politics Party (1968)

Running mate with nominee: Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998)
Popular vote: 4,585 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Driven chiefly by Californians, the Peace and Freedom Party was organized in the mid-1960s and went national in an attempt to link together various contingents of the Left. At their Presidential nominating convention Aug. 17-18, 1968 in Ann Arbor, Mich. where Eldridge Cleaver was selected over Dick Gregory, a schism had already become obvious. Gregory would go on to outpoll Cleaver on Election Day.

Cleaver, the author of Soul on Ice and the Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party, had little patience for the serious bickering that took place at the convention. When it came time to nominate a Vice-Presidential candidate, Cleaver suggested Youth International Party activist Jerry Rubin-- an idea that went nowhere as many considered Rubin to be too erratic, uncontrollable, and part of the Far Right of the Far Left. As the convention wrestled over this and other issues, Cleaver walked out in frustration and the matter was eventually left up to each state to select his running mate.

A member of the Socialist Workers Party took notes at this event and concluded:

Some Generalizations 1) The P&F movement is in a state of serious disarray. 2) The "coalition" with the Panthers had been badly shaken. 3) If Cleaver doesn't extricate himself from this mess soon he will rapidly and thoroughly discredit himself in the eyes of black militants inside and outside the BPP.

In April 1968, prior to being nominated, Cleaver was involved in a police shootout. Shortly after the election he felt obliged to jump bail and flee to Cuba.

In Michigan Cleaver was not nominated by the Peace and Freedom but rather the New Politics Party, a very short-lived Michigan group. It is difficult to ascertain if this organization was more closely affiliated with the Peace and Freedom Party, the New Party, or anyone else. For VP they nominated Larry Hochman, an associate professor of physics at Eastern Michigan University.

There was also a New Politics Party in Indiana that found themselves with a blank slate when their proposed Eugene McCarthy/John Lindsay ticket turned them down, so they replaced them with Dick Gregory/Mark Lane. Whether the Indiana and Michigan New Politics parties were related is unclear, like most everything else about the 1968 election!

On a campaign budget of merely $944.09, the Cleaver/Hochman electioneering activity was severely limited.

The national vote for Cleaver was 36,571 (0.04%). Of those votes 4,585 (0.14%) came from the Cleaver/Hochman choice in Michigan where they placed 4th. Hochman expressed disappointment that they did not reach one percent, meaning that next time they would have to achieve ballot status once again by employing the onerous task of gathering petition signatures. He said he doubted he would run again.

Election history: none

Other occupations: physics instructor, attorney, author

Buried: ?

Notes:
Part of the Burdick-Hochman political family in Michigan.
Hochman stated his nomination and other Leftist activity was the reason why Eastern Michigan
 University denied him a permanent position. He and two other Leftist professors in the same
 situation sued and EMU settled in 1971.
Lived in a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz in 1951.

Mark Lane

Mark Lane, February 24, 1927 (New York, NY) – May 10, 2016 (Charlottesville, Va.)

VP candidate for Committee for the Write-in Vote for Dick Gregory and Mark Lane (1968)
VP candidate for New Party (1968)
VP candidate for New Politics Party (1968)
VP candidate for Citizens for Independent Political Action (1968)
VP candidate for Freedom and Peace Party (1968)
VP candidate for Peace and Freedom Party (1968)

Running mate with nominee: Dick Gregory (1932-2017)
Popular vote: 37,369 (0.05%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

After his unsuccessful run for Mayor of Chicago in 1967 as an independent, comedian and activist Dick Gregory wanted another shot at elected office and decided to run for President as an outsider. As he said in an interview during the 1968 campaign, "I feel the two-party system is obsolete. The two-party system is so corrupt and immoral that it cannot solve the problems confronting the masses of people in this country. I did agree to accept the nomination in various states from independent organizations who had already had a position on the ballot and this why I have accepted."

