And Frank Zeidler has died. Zeidler was a three-term mayor of Milwaukee and the last Socialist to run a major American city. In 1976, he ran as the Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. Zeidler appeared on Democracy Now in June of 2004.

• Frank Zeidler: “My feeling of history — and it goes back quite a bit — the country is as divided as it has ever been, perhaps, almost since the Civil War. The division over the Bush Administration and its foreign policies, particularly its idea of pre-emptive war and its hostility to other countries, they were going to go it alone, it is ignoring of the United Nations until recently has caused a severe division in the country. And you go to different parts of the country and they’re either rabid bush fans or they’re very strongly opposed to him. He’s a polarizing figure and more than any other person that I can remember in my time.”

Frank Zeidler died Friday at the age of ninety-three.