VP candidate for National Party (aka Greenback Party) (1928)
Running mate with nominee: John Zahnd (1877–1961)
Popular vote: ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/531
The campaign:
Although running for President as a write-in on his personality-driven National Party, John Zahnd was also running for real as candidate for the US Senate in Indiana under the same party label in 1928. Back in 1924 he had also started to a run for the presidency but decided to withdraw and endorsed La Follette's Progressive Party.
Zahnd, a former Socialist, had started a new religion in Sept. 1918 in Kansas City, Mo., the Church of Christ/Order of Zion, an offshoot of an offshoot of the Mormons. He was a proponent of communal living, and, of course, the prophet for the new religion. His church appeared to be disappearing about the time of the 1928 election but Zahnd's political life would live on.
Zahnd's National Party appeared to be the last outdated gasp of the old People's Party and Greenback Party. The platform included planks supporting Prohibition, equal rights for women, the conscription of land as well as people during wartime, and the abolition of the Electoral College.
Running mate and typewriter executive Wesley H. Benningtion was ill during much of the campaign. He died shortly before the election on Oct. 30, 1928 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and apparently was not replaced on the ticket at the last minute. Not that it really mattered in terms of votes since the National Party did not appear on any ballots.
Election history:
1894 - Associate Justice (Kan.) (People's Party) - defeated
Other occupations: attorney, inventor, typewriter executive, notary public
Buried: Knollwood Cemetery (Mayfield Heights, Ohio)
Notes:
Buried in the same cemetery as Sam Sheppard.
Member of the People's Party in Topeka, Kansas 1890s
Obituary falsely claims he was a Lt. Gov. of Kansas.
Fined for shooting a cat while a resident of Kansas City, Kan. July 1901.
Took part in the pre- New Age "Mental Science Convention" of Nov. 28, 1901 in Sea Breeze, Fla.
Arrested for fraud in Cleveland 1908 for selling stock by misrepresentation.
Sometimes called William H. Bennington.