Gregory ran in several states as a write-in or sometimes showed up on the ballot itself, under the banner of multiple political parties, with various running mates. No matter what the platform of the party he was using as a vehicle, Dick Gregory was still Dick Gregory. Mark Lane was Gregory's main Vice-Presidential team partner in this election.

In 1968 Lane was best known as a Leftist activist and attorney who had been arrested at a segregation protest in the South while still holding an elected office of New York Assemblyman. He also was famous for being one of the earliest of the JFK assassination conspiracy proponents and his book Rush to Judgment was a best-seller. A controversial figure throughout his entire career before and after 1968, he was a VP choice guaranteed to attract attention which, according to his critics, was something he craved.

When the newly created Peace and Freedom Party held their first chaotic convention, Dick Gregory was outvoted in the nomination process by Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver. In New York, as a power struggle emerged between the Old and New Left, a much more organized and apparently better funded rival Freedom and Peace Party was founded in June 1968. Like the Progressive Party of 1948-1952, there was a lot of chatter from both the FBI and from some on the Left that the FPP was a child of the Communist Party USA. There was no doubt CPUSA was one of the forces involved, but to what degree remains a matter of debate. 20 of the 324 delegates were members of the CPUSA.

The Freedom and Peace Party platform included: withdraw from the Vietnam War, end US support for Right-wing dictators, independence for Puerto Rico, recognize the People's Republic of China, nationalize the drug industry, end the draft, mandate a $2.00 state minimum wage, amnesty for all political prisoners including draft resisters, universal health insurance, affirmative action-type policies, and free higher education.

The FPP nominated Dr. Benjamin Spock for President and Coretta Scott King for VP. Both of them quickly withdrew their names from consideration. In a short time the names of Dick Gregory and Mark Lane were substituted.

New York was the only state where Gregory/Lane ran as Freedom and Peace Party candidates. In Colorado they were on the ballot as part of the New Party and in Pennsylvania they were registered for the ballot under the Peace and Freedom Party-- before Cleaver was nominated-- apparently due to filing deadlines.

There were also official Gregory/Lane write-in efforts in a few states. In California they were promoted by the Committee for the Write-in Vote for Dick Gregory and Mark Lane. The New Politics Party in Indiana found themselves with a blank slate when their proposed Eugene McCarthy/John Lindsay ticket turned them down, so they replaced them with Gregory/Lane. In Ohio they were supported by the Citizens for Independent Political Action.

It was Gregory as the comedian that landed him in the most trouble. The government was seriously disturbed when he issued campaign literature resembling $1 bills with his face adorning the currency and Lane's signature looking quite official. It looked real enough that he very nearly landed in jail. But Gregory knew no one could take it too seriously, "Everyone knows a black man will never be on a US bill." 

A member of the Socialist Workers Party observed that Gregory was living in the moment and more interested in providing a venue for a protest vote in this pivotal period of political realignment than he was in creating a lasting third party movement. Indeed, the Freedom and Peace Party evaporated within a short time after the election.

The Gregory campaign placed 5th nationally (outpolling Cleaver) with 47,149 popular votes (0.06%), 37,369 of those votes were with Lane on the ticket and most of that support came from New York. The Gregory/Lane result: New York 0.36%, Colorado 0.17%, Pennsylvania 0.16%, California 0.04%, Ohio 0.01%, Indiana 0.00%. Although the ticket ran under various party names it would be the Freedom and Peace Party that future list-makers would tie to them.

Election history:
1961-1963 - New York State Assembly (Democratic)
1962 - US House of Representatives (NY) (Democratic) - primary - defeated

Other occupations: soldier (US Army), attorney, author

Buried: ?

Notes:
"Richard Nixon is living in the White House today because of what happened that night in Chicago. Hubert Humphrey lost that election by a handful of votes -- mine among them -- and if I had to do it again I would still vote for Dick Gregory."--Hunter S. Thompson
Lane later co-authored, with Gregory, the book Code Name Zorro about the MLK assassination.
Was present and hiding in the jungle during the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide.

