Eileen Mary Shearer

Below: The Utah ballot line where the AIP was known as the Independent American Party

Eileen Mary Shearer, December 24, 1920 (Detroit, Mich.) - December 20, 2003 (Lemon Grove, Calif.)

VP candidate for American Independent Party (aka Conservative Party aka American Party aka Independent aka Independent American Party aka Constitution Party) (1980)

Running mate with nominee: John Richard Rarick (1924-2009)
Popular vote: 40,906 (0.05%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

In keeping their tradition of nominating Southern politicians with a segregationist history for President the American Independent Party selected former Rep. John Rarick (D-La.) in 1980. Listed as a the second most conservative Democratic member of the House between 1937-2002, the transplanted Hoosier now in Louisiana had connections with the White Citizens' Council, John Birch Society, and Liberty Lobby.

Rarick had been an open supporter of the AIP since George Wallace's run in 1968 and easily won the 1980 nomination over Percy Greaves, who was already the Presidential candidate of the American Party. Eileen Shearer, wife of AIP founder William Kennedy Shearer, was chosen as the VP.

According to Shearer the AIP elders were gathered in the wee hours in a Sacramento hotel room trying to select a running-mate when Rarick turned to her and said, "Eileen, I want you. Let's show 'em we really believe in equal rights for women."

"I thought he was kidding," Shearer related, "I hadn't even considered running. And if he wasn't kidding, I didn't see how I could accept. Why, I hadn't in fact taken a dress to the convention. I didn't think I'd need one."

She said, "My gosh, John. I don't even have a dress for the main event." He said, "Aw, that's all right. I never saw a vice-president in a dress anyway."

Shearer recalled, "How could I refuse a vote of confidence like that?"

The AIP 1980 platform included favoring a balanced budget and high tariffs, limited federal regulations, cuts in public welfare, opposition to busing, opposition to abortion, eliminate the draft, end personal income tax, no Equal Rights Amendment, protecting unions, encouraging domestic oil production while developing alternative energy resources, supported restricting immigration, opposed the UN and SALT II and giving away the Panama Canal. Although Reagan was in line with many of their policies, they did not trust him to follow through. The AIP in 1980 went to great pains to claim their racist days were over and now they were a populist party "taking the yoke off middle-class Americans" according to Shearer.

In addressing the two-party system Shearer told the press, "No matter what the administration is, policy doesn't change. We keep floundering in the same old waters. And that's why the two-party system as we know it is going to shatter. Nothing handed down by God says we have to have two parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. I'd like to see some distinct parties where you've really got a choice. It's coming. You'll see ... John Anderson's meteoric rise shows how people are searching for a vehicle to express themselves. There's going to be a realignment in this country, and we are going to be in a strong position after that."

On the ballot in eight states they had their strongest popular vote results in Alabama 1.12%, Rarick's home state of Louisiana 0.67%, Idaho 0.24%, and South Carolina 0.20%. After this election the AIP faded away as a national party (although remained intact in California, sort of) and became absorbed into other political movements.

Election history:
1976 - American Independent Party nomination for Vice-President - defeated

Other occupations: real estate

Buried: Glen Abbey Memorial Park (Bonita, Calif.)

Notes:
Cousin to Sen. William F. Knowland.
Previously a Republican.
Came to California in 1939 to become a singer.

Carroll Marie Driscoll

Carroll Marie Driscoll, 1936 -

VP candidate for Right to Life Party (aka Respect for Life Party) (1980)

Running mate with nominee: Ellen McCormack (1926-2011)
Popular vote: 32,320 (0.04%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Ellen McCormack had become a national figure in 1976 when she ran for the Democratic nomination for US President as a single-issue anti-abortion advocate. In 1980 when the decade-old Right to Life Party in New York entered Presidential politics for the first time, McCormack was selected as the nominee.

McCormack's presence on the ballot signaled the Right to Life Party was moving from a grassroots effort to a bona fide political party. In her previous campaign she had been the first woman to receive Secret Service protection on the campaign trail as well as meet the conditions for federal matching funds.

The Right to Life Party ran to the Right of Ronald Reagan and would not endorse him for President. He was considered too equivocal on the subject, having endorsed pro-choice Republican candidates and not having a strong enough record fighting against abortion while Governor of California by their measurements. The Party felt that Reagan's selection of George H.W. Bush, who they saw as a liberal on the subject, was a betrayal to the cause. Roger Stone, now convicted of multiple felonies but back then a Reagan campaign spokesperson, accused McCormack of being on "an ego trip."

