Osborne Hart credits his Philadelphia mayoral campaign last year with raising his profile in the Socialist Workers Party enough that the political organization put him on its presidential ticket.
The Walmart employee who lives in Germantown is running as the party's vice presidential candidate. He has spent the last several months traveling the country -- and beyond -- alongside his running mate and the Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate, Alyson Kennedy.
Hart, 64, has been active in Socialist Party politics for years, but he said this is the first time he's been part of the party's presidential ticket.
"It came out of what we assessed was a pretty good campaign in the Philadelphia mayoral race," Hart said in a phone interview from the campaign trail in Tennessee. "We’re on the ballot in seven states and Tennessee is one of them."
Hart ultimately didn't make much of a dent in the mayoral election, garnering just 1,257 votes, or 0.5 percent. He finished a very distant fourth to now-Mayor Jim Kenney in an election that saw 238,000 city voters cast ballots.
And while the Socialist Workers Party presidential ticket did make it into seven states' ballots in the Nov. 8 presidential election, Hart won't even be able to vote for himself. His ticket didn't make it onto the Pennsylvania ballot.
New Jersey voters will have the option of pulling the lever for Hart and Kennedy, though they also have plenty of other options besides the Republican and Democratic tickets. Nine political parties secured presidential ballot spots: Republicans, Democrats, Workers World, American Delta, Socialist Workers, Green, Libertarian, Socialism and Liberation, and Constitution.
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In Pennsylvania, voters will see the two major parties and three minor parties: Libertarian, Green and Constitution.
Hart will be on ballots in Tennessee, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington state, Utah, Louisiana and New Jersey.
"The issue of ballot access unless you’re a Republican or Democrat is really difficult," Hart said. "I was in Canada recently. And the people in Canada can’t believe it. Same thing in Australia and New Zealand. I was there recently too. In australia, they have a mayoral race going on and there were 19 candidates in the race. People there were like why is there only two candidates on the ballot in the U.S.?"
See if you remember Hart from his Philly mayoral candidacy days. Here's a link to a video he shot with The Next Mayor project last year.