Richard Claxton Gregory

Dick Gregory and Eugene McCarthy, Chicago, August 1968

Richard Claxton Gregory, October 12, 1932 (St. Louis, Mo.) – August 19, 2017 (Washington, DC)

VP candidate for New Party (1968)

Running mate with nominee: Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005)
Popular vote: ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

In 1968 an obscure political figure, US Sen. Eugene McCarthy (Minn.), challenged incumbent President Johnson in the Democratic primaries. McCarthy's anti-war stance energized a whole new generation of young activists who were really in the first wave of voters to have grown up entirely in the shadow of the atomic/nuclear mushroom cloud and thus felt a visceral sense of urgency the older generations for the most part failed to grasp.

McCarthy became a David to Johnson's Goliath, and within a short time LBJ decided to drop out of the race, opening it up for Sen. Robert Kennedy and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy soon found himself outspent and outflanked by the better known candidates and was marginalized to the far Left by the Democratic Party establishment. After the Party convention  McCarthy waited until the very last week of the campaign to finally give a lukewarm endorsement to Humphrey.

In the meantime, McCarthy's followers were not so easily defeated. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was a bloody affair and Humphrey was seen as being too closely tied to the unpopular LBJ. McCarthy's followers were prepared to go all the way to November, attempting to get his name on the ballot in several states as a "fourth party" since George Wallace already had the primo "third party" position.

By early September 1968 it was too late for McCarthy's followers to place him on the ballot in many states, so energetic write-in campaigns were waged. In Georgia, Oregon, and Rhode Island groups sprang up to work for McCarthy. In Michigan there was the McCarthy Write-In Committee, Massachusetts had three groups pushing for the Senator-- Citizens for Participation Politics, Conference for New Political Action, and the Flag Party-- and in New York there was the Coalition for Independent Candidacy (aka Coalition Party). As far as I could ascertain, none of the above proposals included a running mate.

McCarthy had various running mates and different party banners in other states. The most coordinated effort, such as it was, concerned the New Party, formed chiefy by Marcus Raskin, co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies. "If we cannot force a realignment of political structures," said Raskin, "There will be mass violence."

Raskin's document Why the New Party? included:

Across the nation there is a general revulsion for the political parties which in reality have built their power on the interests of special groups that have no base among the people, which maintain power through war and cold war, privilege selling and the granting of favors to the few.

Young people, workers on the line in the factory and in the offices, women, farmers, black and brown people have come to believe that the two political parties are far too deeply implicated in causing the basic problems of American society to do anything toward resolving them.

The Democratic and Republican parties have allowed the cities to decay, encouraged and sustained a huge military establishment, supported a reckless and morally indefensible colonial war in Vietnam, and diverted the economy for wasteful and dangerous activity.

Although the Party was born in the Left, Raskin voiced a belief his anti-Establishment message could resonate with George Wallace voters as well.

The New Party thought about nominating McCarthy, as well as considering Sen. George McGovern, actor Paul Newman, NYC Mayor John Lindsay, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and Justice William O. Douglas. But in the end they decided to allow each state to nominate whatever ticket they wanted. It is difficult to say if the New Party operated under variant names across the country.

McCarthy himself disavowed this fourth party activity and took steps to keep his name off the November ballot. Raskin didn't care. He said McCarthy was going to be nominated whether he liked or not. They wanted his name and star power.

In Indiana the New Politics Party, which may or may not have been connected with Raskin, nominated McCarthy and Lindsay, who in turn had their names removed. So the Party quickly replaced the old pair with Dick Gregory and his running mate Mark Lane.

Dick Gregory was a ground-breaking African American comedian who became better known as a political activist than as an entertainer. I first became aware of Gregory in the 1960s when he protested in favor of the Nisqually Indians treaty fishing rights. For his trouble he was tossed into the Thurston County jail in Olympia, Washington where he engaged in a fast. In those days the jail was in the old courthouse across the street from the Capitol campus. The Nisqually people had set up a camp across the street on the Cap campus lawn in a show of support for Gregory. Talking with them was a political education for me and left a deep impression, so in that sense Gregory was successful in communicating his message to at least one individual. 

