Lie Downplaying Socialist Votes REFUTED!

CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON BRIAN'S 2008 ELECTION RESULTS REFUTED BY HISTORIAN DARCY G. RICHARDSON
Independent Political Report, Monday, August 10, 2009

Darcy G. Richardson refutes Jeremy Young's historical inaccuracies on criticizing Brian Moore's socialist candidacy for president, 2008

“If I'm not mistaken, his [Brian's election results] is the worst showing the Socialist Party has ever had, going back to the days of Debs and even earlier.” — Jeremy Young

Response by historian and author on political third parties, Darcy G. Richardson: While nobody was more disappointed in his relatively poor showing than Brian Moore himself, it simply isn't true that the 6,538 votes cast for him represents the “worst showing” in the party's history. As meager as it was, Brian still managed to outperform at least a half-dozen Socialist Party candidates for President in the post-Norman Thomas era.

During the Cold War, Darlington Hoopes, a former Socialist state legislator from Pennsylvania and Thomas's vice-presidential running mate a dozen years earlier, garnered less than a third of Moore 's total during the 1956 presidential election.

In terms of popular votes, Brian also outpolled former Milwaukee Mayor Frank P. Zeidler, the party's nominee in 1976 — no small feat given Zeidler's considerably higher name recognition. Including write-in votes, Zeidler garnered 6,062 votes nationally, 4,298 which were from his native Wisconsin .

In addition to improving on the 5,602 votes cast in 2000 for David McReynolds — one of the party's most appealing and articulate candidates in the post-Thomas period —Brian Moore also garnered more votes than the party's presidential nominees in 1988, 1992 and 1996.

In terms of media coverage — and exposure for the party and its principles — Brian arguably did as well as any Socialist Party candidate since Thomas's 1948 campaign.

There's nothing worse than a self-described historian who doesn't bother to read history, or at least do a little basic research before commenting on a given subject.

Darcy G. Richardson

Darcy G . Richardson is the author of six books, including five volumes of a planned seven-volume history on independent and third-party politics in America . He also authored "A Nation Divided: The 1968 Presidential Campaign."