The campaign headquarters was a cluttered office with threadbare furniture and a crumbling ceiling in a downtown Milwaukee building that has since been torn down. There was no paid staff and the tiny campaign budget was mostly spent on mimeographed newsletters that the candidate himself folded and stapled for mailing. The candidate, who did not like to fly and was too nearsighted to drive, was driven to local speaking engagements in the family car. The only significant campaign trip was a train ride to Boston to speak to a few dozen people. The candidate, although as earnest in his stances as any man who had ever sought the presidency, admittedly had only taken the nomination because no one else wanted it.
Welcome to Frank Zeidler for President, 1976.
Mayor of Milwaukee from 1948 to 1960, Zeidler remains the last socialist mayor of a major city. He remained active in socialist politics and was one of the principals in the formation of Socialist Party USA, a group descendent of the Socialist Party of the United States of America, in 1973. In 1912, the party held more than 1,000 elected positions nationwide and the Socialist ticket for President—headed by former Indiana State Senator Eugene Debs with Milwaukee Mayor Emil Seidel as his running mate—won over 900,000 votes, six percent of the national total. But the party was a shadow of its former self by the 1970s. No Socialist Party candidate had run for President since 1956, when Darlington Hoopes polled just 2,000 votes.
Seeing the 1976 campaign as a chance to help put across a positive message about socialist politics and policies, Zeidler reluctantly took the nomination for the head of Socialist Party USA ticket. Joining him was Chicago schoolteacher Quinn Brisben. Zeidler took the job on the condition that he only be expected to wage a “front porch campaign,” mostly staying at home while his running mate traveled. They ended up on just seven state ballots.
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While the Zeidler campaign was mostly ignored as a third (or 13th, based on their order of finish) party non-factor, the former mayor did get some warm press in Milwaukee. An October feature in the Milwaukee Journal’s magazine section detailed the Spartan nature of the effort and the quiet dignity of Zeidler’s doomed quest. They also gave space to Zeidler’s core issues – protecting the environment, ending the arms race, addressing world hunger, passing the Equal Rights Amendment, empowering workers to sit on corporate boards of directors, and the prioritization of mass transit over private automobiles—issues that Zeidler rightly said were being overlooked by the major party candidates. Zeidler, who had taken the streetcar to work every day as mayor and was a committed conversationalist, was still personally true to his policies, riding the bus and typing letters on the backsides of old campaign literature to save paper.
On Election Day, Zeidler spent his usual eight hours at work, arbitrating labor disputes and caching up on party correspondence, before heading to Turner Hall for an Election Night party. The Milwaukee Sentinel reported that just 35 people attended the event, but it was a lively and friendly group – more blue jeans than neckties and more than one guitar. “No place did I encounter hostility or attacks on my character,” he told a reporter that night. “I don’t think either of the major candidates can make the same claim.”
Zeidler tallied just over 6,000 votes with more than 2,500 of those coming in Milwaukee County.