Gregory and Lane were already running as the Freedom and Peace Party ticket, a splinter group from the Peace and Freedom Party. In Colorado Gregory/Lane found a place on the ballot running in the New Party.

However in the State of Illinois Gregory would find himself as the Vice-Presidential nominee rather than having his name at the top of the ticket. In that state there were at least three groups agitating for McCarthy: the Palatine Politics for Peace Committee, the Illinois Citizens for McCarthy, and the New Party. The latter group selected Dick Gregory as McCarthy's running mate. It could be that members of the Illinois New Party still had the fresh memory of Gregory and McCarthy addressing protesters together at Grant Park during the Democratic convention in Chicago.

Gregory was possibly addressing the Illinois proposed ticket when he said in a filmed interview why he was running as a write-in: "I feel the two-party system is obsolete. The two-party system is so corrupt and immoral that it cannot solve the problems confronting the masses of people in this country. I did agree to accept the nomination in various states from independent organizations who had already had a position on the ballot and this why I have accepted. Senator McCarthy is a Democrat and I wouldn't expect him to accept a nomination but a Democratic nomination because he is still a Democrat. He is not an independent."

As usual, McCarthy refused to have anything to do with the New Party effort and and his name was removed from consideration, but die-hard supporters would forge on anyway. The McCarthy/Gregory popular vote result is lost somewhere in the 325 "scattered" write-ins listed for Illinois.

Election history:
1967 - Mayor of Chicago (Independent) - defeated
1968 - Peace and Freedom Party nomination for President - defeated
1968 - US President (Freedom and Peace Party/Peace and Freedom Party/New Party/New Politics Party) - defeated

Other occupations: comedian, soldier (US Army), activist

Buried: Fort Lincoln Cemetery (Brentwood, Md.)

Notes:
Winner of the 1967 mayoral race was Richard J. Daley. Another opponent was Lar Daly.
"I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they
 didn’t have what I wanted."
"I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that."
"A Klanner (KKK) is a cat who gets out of bed in the middle of the night and takes his sheet with
 him."
"I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood
 after dark."
"You know the definition of a Southern moderate? That’s a cat that’ll lynch you from a low tree."
"For a black man, there's no difference between the North and the South. In the South, they don't
 mind how close I get, as long as I don't get too big. In the North, they don't mind how big I get, as
 long as I don't get too close."
"Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and
 said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me
 a whole fried chicken.'"
"Baseball is very big with my people. It figures. It's the only way we can get to shake a bat at a white
 man without starting a riot."
"We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history
 books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a
 massacre."
When asked how activists could resist the Trump administration, Gregory responded, "You don’t
 have to do nothing ... this country is not going to make four years, it’s over."

Paul Leonard Newman

Paul Leonard Newman, January 26, 1925 (Shaker Heights, Ohio) – September 26, 2008 (Westport, Conn.)

VP candidate for New Party (1968)

Running mate with nominee: Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005)
Popular vote: 178 (0.00%)   
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

In 1968 an obscure political figure, US Sen. Eugene McCarthy (Minn.), challenged incumbent President Johnson in the Democratic primaries. McCarthy's anti-war stance energized a whole new generation of young activists who were really in the first wave of voters to have grown up entirely in the shadow of the atomic/nuclear mushroom cloud and thus felt a visceral sense of urgency the older generations for the most part failed to grasp.

McCarthy became a David to Johnson's Goliath, and within a short time LBJ decided to drop out of the race, opening it up for Sen. Robert Kennedy and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy soon found himself outspent and outflanked by the better known candidates and was marginalized to the far Left by the Democratic Party establishment. After the Party convention  McCarthy waited until the very last week of the campaign to finally give a lukewarm endorsement to Humphrey.

