The Other "Harris" Who Ran for President

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

A half-century has now passed since another prominent Democratic politician whose last name was Harris ran for President - and in fact, did so twice, in 1972 and 1976.

Fred Harris was nine days shy of his 34th birthday when he arrived in Washington, DC in early November of 1964 to assume the duties and responsibilities of being Oklahoma's junior US Senator.  Harris had won a special election to complete the term of Robert S. Kerr who had died in office.  Even sixty years ago Oklahoma was trending hard right politically, but Harris, who had pronounced liberal tendencies, managed to win not only that race, but also managed to get himself elected to a full 6-year term two years later.  Harris had brought President and Mrs. Johnson to Oklahoma to campaign for his in his initial senate run, and his opponent former OU football coach Bud Wilkinson, used former Vice President Richard Nixon in his campaign.

Harris proved to be a strong supporter of LBJ's "Great Society" programs which sought to fight poverty, improve educational opportunities for all,  and created the Job Corps, VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), as well as Medicare and Medicaid.  He also fought to keep Church and State clearly separated.

In 1968 after LBJ announced that he would not run for re-election, the Democratic Party chose Vice President Hubert Humphrey (after a very turbulent political convention in Chicago) as its presidential nominee, and Humphrey reportedly only had two candidates in mind to run as Vice President on his ticket:  Maine's Senator Edmund Muskie (whom he eventually selected) and Fred Harris of Oklahoma. Humphrey's primary concern with Harris was his young age:  thirty-seven.

Fred Harris also served as the Chair of the National Democratic Party from early 1969 through early 1970.

As Fred Harris's six-year term neared its end with the 1972 elections, the young senator realized that he was too far to the left politically the be re-elected to the Senate from Oklahoma, so he chose instead to push all of his chips onto the table and run for President, and while he had some limited successes in the primaries, in the end he was far outpaced by other candidates - and his fellow senator, George McGovern of South Dakota, won the nomination and went on to lose every state in the nation but Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, to the Republican incumbent, Richard Nixon.

But Fred Harris refused to give up on national politics, and in 1976 the former US Senator from Oklahoma again entered the presidential race, which also proved to be unsuccessful.  After Jimmy Carter won the nomination that year, Harris gave up on politics and relocated to New Mexico where he spent his remaining years teaching at the University of New Mexico and writing about politics.

Fred Harris, the former United States Senator and two-time presidential aspirant, passed away at the age of ninety-four at a hospital in Albuquerque last Saturday.

I met Fred Harris and his beautiful Native American (Comanche) wife, LaDonna, at a small political rally in Miami, Oklahoma, while he was running for President in 1976.  It was in the winter, not long before he ran in and lost the Iowa Primary.  The Harrises were traveling the country in an RV and staying at campgrounds, which I remember him talking about at that event.  He said at some point a fellow had struck up a conversation with him in a restroom at a national park and said that he had heard there was a presidential candidate staying at the park.  Harris said that he then washed his hands and introduced himself.

Fred and LaDonna would also avail themselves of the hospitality of others and stay in private homes while on the campaign trail.  At those homes they would leave a certificate that was good for one night at the White House during the Harris administration.

Political money apparently did not flow as freely back in the day as it currently does.

Fred and LaDonna divorced in the 1980's and he remarried the next year.  I was privileged to meet LaDonna Harris again in the new millennium when we were both paying guests on a Caribbean Cruise sponsored by Ms. Magazine and the National Association of Social Workers.  LaDonna Harris ran unsuccessfully for Vice President of the United States on the Citizen'sParty ticket with Barry Commoner in 1980 - so Kamala wasn't even the first Harris to seek that position.

The Harrises were and are good people - all of them!