First woman nominated for U.S. president

Hillary says she is the first woman nominated by a major party for U.S. president. Some news sources leave out some important words and say things which are completely false:

One hundred and nine nominees have been selected by their party to run for the nation’s highest office. And each and every one of them had been a man.

But Hillary is correct, this is a historic milestone. But there are some things left out that make the whole “first woman…” a lot more interesting.

What other women have run for U.S. president? WomensHistory.about.com has the answers (I don’t include all of them, some were publicity stunts and other unserious attempts). I have also included some from Wikipedia:

Victoria Woodhull

Equal Rights Party: 1872
Humanitarian Party: 1892

Belva Lockwood

National Equal Rights Party: 1884, 1888

Laura Clay
Democratic Party, 1920
Like many Southern suffragists she saw women’s suffrage as reinforcing white supremacy and power.
Margaret Chase Smith

Republican Party: 1964
She was the first woman to have her name placed in nomination, but not nominated, for president at a major political party’s convention. She received 227,007 votes in the Republican Primary and won 27 delegates at the 1964 Republican Convention losing out to Barry Goldwater.

Fay T. Carpenter Swain
Democratic Party: 1964
7,140 votes in Indiana primary losing out to Lyndon B. Johnson.

Charlene Mitchell

Communist Party: 1968
She was also the first African American woman nominated for president in the United States.

Shirley Chisholm

Democratic Party: 1972
Placed in nomination, but not nominated. One of three women to seek the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1972 along with Mink and Abzug.

Patsy Takemoto Mink

Democratic Party: 1972
She was the first Asian American to seek nomination as president by a major political party and one of three in 1972 along with Chisholm and Abzug.

Bella Abzug

Democratic Party: 1972 

One of three women to seek the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1972 along with Chisholm and Mink.

Linda Osteen Jenness

Socialist Workers Party: 1972

Evelyn Reed

Socialist Workers Party: 1972In states where SWP candidate Linda Jenness was not accepted for the ballot because she was under the Constitutional age for qualifying for the presidency, Evelyn Reed ran in her place.

Ellen McCormack

Democratic Party: 1976; Right to Life Party: 1980

McCormack ran against legalized abortion and won 238,000 votes in 18 primaries in the Democratic campaign, winning 22 delegates in 5 states.

Deidre Griswold

Workers World Party: 1980

Maureen Smith

Peace and Freedom Party: 1980

Sonia Johnson

Citizens Party: 1984

Gavrielle Holmes

Workers World Party: 1984

Isabelle Masters

Looking Back Party, etc.: 1984, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004

Patricia Schroeder

Democratic Party: 1988

Lenora Fulani

American New Alliance Party: 1988, 1992

Willa Kenoyer

Socialist Party: 1988

Gloria E. LaRiva

Workers World Party / Party for Socialism and Liberation: 1992

Helen Halyard

Worker’s League: 1992

Millie Howard

Republican: 1992, 1996; Independent: 2000; Republican: 2004, 2008

Monica Moorehead

Workers World Party: 1996, 2000

Marsha Feinland

Peace and Freedom Party: 1996

Mary Cal Hollis

Socialist Party: 1996

Heather Anne Harder

Democratic Party: 1996

Elvena E. Lloyd-Duffie

Democratic Party: 1996

Georgina H. Doerschuck

Republican Party: 1996

Susan Gail Ducey

Republican Party: 1996

Ann Jennings

Republican Party: 1996

Diane Beall Templin

American Party: 1996

Joanne Jorgensen

Libertarian Party: 1996
She did get the VP nomination, with Harry Browne getting the Presidential nomination of the party.

Elizabeth Dole

Republican Party: 2000

Cathy Gordon Brown

Independent: 2000

Monica Moorehead
Workers World Party: 2000

Carol Moseley Braun

Democratic Party: 2004

Diane Beall Templin
The American Party: 2004

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Democratic Party: 2008

Cynthia McKinney

Green Party: 2008

Gloria La Riva
Party for Socialism and Liberation: 2008

Michele Bachmann

Republican, 2012

Peta Lindsay

Party for Socialism and Liberation, 2012

Jill Stein

Green Party, 2012

Roseanne Barr

Peace and Freedom Party, 2012

Hillary Clinton
Democratic Party: 2012, 2016

One of the things I found interesting was that while there was a white supremacist Democrat in 1920 running for president it was a Republican woman who “was the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for president at a major political party’s convention.”

The other thing I found interesting was that so many of the women were/are socialists and communists. Of course these days the Democratic Party has taken essentially all of the Socialist and Communists party platforms so Clinton is just as comfortable as a Democratic as she would have been with so many of the others who ran on other tickets in the past.

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7 thoughts on “First woman nominated for U.S. president

  1. Females appear to be wired for socialism, or at least have strong biological drives toward security and family/group support. This, of course, is directed toward the raising of children (do it for the children!). I suspect that this condition is why the Founders did not consider women voting to be a good thing, as they will always steer things in a direction that is ultimately bad for society.

    • Mildly plausible, but possibly rife with assumption. For one thing, we’ve had at least a full hundred years of public victim-status-mongering for women, and that can’t but influence things. It’s gotten to the point where you can’t disagree with certain women without being accused of fearing or at least not knowing how to deal with “strong women”, the definition of which, by observation of common usage I have determined, is “ignorant bitches”.

      Supporting evidence is that the self-described “strong woman” is almost invariably the one who wants government to take care of her and make her feel safe and comfortable in a cocoon devoid of desagreement or challenge, as opposed to wanting the freedom to take care of herself and her own.

  2. Polite Correction: “Losing”, not “Loosing”

    Please don’t think me a jerk, but that just bangs my OCD. It happens to me, too. Auto-correct is not always my friend.

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