In the meantime, McCarthy's followers were not so easily defeated. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was a bloody affair and Humphrey was seen as being too closely tied to the unpopular LBJ. McCarthy's followers were prepared to go all the way to November, attempting to get his name on the ballot in several states as a "fourth party" since George Wallace already had the primo "third party" position.

By early September 1968 it was too late for McCarthy's followers to place him on the ballot in many states, so energetic write-in campaigns were waged. In Georgia, Oregon, and Rhode Island groups sprang up to work for McCarthy. In Michigan there was the McCarthy Write-In Committee, Massachusetts had three groups pushing for the Senator-- Citizens for Participation Politics, Conference for New Political Action, and the Flag Party-- and in New York there was the Coalition for Independent Candidacy (aka Coalition Party). As far as I could ascertain, none of the above proposals included a running mate.

McCarthy had various running mates and different party banners in other states. The most coordinated effort, such as it was, concerned the New Party, formed chiefly by Marcus Raskin, co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies. "If we cannot force a realignment of political structures," said Raskin, "There will be mass violence."

Raskin's document Why the New Party? included:

Across the nation there is a general revulsion for the political parties which in reality have built their power on the interests of special groups that have no base among the people, which maintain power through war and cold war, privilege selling and the granting of favors to the few.

Young people, workers on the line in the factory and in the offices, women, farmers, black and brown people have come to believe that the two political parties are far too deeply implicated in causing the basic problems of American society to do anything toward resolving them.

The Democratic and Republican parties have allowed the cities to decay, encouraged and sustained a huge military establishment, supported a reckless and morally indefensible colonial war in Vietnam, and diverted the economy for wasteful and dangerous activity.
Although the Party was born in the Left, Raskin voiced a belief his anti-Establishment message could resonate with George Wallace voters as well.

The New Party thought about nominating McCarthy, as well as considering Sen. George McGovern, actor Paul Newman, NYC Mayor John Lindsay, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and Justice William O. Douglas. But in the end they decided to allow each state to nominate whatever ticket they wanted. It is difficult to say if the New Party operated under variant names across the country.

McCarthy himself disavowed this fourth party activity and took steps to keep his name off the November ballot. Raskin didn't care. He said McCarthy was going to be nominated whether he liked or not. They wanted his name and star power.

The New Party in Florida passed over NYC Mayor John Lindsay as the VP choice and instead nominated an unusual running mate for Eugene McCarthy-- the actor Paul Newman.

Newman was a politically active liberal Democrat who had campaigned for McCarthy in the primaries. In the general election he supported Humphrey. He had begun filming for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid about the same time the New Party nominated him.

The Florida platform called for legalizing abortions, decriminalization of marijuana, ending conscription, and supported a cease-fire in Vietnam.

Voting for the McCarthy/Newman ticket was a complicated affair. Instead of writing-in the names of the candidates, voters in the Sunshine State were required to write-in the names of all 14 Electors. 178 voters went to the trouble to do just that.

Election history: none

Other occupations: actor, sailor (US Navy WWII), philanthropist, food products, race car team owner, race car driver, author

Buried: cremated

Notes:
Endorsed John Anderson for President in 1980
One of his proudest personal political achievements was being included in Nixon's original enemies
 list
Dubbed "Quite a guy" by Time.

John Vliet Lindsay

John Vliet Lindsay, November 24, 1921 (New York, NY) – December 19, 2000 (Hilton Head Island, SC)

VP candidate for New Party (1968)
VP candidate for Californians for an Alternative (1968)
VP candidate for Independent (1968)
VP candidate for Liberal Principle Party (1968)
VP candidate for Americans for a New America (1968)

Running mate with nominee: Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005)
Popular vote: 25,057 (0.04%)    
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

In 1968 an obscure political figure, US Sen. Eugene McCarthy (Minn.), challenged incumbent President Johnson in the Democratic primaries. McCarthy's anti-war stance energized a whole new generation of young activists who were really in the first wave of voters to have grown up entirely in the shadow of the atomic/nuclear mushroom cloud and thus felt a visceral sense of urgency the older generations for the most part failed to grasp.

