Lyndon LaRouche
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. is a perennial candidate for President of the United States.
Presidential campaigns
He ran in 1976 as the candidate of the U.S. Labor Party. In 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000 he entered (and lost) the Democratic Party primary, then ran as an independent candidate in the general election. In 2004 he again entered the Democratic primary, but did not run as an independent and endorsed John Kerry in the general election. The Democratic Party does not recognize LaRouche as a Democratic candidate and does not grant credentials to his delegates, although he typically wins a handful of delegates in some state primaries. Except for the 1980 election when he was included in some New Hampshire debates he has not been a high-profile candidate.
History
LaRouche was a former member of the Socialist Workers Party from the 1940s to the 1960s. During the late 1960s following his expulsion from the Socialist Workers Party he taught a class on Marxist theory and picked up a small following of leftist students in New York. During his Marxist period he used the pen-name of Lyn Marcus. This following became the nucleus of his political movement under the umbrella group called the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). His movement published a newspaper, New Solidarity. During the early 1970s LaRouche's NCLC became known as one of the most controversial groups to come out of the 1960s New Left, culminating in violent attacks in 1973 on members of rival leftist sects such as the Communist Party which LaRouche called "Operation Mop-Up". The U.S. Labor Party was the electoral vehicle for LaRouche and his followers during the 1970s. Around the time of his 1976 run for President on the U.S. Labor Party ticket, LaRouche began to abandon Marxism, abandoning it completely by 1978. After 1978 and throughout the 1980s and 1990s LaRouche tried positioning himself as a political conservative, although never accepted as such by most conservatives, and has since swung back to the left. His organization formed a number of affiliated groups such as the Schiller Institute, and publications such as 21st Century Science and Technology magazine and New Federalist newspaper. LaRouche served a prison term from 1988 to 1994 over mail fraud and tax charges involving fundraising by his political organization.