Citizens Party (United States)
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The Citizens Party was a short lived United States political party organized by environmental scientist Barry Commoner in approximately 1980.
The Citizens Party platform was pro-environmental and possibly socialist in nature.
The party debated internally before the 1980 election whether to organize campaigning based on local grassroots efforts, or to attempt a national approach; they did the latter. Some have pointed to Commoner's presidential run as a failure because it relied on a cult of personality around Commoner himself; by 1984, his successor candidate pulled in only a third of the votes he had.
Indications seem to be that shortly after 1984, the Citizens Party lost the fundamental ability to function, moved its headquarters from Washington, D.C., then ceased to exist entirely. In some localities, members of the Citizens Party may have reorganized to form the United States Green Party.
In 1988, Jeffery Gale published a history of the Citizen Party campaigns entitled Bullshit: The Media As Power Brokers in Presidential Elections. Gale had been national press secretary for the 1984 presidential campaign.
The Citizens Party is known to have produced two candidates for President of the United States:
- 1980: Barry Commoner and running-mate La Donna Harris. The party received 234,294 of 86,515,221 votes cast, or 0.3%.
- 1984: Sonia Johnson and running-mate Richard Walton. The party received 71,947 of 92,641,042 votes cast, or 0.08%.
Related articles
Further Reading
- Bullshit: The Media As Power Brokers in Presidential Elections by Jeffrey Gale 213 pages Publisher: Bold Hawk Press (July 1, 1988) ISBN 0962024309.
- New York Citizens Party. The Citizens Party salutes Gay Pride Week; vote for Barry Commoner for President and LaDonna Harris for Vice-President in 1980. the Party, New York. 1980.