Some pundits wondered if McCormack would be a spoiler against the Republicans, and some Republicans said out loud they were being "blackmailed" by "zealots" into pandering for the RTL endorsement. The anti-abortion groups in the Empire State were divided, the Political Action Committee of the New York State Right to Life Committee endorsed Reagan.

It appears Carroll Driscoll was selected as the Right to Life Party VP simply due to her place of residence.

Driscoll, a housewife and mother, was asked to run by her anti-abortion Long Island NY-based activist sister. McCormack needed a running mate who was not a resident of New York, and since Driscoll lived in Mendham, NJ, that was enough to fit the bill. "I said, 'You've got to be crazy,'" Driscoll explained, "I do wholeheartedly believe in their platform, but I don't follow politics at all." She said she could not remember who she voted for President in 1976. She agreed to run if McCormack, who she had never met up to that point, did all the campaigning. Driscoll was the mother of seven children and understandably didn't have the time or resources to spend on electioneering.

Although McCormack bristled when described as having only a single-plank platform, it is indeed difficult to find where the Right to Life Party stood on other issues in 1980. McCormack herself said she was opposed to capital punishment and RTL political spots included opposition to euthanasia. The Pope's image was massively marketed in newspaper ads shortly before the election.

On the ballot in three states, their popular vote results were New York 0.39%, Kentucky 0.33%, and New Jersey 0.13%. Reagan was the victor in each case.

Election history: none

Other occupations: housewife

Notes:
Registered Republican.
Washington State trivia alert!!! Driscoll was in Moses Lake, Washington in 1960, circumstances unknown, possibly at the same time future fellow third party VP Robert Craig Knievel lived there.

Elizabeth Cervantes Barron

Elizabeth Cervantes Barron, March 14, 1938 (Los Angeles, Calif.) -

VP candidate for Peace and Freedom Party (1980)

Running mate with nominee: Maureen Smith (b. ca1942)
Popular vote: 18,116 (0.02%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

In 1968, 1972, and 1976 the Peace and Freedom Party had been an entity with national electoral ambitions and joined political confederations to form umbrella groups. By 1980 in the face of  the rising wave of conservatism, the Party retrenched and settled on making California their focus.

The nonbinding PFP California primary election drew an ecumenical list of Leftists. The winner was Dr. Benjamin Spock (Presidential nominee of the PFP-backed People's Party in 1972) and the runners-up were Gus Hall (Communist Party USA Presidential nominee 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984), David McReynolds (Socialist Party USA Presidential nominee 1980, 2000), and Deidre Griswold (Workers World Presidential nominee 1980). At the following convention, in which Spock was absent, the LA Times reported  "after considerable bickering, party delegates turned to Maureen Smith as a 'unity candidate.'"

Her running-mate was Elizabeth Cervantes Barron, a teacher who had run for other offices and successfully racked up enough percentage points in votes in the 1970s to have the PFP qualify for the ballot in 1980.

Smith, a clerical worker from Santa Cruz County told the press she expected the campaign would be working with a budget of only $1000.

"By voting for us, we'll tell the powers that be that you're tired of Carter and Reagan and the other politicians serving the corporate interests of this country," Smith was quoted by the press. "The challenge of the 80s is to establish an alternative system for socialism and feminism ... We're for full employment and worker ownership of industry. We're for affirmative action to be competitive with a white, male dominated society ..."

The PFP platform included support for disarmament, graduated income tax, rent control, Gay rights, socialized health care and opposition to deportation of undocumented migrants and the draft. Smith said the PFP was "the only Left" party on the ballot. In California, the lone state where the PFP was on the Presidential ballot in 1980, she very well might have been correct, although a few folks in Barry Commoner's Citizens Party might argue otherwise. David McReynolds, the Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party USA and not on the California ballot, endorsed the Smith/Cervantes Barron ticket.

Smith said she would consider 50,000 to 100,000 votes a success, or 0.50% to 1%. The results fell a bit short of that where they earned 0.21% of the vote. Cervantes Barron was also running for the California State Assembly as the PFP candidate in the same election and finished that race with 5.85%.