McCarthy became a David to Johnson's Goliath, and within a short time LBJ decided to drop out of the race, opening it up for Sen. Robert Kennedy and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy soon found himself outspent and outflanked by the better known candidates and was marginalized to the far Left by the Democratic Party establishment. After the Party convention  McCarthy waited until the very last week of the campaign to finally give a lukewarm endorsement to Humphrey.

In the meantime, McCarthy's followers were not so easily defeated. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was a bloody affair and Humphrey was seen as being too closely tied to the unpopular LBJ. McCarthy's followers were prepared to go all the way to November, attempting to get his name on the ballot in several states as a "fourth party" since George Wallace already had the primo "third party" position.

By early September 1968 it was too late for McCarthy's followers to place him on the ballot in many states, so energetic write-in campaigns were waged. In Georgia, Oregon, and Rhode Island groups sprang up to work for McCarthy. In Michigan there was the McCarthy Write-In Committee, Massachusetts had three groups pushing for the Senator-- Citizens for Participation Politics, Conference for New Political Action, and the Flag Party-- and in New York there was the Coalition for Independent Candidacy (aka Coalition Party). As far as I could ascertain, none of the above proposals included a running mate.

McCarthy had various running mates and different party banners in other states. The most coordinated effort, such as it was, concerned the New Party, formed chiefly by Marcus Raskin, co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies. "If we cannot force a realignment of political structures," said Raskin, "There will be mass violence."

Raskin's document Why the New Party? included:

Across the nation there is a general revulsion for the political parties which in reality have built their power on the interests of special groups that have no base among the people, which maintain power through war and cold war, privilege selling and the granting of favors to the few.

Young people, workers on the line in the factory and in the offices, women, farmers, black and brown people have come to believe that the two political parties are far too deeply implicated in causing the basic problems of American society to do anything toward resolving them.

The Democratic and Republican parties have allowed the cities to decay, encouraged and sustained a huge military establishment, supported a reckless and morally indefensible colonial war in Vietnam, and diverted the economy for wasteful and dangerous activity.

Although the Party was born in the Left, Raskin voiced a belief his anti-Establishment message could resonate with George Wallace voters as well.

The New Party thought about nominating McCarthy, as well as considering Sen. George McGovern, actor Paul Newman, NYC Mayor John Lindsay, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and Justice William O. Douglas. But in the end they decided to allow each state to nominate whatever ticket they wanted. It is difficult to say if the New Party operated under variant names across the country.

McCarthy himself disavowed this fourth party activity and took steps to keep his name off the November ballot. Raskin didn't care. He said McCarthy was going to be nominated whether he liked or not. They wanted his name and star power.

The most popular McCarthy ticket was that where New York Mayor John Lindsay was his running mate. The New Party was actually successful in placing the McCarthy/Lindsay team on the Arizona ballot (although it seems the VP nominee names were not included?!), the only state where the Senator's name was printed as an option. In Vermont and New Hampshire, McCarthy and Lindsay managed to have their names removed, but the electors remained as a choice with a blank slate. The New Party in Texas had an active write-in campaign for McCarthy/Lindsay.

After McCarthy and Lindsay removed themselves as New Politics Party options in Indiana, they were replaced on the ballot by Dick Gregory and Mark Lane.

In California the McCarthy/Lindsay write-in effort was staged by a group called Californians for an Alternative, in Minnesota by the Liberal Principle Party, in Wisconsin by Americans for a New America. Connecticut also had some McCarthy/Lindsay activity.

Mayor Lindsay didn't really have a lot of time to deal with the involuntary VP draft. In hindsight Lindsay called the last few months of 1968 "the worst of my public life" as he dealt with multiple public employee strikes, the threat of race riots, and assassination threats. Even though he was liberal outsider in the Republican Party Lindsay was under consideration as a potential Vice-Presidential candidate with Nixon and gained a smattering of delegate votes for both positions at the 1968 convention. In 1971 Lindsay switched to the Democratic Party.

