Presidential Bid

During his political career, Eugene V Debs ran for president as the Socialist Party candidate five times. He ran in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1920. While imprisoned for contempt of court, he ran for president for the last time. Supporters made campaign buttons that recognized Debs as "Convict No. 9653." Even though Debs was running as a third-party candidate and would have to overcome obstacles not presented to his fellow running mates. Even though the socialist party would not overcome the two major political parties, historian H. Wayne Morgan believes that the socialists were successful because "they stood as a reminder that they were perhaps only the first expression of a much larger potential." 1

In 1912, when Debs was running against Wilson, Roosevelt, and Taft, it was understood that "both Wilson and Roosevelt had "stolen Debs' thunder," that is, taken over several ideas of the Socialist Party and made them their own" ² Although Debs understood he would never win the presidency he still considered in a moral race that was still successful to a degree. He was able to gain 6% of the popular vote in the 1912 presidential election. This was nearly one million votes. However, he did not receive a single electoral vote. 

Debs believed that "The Socialist party is fundamentally different from all other parties. It came in the process of evolution and grows with the growth of the forces which created it. Its spirit is militant, and its aim revolutionary. It expresses in political terms the aspiration of the working class to freedom and to a larger and fuller life than they have yet to know." It is clear that Debs did not involve himself with the corrupt game of politics that many other politicians were associated with. 

1Morgan, H. Wayne. "'Red Special': Eugene V. Debs and the Campaign of 1908." Indiana Magazine of History 54, no. 3 (1958): 211–36. 

^{2 Constantine, J. Robert. "Eugene V. Debs: An American Paradox." Monthly Labor Review 114, no. 8 (1991): 30–33}