In the event they had won the Presidential election the fact that both candidates were from the same state would have posed a probable Constitutional crisis.

Election history:
1974 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated
1978 - California Controller (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated
1980 - California State Assembly (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated
1994 - US Senate (Calif.) (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated
2006 - California Controller (Peace and Freedom Party) - defeated

Other occupations: teacher

Notes:
Plays the piano.
Winner of the 1994 race was Dianne Feinstein.
Joined the Peace and Freedom Party in 1967.

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.

Diane Joyce Drufenbrock

 

Diane Joyce Drufenbrock, October 7, 1929 (Evansville, Ind.) – November 4, 2013 (Milwaukee, Wis.)

VP candidate for Socialist Party of the United States of America (aka Socialist Party USA aka Socialist Party aka Independent) (1980)

Running mate with nominee: David McReynolds (1929-2018)
Popular vote: 6,994 (0.01%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

So far as I know Diane Drufenbrock aka Sister Madeleine Sophie of the School Sisters of St. Francis has the distinction of being the first nun to be part of a Presidential ticket. Working from the premise that the Jesus of the Bible was the ultimate social justice warrior, Drufenbrack embraced the concept of Christian Socialism.

"Politics had crept in on me," she said in 1980, "I think we are naturally political, as people we are political." Living in Milwaukee, quite possibly the most historically accepting of Socialism of all of America's large cities, probably had a major influence on her networking as well.

She was the Vice-Presidential running mate with David McReynolds, an anti-war activist, pacifist, and alleged to be the first openly Gay Presidential candidate. Interestingly he had also been a member of the Prohibition Party in his past.

The SPUSA advocated abandoning nuclear power in favor of developing solar power, public ownership of energy resources, abolition of the CIA and prisons, and a pro-choice stance on abortion. Drufenbrock's brand of Catholicism was hardly traditional in terms of attitudes about feminism: "The Socialist model makes a woman a person along with anyone else. The capitalist model looks on women as useful ... I think the changing roles of women is long overdue. I've spent 32 years in a religious order where we run our lives ourselves ... Where else can a woman be president of a college, get a Ph.D. in any subject or be an administrator of a hospital? All our lives we've had a rather unique view of what a woman is able to do."

In 1980 the Pope ordered that priests not serve in elected office. I recall US Rep. Father Drinan (D-Mass.), an influential voice in Congress, withdrawing from his re-election campaign. At the same time this was going on, Right-wing evangelical Protestants were discovering the power of political office and would have an enormous influence on public policy.

Drufenbrock was able to run for office via an amusingly ironic loophole. Priests are considered members of the clergy, nuns are not. Anticipating a possible follow-up Papal pronouncement, Drufenbrock said, "I have to confess I wait from day to day to see what will happen and if some special order comes, I'll have to deal with it."

The SPUSA ticket did not finish with popular vote results even close to that of other Left-wing parties. On the ballot in nine states and certified write-ins in at least three others, their best percentages were: Alabama and New Jersey 0.07% each, Vermont 0.06%, and Washington 0.05%. The Vermont results were impressive since they were totally write-in.

Election history:
1977-1980 - Social Development Commission (Milwaukee, Wis.)

Other occupations: nun, teacher, Board of Directors of Project Equality in Wisconsin 1974-1979, Milwaukee Tenants' Union, lecturer

Buried: Mount Olivet Cemetery (Milwaukee, Wis.)

Notes:
Ph.D. in Mathematics from University of Illinois at Urbana, 1963
Joined the SPUSA in 1976.
Adopted
McReynolds and Drufenbrock were both born in Oct. 1929.

Frank Lyle Varnum

Frank Lyle Varnum, October 6, 1916 (Pasadena, Calif.) - January 12, 2013 (Roseburg, Ore.)

VP candidate for American Party (1980)

Running mate with nominee: Percy L. Greaves Jr. (1906-1984)
Popular vote: 6,647 (0.01%)    
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Percy Greaves (pronounced Graves) was nominated by the American Party after 16 ballots. Retired airline pilot Frank Varnum was selected as his running mate. The New York Times reported that a party spokesman "said that Mr. Greaves had won in a close battle by 'progressive' party members against a faction representing the its old 'reactionary and redneck' image."