In terms of popular votes, California was the dominant treasure trove for the ticket. But in terms of state percentages they fared best in Arizona, the only state where McCarthy appeared on the ballot. Although Vermont and New Hampshire write-in electors were left without a candidate, I am including them in the final count as well since the original intention was McCarthy/Lindsay: Arizona 2751 (0.56%), Vermont 579 (0.36%), California 20721 (0.29%), New Hampshire 421 (0.14%), Minnesota 585 (00.4%). Figures for Connecticut, Texas and Wisconsin, probably in the hundreds, are not easily obtainable.

McCarthy's official popular vote total including all of his various running mates came to 25,634 (00.4%). I track 25,057 (0.03%) of those votes to the McCarthy/Lindsay ticket although it is a safe bet the number of uncertified write-ins nationwide probably places the result at a much higher number.

Years later McCarthy and Lindsay shared a program at the Denver Forum. I wonder if their 1968 ticket came up in discussion?

Election history:
1959-1965 - US House of Representatives (NY) (Republican)
1966-1973 - Mayor of New York, NY (Republican/Democratic/Liberal/Independent Citizens/Independent)
1968 - Republican nomination for US President - defeated
1968 - Republican nomination for US Vice-President - defeated
1972 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1980 - US Senate (NY) (Democratic) - primary - defeated

Other occupations: sailor (US Navy WWII), bank clerk, attorney, actor, novelist, TV morning show guest host

Buried: Memorial Cemetery of Saint John's Church (Laurel Hollow, NY)

Notes:
Buried in the same cemetery as George Bruce Cortelyou, William S. Paley, and Henry Louis Stimson.
Some of his opponents in the 1965 Mayorial race included Abraham Beame, William F. Buckley,
 Clifton DeBerry and Eric Hass.
Winner of the 1980 primary was Elizabeth Holtzman.
In the Batman TV series of the era, Gotham City's chief municipal officer was Mayor Lindseed.

Glen Hearst Taylor

Glen Hearst Taylor, April 12, 1904 (Portland, Ore.) – April 28, 1984 (Burlingame, Calif.)

VP candidate for Progressive Party (aka New Party aka Independent Progressive Party) (1948)

Running mate with nominee: Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965)

Popular vote: 1,157,328 (2.37%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Just one of the many sideshows in the crazy 1948 election year included the battle of two FDR Vice-Presidents, Harry Truman (Democrat) and Henry Wallace (now in the newly created Progressive Party), with each claiming they were the true torch-bearer of Roosevelt's legacy.

The Progressive Party's 1948 platform mentions FDR several times in a positive light, linking the late President in what they saw as part of their political lineage:

Ten years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned: "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state. That, in its essence, is fascism."

Today that private power has constituted itself an invisible government which pulls the strings of its puppet Republican and Democratic parties. Two sets of candidates compete for votes under the outworn emblems of the old parties. But both represent a single program— a program of monopoly profits through war preparations, lower living standards, and suppression of dissent.

For generations the common man of America has resisted this concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few. The greatest of America's political leaders have led the people into battle against the money power, the railroads, the trusts, the economic royalists.

We of the Progressive Party are the present-day descendants of these people's movements and fighting leaders. We are the political heirs of Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln— of Frederick Douglass, Altgeld and Debs— of "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, George Norris, and Franklin Roosevelt.

The platform did have one important difference from the other political parties of the Left in 1948-- they all but embraced Stalin's Soviet regime as they condemned the Cold War. It didn't help that rather than run their own candidate in this election year, the Communist Party USA (now in the hands of the Stalinists) openly endorsed the Progressive Party. The fact that the CPUSA had influence in the Wallace/Taylor campaign is beyond dispute, but to what extent is still a matter of historical debate.

