Peace and Freedom Party

Infobox_American_Political_Party
party_name = Peace and Freedom Party
party_articletitle = Peace and Freedom Party
party_
chairman = State Central Committee
senateleader =
houseleader =
foundation = June 23, 1967
ideology = Feminist
Socialist
Environmentalist
fiscalpolicy = Left-wing
socialpolicy = Left-wing
international =
colours = Black
headquarters =
website = http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/
footnotes = The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a ballot-listed minor political party in California. It is a left-wing feminist and socialist party. Although its first candidates appeared on the ballot in 1966, the national party was founded in 1967 as a leftist organization opposed to the Vietnam War. Since that time, the party has become consolidated in California. The party has endorsed Ralph Nader for President in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. [http://peaceandfreedom.org/home/]

Platform

The PFP from the very beginning has been a left-of-center political organization. It is a strong advocate of protecting the environment from pollution and nuclear waste. It advocates the right of self-determination, personal liberties, and universal free access to education and health care. Since 1974, the Peace and Freedom Party platform has been feminist and socialist. Its understanding of socialism includes a socialist economy, where industries, financial institutions, and natural resources are owned by the people as a whole and democratically managed by the people who work in them and" use them.

Organization

The Peace and Freedom Party is governed by its State Central Committee (SCC) and local County Central Committees. The party central committees are elected in the direct primary election, with any Peace and Freedom registrant eligible to run. Local County Central Committees and the State Central Committee may also appoint persons to membership who wish to be active in the party. A biennial state convention adopts the PFP platform.

History

Founding

The Peace and Freedom Party was organized on June 23, 1967 by social activists in the farm workers, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam War movements. Its initial registration drive began at a demonstration against Lyndon Johnson at the Century City Plaza in Los Angeles California.

The party's name has sometimes created confusion with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, an international anti-war organization. While many Peace and Freedom Party members are also members of WILPF, the two organizations are not affiliated with each other and have no historical connection.

The Peace and Freedom Party grew out of unhappiness with the Democratic Party's support for the war in Vietnam and failure to effectively support the civil rights movement.

In 1966, three men ran for the U.S. House on the Peace & Freedom Party label. Herbert Aptheker received 3,562 votes in New York's 12th Congressional District; Robert B. Shaw received 1,974 votes in Washington's 7th Congressional District; and Frank L. Patterson received 1,105 votes in Washington's 2d Congressional District.

Election of 1968

The party achieved ballot status in California at the start of 1968 by registering over 105,000 voters under its banner. It later got ballot status in 13 other states, but in most of those, the election laws and small organization meant that it was unable to retain ballot status after 1968.

The PFP's first national convention to nominate candidates for President and Vice President was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 17-August 18, 1968. Eldridge Cleaver was nominated for President over Richard C. "Dick" Gregory by a margin of 161.5 to 54. Cleaver, a convicted felon and Black Panther spokesman, was technically not eligible to run since he was only 34 years old at the time. Due to the needs of the state parties to collect signatures, the party fielded several different vice presidential nominees, including Chicago activist Peggy Terry, [FNU] Gonzalez, radical economist Doug Dowd, and Judith Mage, who had been nominated at the national convention. Cleaver personally preferred Yippie leader Jerry Rubin. Gregory formed a competing Freedom and Peace party and ran separately. Two states (California and Utah) refused to list Cleaver on the ballot, although each state listed the Presidential Electors and candidates for Vice President (Terry in California and Gonzalez in Utah).

A variety of people joined the PFP in its first election. Bob Avakian was a spokesman for the party in the San Francisco Area. The New York Peace and Freedom Party consisted of a fractious coalition of competing Marxist groups, along with libertarians led by economist Murray Rothbard. Libertarians briefly took over the California branch of the party as well.

In the election of 1968, the PFP fared fairly well for a new third party. Gregory outpolled Cleaver, receiving 47,097 votes to Cleaver's 36,623. In California and Utah, where no presidential nominee appeared on the ballot, the voters cast 27,887 votes for the PFP. The full nationwide vote for Presidential Electors was thus 111,607. PFP candidates for the U.S. Senate garnered an aggregate nationwide total of 105,411 votes. In Utah, the PFP fielded folk musician Bruce "Utah" Phillips for Congress, garnering 2,019 votes. The PFP gained ballot access in California, which it retained except for the brief period 1999-2003.

The People's Party and the PFP

After 1968, the PFP affiliates in most states dissolved, with the California party as the primary exception. Throughout the 1970s, the California party continued to contest local elections but endorsed the national candidates of the left-wing People's Party. In 1972, the People's Party nominated the democratic socialist and anti-war activist Benjamin Spock for President, and in 1976 it nominated Margaret Wright of California for President.

Recent History

In 1998, the PFP failed to attain more than 2% of the votes cast, causing the party to lose ballot status in the state. Their position on the ballot was restored in 2003 after a voter registration drive. Longtime PFP activist CT Weber was one of 135 candidates who ran for governor in the October 2003 recall election, in which voters threw out then-Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, and elected Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the August 2004 State Convention, the Native American activist Leonard Peltier was nominated as the party's presidential candidate. Peltier was at the time (and as of 2008, still is) imprisoned as a convicted murderer; however, his supporters believe that he was framed and is a political prisoner instead. Party members who supported Peltier’s candidacy hoped to draw attention to his case, and to the effort to win a presidential pardon for Peltier.