Greaves was a Republican turned Libertarian Party and only recently turned American Party author specializing in free market capitalism and Pearl Harbor attack historical revisionism. Varnum, a member of the John Birch Society and possibly the only person in America with a toothbrush mustache in 1980, appeared to balance the ticket as part of the more traditional wing of the American Party.

Greaves' moderate stance on abortion failed to pass the litmus test for the American Party members in Minnesota and Kansas. The former state ran a slate of unpledged Electors, and the latter state ran an entirely different ticket of Frank W. Shelton and Marian Ruck Jackson.

The American Party in 1980 stressed complicated economic issues more than hot button social topics, and it failed to excite the base. Plus, the Reagan Republicans had co-opted a lot of the John Birch Society-inspired platform used by the American Party over the years, except the major party simply changed the wording to be more acceptable to mainstream voters and had a famous Hollywood actor read the script. 1980 just was not going to be a good year for the American Party.

On Election Day the American Party ticket trailed far behind their splinter-party rival, the American Independent Party. In fact  even the combined vote of the Kansas and Minnesota American Party insurgents outpolled the Greaves/Varnum ticket.

On the ballot in five states and certified write-ins in a couple others, they had their strongest results in Indiana 0.21%, Delaware 0.17%, and Utah 0.16%.

Greaves died of cancer on Aug. 13, 1984, which meant that in the event they had been elected Varnum would have become President in the last year of the term.

Election history:
1966 - Long Beach (Calif.) City Council (Nonpartisan) - primary - defeated

Other occupations: race car driver, orchardist, realtor, US military flight instructor, airline pilot

Buried: Coles Valley Cemetery (Coles Valley, Ore.)

Notes:
Lived in Ventura, Calif. and (PNW trivia!) moved to Roseburg, Oregon-- burial place of third party
 VP Joseph Lane!
Survived a crash in 1947 when a twin-engine plane he was piloting lost power after takeoff.

Matilde Zimmermann

Matilde Zimmermann, September 6, 1943 (Washington, DC) -

VP candidate for Socialist Workers Party (aka Independent) (1980, 1984)

Running mate with nominee (1980): Cleve Andrew Pulley (b. 1951)
Running mate with nominee (1980): Richard Congress (b. 1943)
Running mate with nominee (1980): Clifton DeBerry (1923-2006)
Running mate with nominee (1984): Melvin T. Mason (b. 1943)
Popular vote (1980 Pulley): 6,264 (0.01%)   
Popular vote (1980 Congress): 4,029 (0.00%)    
Popular vote (1980 DeBerry): 38,738 (0.04%)
Popular vote (1984): 24,699 (0.03%)

Electoral vote (1980, 1984): 0/538

The campaign (1980):

In 1980 Socialist Workers Party VP nominee Matilde Zimmermann found herself  running with three different Presidential candidates, which I believe was a first in US history. The official standard bearer was Andrew Pulley, who had formerly been the SWP VP nominee in 1972. He had a problem with the Constitution since he was still under the age of 35 and many states would not place him on the ballot. On the Washington State Voters Pamphlet the SWP protested, "Pulley does not appear on the ballot due to the reactionary age requirement for President in the Constitution." The Pulley/Zimmermann ticket did show up as an option in six states, however.

In Ohio only, Pulley was substituted by Richard H. Congress. PNW Trivia Alert: He had actually run for Congress in 1970 as the SWP candidate right here in Washington State! I would have loved to have seen (if they existed) his "Congress for Congress" yard signs, but I lived in a different district.

Clifton DeBerry, the SWP 1964 Presidential candidate had been the stand-in during Pulley's 1972 VP run and now he was the stand-in for Pulley's Presidential run. This would be DeBerry's final appearance on any ballot. The DeBerry/Zimmermann ticket was offered as an official choice in 21 states.

Zimmermann was occasionally covered by the media as she urged the US to pull out of Korea, establish foreign relations with Cuba,  shut down nuclear power plants, end draft registration, establish national health insurance, and support the Equal Rights Amendment.

She summed up major the party nominees: "As a candidate, Carter promised to stand up for the working man. He was to cut military spending. He has done just the opposite. But I don't think the other candidates are different from Carter. They're all for maintaining the status quo, in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Carter is balancing the budget on the backs of working people. He wants to take money from the needy and give it to the greedy. But our party speaks for working people, while the Democrats and Republicans speak for the oil, automobile and nuclear power industries."