Wallace and Taylor, although not Communist themselves, refused to eschew CPUSA support on the grounds of that they did not wish to participate in the growing hysteria over "Reds" and be on the wrong side of what they called a freedom of speech and thought issue.

Wallace selected US Senator Glen Taylor of Idaho as his running mate. Taylor, a Democrat, was the very first pure Pacific Northwest third party Vice-Presidential candidate, having been born in Portland and raised in Idaho. Until he was elected to the US Senate in 1944, he had never been east of Chicago.

Taylor, who had considerable experience as an actor and musician, possessed a flair for publicity and fully understood how politics is frequently like theater. Known as the "Singing Cowboy" he has been noted for the distinction as one of the most Leftists members of the Senate since the 1930s. He had very mixed feelings about joining the Progressive Party and took several weeks in making his decision to be part of the ticket. In May, 1948 he told a reporter, "I knew I would probably kill my chances of being re-elected [to the Senate] in 1950 if I threw in with Henry. I'm not a lawyer. I've been in show business all my life, living hand to mouth, often in debt. I can't leave the Senate and practice law, like most of these fellows do. It was a tough decision ... I am running because I feel that the question of peace or war is more important than any other consideration."

During the campaign, in May, Taylor was convicted of disorderly conduct in Birmingham, Ala. for using a door reserved for African Americans as he took an action to protest the policy of segregation. Henry Wallace observed, "This dramatizes the hypocrisy of spending billions for arms in the name of defending freedom abroad, while freedom is trampled on here at home."

With votes recorded in 45 states, Wallace/Taylor finished strongest in New York (8.25%), California (4.73%), North Dakota (3.80%), Washington (3.50%), Montana (3.26%), Oregon (2.86%), Nevada (2.36%), and Taylor's Idaho (2.31%). It could be argued that the Progressive Party gave New York and Michigan to Dewey.

Election history:
1938 - Democratic primary for US House of Representatives (Id.) - defeated
1940 - US Senate (Id.) (Democratic) - defeated
1942 - US Senate (Id.) (Democratic) - defeated
1944-1951 - US Senate (Id.) (Democratic)
1950 - Democratic primary for US Senate (Id.) - defeated
1954 - US Senate (Id.) (Democratic) - defeated
1956 - Democratic primary for US Senate (Id.) - defeated
1956 - US Senate (Id.) (Independent write-in) - defeated

Other occupations: actor, country-Western singer known as "The Singing Cowboy," movie theater manager, President of Coryell Construction Co. 1950-1952, inventor and producer of custom toupees called Taylor Toppers (now Taylormade), painter's assistant,  sheet metal worker, shipyard worker during WWII, sheepherder, carpenter

Buried: Skylawn Memorial Park (San Mateo, Calif.)

Notes:
Winner of the 1956 US Senate race was Frank Church, a result hotly disputed by Taylor.
Brother of Jazz singer Lee Morse (1897-1954)
12th of 13 children.
Family moved to Kooskia, Idaho when Taylor was very young.
Divorced and remarried.
Died of Alzheimer's Disease.
Lost his hair early in life and invented his own toupee which turned into a successful business still
 run by a family member.
In an effort to publicize his need for housing in Washington, DC in 1945, he sang "Oh give us a
 home, near the Capitol dome, and a yard where the children can play..." to the tune of "Home on the
 Range" on the Capitol steps.
Attempted to organize a Farmer-Labor Party in Montana and Nevada, 1935.
Engaged in a fistfight with Republican Ray McKaig, breaking McKaig's jaw, on Election Day 1946
 in Boise.
"Even if it is only a psychological phenomenon, it is a sign of what the world is coming to. If we don't ease the tensions, the whole world will be full of psychological cases and eventually turn into a global nuthouse."--Sen. Taylor on the UFO claims regarding Roswell, NM, July 1947.
He rode his horse, Nugget, up the Capitol steps.
Taylor's brother Paul ran for US Congress in California as a Progressive Party candidate.
Returned to the Democratic Party in 1949.