The party again fell under the required number of registered voters to retain ballot status in February 2006, and was declared disqualified by the California Secretary of State. However, citing previous instances in which parties not meeting the 'ballot qualification' criteria were still allowed to participate in primary elections and the fact that there had not yet been a regular gubernatorial election since the party regained its ballot status (and as such, the decision was premature), the decision to bar the party from the June 2006 Primary was reversed after less than a week.

In the November 7, 2006 election, two Peace and Freedom Party candidates received over 2% of the vote, thus ensuring the party's ballot status for the next four years. (Elizabeth Barron received 212,383 votes, 2.5% of the total, for Controller, [http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/ctl/00.htm] and Tom Condit received 187,618 votes, 2.2% of the total, for Insurance Commissioner. [http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/ins/00.htm] )

On the March 30, 2008 the State Central Committee endorsed a plan to create a National Organizing Committee and national political party. The NOC is instructed to work toward a national "multi-tendency non-sectarian organization committed to socialism, democracy, feminism, environmentalism and racial equality." [ http://peaceandfreedom.org/home/index.php/articles/partisan-number-25/18-partisan-number-25/125-pfp-adopts-national-organizing-plan ] . A national organizing conference was set for December 2008, following the general election.

A political convention was held August 2-3, 2008 in Sacramento to select the party's 2008 presidential ticket. Contending for the nomination were Gloria La Riva, also nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Cynthia McKinney, also nominee of the Green Party, Brian Moore, also nominee of the Socialist Party and independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Nader won the vote as follows: Nader 46, Gloria La Riva 27, Brian Moore 10, Cynthia McKinney 6. Nader's running mate, former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez was endorsed for Vice President by acclamation. [http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/08/02/nader-wins-pfp-nomination/] The nomination ensures that the Nader/Gonzalez presidential ticket will appear on the ballot in the most populous state for the 2008 election.

On August 6, 2008, the Nader/Gonzalez campaign submitted sufficient signatures to appear on the Iowa ballot as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate. If Nader receives 2% or more of the Iowa vote, the party will be ballot-qualified in Iowa for the next election cycle. This is the first expansion of the party beyond California since the 1970s. [http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/08/06/nader-submits-iowa-petition-using-peace-freedom-ballot-label/]

Presidential tickets

* 1968 - Eldridge Cleaver & Douglas Fitzgerald Dowd
* 1972 - Benjamin Spock & Julius Hobson (People's Party)
* 1976 - Margaret Wright & Benjamin Spock (People's Party)
* 1980 - Maureen Smith & Elizabeth Barron
* 1984 - Sonia Johnson (Citizens Party) & Emma Wong Mar
* 1988 - Herbert Lewin & Vikki Murdock
* 1992 - Ronald Daniels & Asiba Tupahache
* 1996 - Marsha Feinland & Kate McClatchy
* 2004 - Leonard Peltier & Janice Jordan
* 2008 - Ralph Nader & Matt Gonzalez

California Gubernatorial candidates

* 1970 - Ricardo Romo 65,954 (1.0%)
* 1974 - Elizabeth Keathley 75,004 (1.2%)
* 1978 - Marilyn Seals 70,864 Votes (1.0%)
* 1982 - Elizabeth Martinez 70,327 Votes (0.9%)
* 1986 - Maria Elizabeth Muñoz 51,995 Votes (1.0%)
* 1990 - Maria Elizabeth Muñoz 88,707 Votes (1.3%)
* 1994 - Gloria LaRiva 72,774 Votes (0.9%)
* 1998 - Gloria LaRiva 59,218 Votes (0.71%)
* 2003 - C.T. Weber 1,626 Votes (0.02%)
* 2006 - Janice Jordan 69,934 Votes (0.8%)

ee also

* List of political parties in the United States
* Ralph Nader

References

* [http://www.greens.org/s-r/12/12-05.html "Peace and Freedom Party from 1967 to 1997" "Synthesis/Regeneration" 12 (Winter 1997)]
* [http://www.freevenice.org/Venice/PFP_History.html "History of the Venice Peace and Freedom Party"] by John Haag. Freevenice.org. Retrieved April 4, 2005.

External links

* [http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/ California Peace and Freedom Party]
** [http://peaceandfreedom.org/home/index.php/about-us/platform Platform of the Peace and Freedom Party]
* [http://www.peaceandfreedom2008.org/ Peace and Freedom Party Campaign 2008]
* JoinCalifornia: [http://www.joincalifornia.com/search?search=%22peace+and+Freedom%22 Peace and Freedom Candidates (1968 to Present)]
* [http://peaceandfreedom-sjv.org/ Peace and Freedom Party of the San Joaquin Valley]
* [http://www.freevenice.org/VPFP/Venice_PFP_Info.html Venice Peace and Freedom]
* [http://www.peaceandfreedomjournal.org Journal of Peace and Freedom]
* [http://groups.myspace.com/peaceandfreedom Peace & Freedom at Myspace main page]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/sglGreatSpeechesandInterviews_P_FPresidentandtheImperialPresidency Peace & Freedom Presidential Candidate Debate] from Sacramento, CA recorded on Aug. 1, 2008, Part 1.
* [http://www.archive.org/details/sglGreatSpeechesandInterviews_Peace_FreedomPresidentialCandidatesPart2 Peace & Freedom Presidential Candidate Debate] from Sacramento, CA recorded on Aug. 1, 2008, Part 2.