Having peaked in Presidential popular votes in 1976, the SWP numbers begin their decline in 1980. The DeBerry/Zimmermann team's strongest showings were in Pennsylvania 0.44%, Massachusetts 0.15%, Virginia 0.11%, and Alabama and District of Columbia 0.10% each. Pulley/Zimmermann's strongest finish by far was in Mississippi 0.26%. Congress/Zimmermann received 0.09% of the Ohio vote.

The campaign (1984):

In 1984 the SWP nominated Melvin T. Mason for president, and in their perpetual act of Constitutional civil disobedience, nominated Andrea González, age 33 on Election Day, as the VP. Zimmermann was selected as the stand-in VP and she was on the ballot in 23 states and DC with Mason.

In the time period between the 1980-1984 elections the SWP had experienced a major upheaval in leadership and direction. In general terms it was no longer a party advocating Trotsky's permanent revolution. Now it could be more accurately described as a Castroist party. In-house critics, later purged or self-exiled from the Party, accused the SWP of returning to a Stalinist philosophy and embracing personality-driven regimes. Some of them went so far as to label the SWP a cult.

Mason, a former member of the Black Panther Party, told a reporter: "The greatest example of a Socialist government is Cuba, and Nicaragua is right behind, but it's still developing." Zimmermann seemed to have had a lower profile in this campaign if news accounts are any reflection, which granted is not an entirely accurate indicator.

The massive loss of SWP membership was reflected in the rapidly diminishing popular vote compared to previous elections. As low as the 1984 returns were, the SWP would never again (as of 2016) equal it.

The Mason/Zimmermann ticket's highest percentages were in Kentucky 0.23%, Nebraska 0.16%, Minnesota 0.15%, Mississippi and South Dakota 0.11% each, and Ohio 0.10%.

Election history:
1986 - Governor of California (Independent) - defeated

Other occupations: writer for the Militant, author, professor, National Secretary of the GI Civil Liberties Defense Committee

Notes:
Was a write-in the 1986 election.
Spent some of her childhood in the Philippines.
Joined SWP ca. 1968.
Bernie Sanders was an SWP Elector in 1980 (the SWP ticket recieved 75 write-in votes in Vermont)
 and supported the Presidential ticket in 1984. I was driving a taxicab in Burlington in 1979 and who
 knows, I could've driven Bernie to a SWP meeting.
Some sources, including ballots, list her as Matilde Zimmerman.

Harry M. Kieve

Harry M. Kieve, October 12, 1924 (Honolulu, Hawaii) - April 3, 2004 (New York, NY)

VP candidate for Middle Class Party (aka National Middle Class Party) (1980)

Running mate with nominee: Kurt John Max Lynen (b. 1916)
Popular vote: 3,694 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Campaigning as he drove around his old Chevy Nova, automotive parts clerk and machinist Kurt Lynen of Dayton, NJ (here we go again with the Garden State!) had a populist message that was more about class war than it was about Left-Right ideology.

Lynen told a reporter: "If this country is supposed to be of the people, they're not making it of the people ... The elitist and the rich are the only ones to get people elected to the presidency, and they do it only to look out for their own selfish interests ... They should all be thrown in the back seat with tape put over their mouths."

His platform supported capital punishment, nationalizing the oil companies, freeing the Iran hostages with a giant military operation, and have the Cabinet represent all ethnic groups.

When asked what political figures he admired, Lynen observed that "President Richard Nixon will go down in history as being a fine president."

His running mate was Harry M. Kieve of New York, NY. When I see a duo called Lynen (Lenin)/Kieve (Kiev) red flags go up (get it?) and I start to suspect some kind of hoax especially since class struggle is highlighted in the electioneering as the Cold War was still raging. But it does appear both gentlemen actually existed in real life. Aside from lending his name to the ticket Kieve does not seem to have played any role in the campaign.

Lynen actually received more press coverage in his native Vermont than he did in New Jersey, the only state where he was on the ballot. The Middle Class Party ticket placed 7th out of 13 with 0.12%, behind the Right to Life Party but ahead of the Communist Party USA.

Election history: none

Other occupations: ?

Buried: ?

Notes:
Was an "Army brat."
I am reasonably sure I have the right Harry Kieve, but cannot 100% confirm.