2008 Socialist Equality Party Electoral Candidates
Candidate Bios
US Presidential Candidate Jerry White
Jerry White
Jerry White, 49, has been a member of the socialist movement for 29 years, joining in New York City where he was a
worker at United Parcel Service and a student at the City University of New York. As a member of the Workers League, the predecessor
of the Socialist Equality Party, he played an active role during the 1980s and 1990s in the struggle of coal miners, auto workers and
other sections of the working class against corporate union-busting and the betrayals of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy. A regular contributor
to the World Socialist Web Site, he recently led the party's intervention in the three-month strike of American Axle workers. White, who
lives in the Detroit area, has run for congress and in 1996 was the SEP candidate for US president.
US Vice Presidential Candidate Bill Van Auken
Bill Van Auken
Bill Van Auken, 58, is a full-time writer for the World Socialist Web Site whose involvement in the
struggles of the American and international workers movement spans 37 years. He joined the Workers League,
the predecessor of the SEP, in 1971, during a period marked by the Vietnam War and growing militancy within the
American working class. He began writing for the Workers League's newspaper, The Bulletin, in 1979. Fluent in Spanish,
he has written extensively on political developments and social struggles in Latin America. He lives in New York City.