There seemed little doubt that the popular Ronald Reagan would be reelected in 1984 with the economy rebounding (although some parts of the Rust Belt remained depressed) and the optimistic national mood, helped along by the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He was renominated unopposed at the RNC in Dallas August 20-23. The convention deployed optimistic imagery to go along with Reagan's campaign slogans "It's Morning in America" and "Leadership That's Working" depicting smiling middle class Americans on their way to work and school in the morning.Although eight different Democrats (Ohio Senator John Glenn, former Vice President Walter Mondale, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, Colorado Senator Gary Hart, South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings, California Senator Alan Cranston, former South Dakota Senator and 1972 Democrat presidential candidate George McGovern, and ex-Florida governor Reubin Askew) announced their plans to run for president, only Jackson, Hart, and Mondale succeeded in winning any primaries. Mondale had the most money and support from Democrat power brokers, but Jackson and Hart fought him aggressively.Jesse Jackson's campaign was cut short when he was caught making anti-Semitic remarks by referring to New York City as "Hymietown." He withdrew from the race after this gaffe, but had been the first serious black presidential candidate after gaining almost 4 million primary votes. Gary Hart proved a formidable opponent by calling Mondale a dinosaur stuck in the New Deal tar pits and that he represented a newer, hipper, and more forward-thinking ideology. However, Hart lacked Mondale's fundraising ability or support from Democrat power blocs especially organized labor. In a TV debate in Atlanta on March 24, Mondale accused Hart of reciting empty buzzwords with no substance, saying "Where's the beef?" in reference to a Wendys TV commercial.
At the DNC in San Francisco July 16-19, Mondale received the nomination with 2,191 ballots while Hart got 1,200. It was the most recent Democrat convention to date where the nominee was not already assured at convention time. Mondale was also the first Democrat presidential candidate since John Davis in 1924 to not be currently holding public office. At his acceptance speech, he made a significant gaffe when he proposed tax hikes as a means of reducing the Federal deficit by saying "President Reagan and I will both raise your taxes, the difference is he will lie to you and claim he won't. I'm saying it up front. I will raise your taxes." Mondale chose as his running mate New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the first female on a major party ticket. He had also considered a black or Hispanic running mate. The choice of Ferraro, it was hoped, would attract women voters and possibly also Italian-Americans.During the general election, Mondale called for a nuclear freeze treaty with the USSR, ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, reduction of the Federal deficit, and criticized Reagan's economic policies as favoring the rich. Geraldine Ferraro however failed to attract the hoped-for female voting bloc and although a Roman Catholic, she came under fire from Catholic organizations for being pro-choice. Her husband John Zaccaro was also accused of ties to organized crime, the pornography industry, and campaign ethics violations. Ferraro produced her and her husband's tax returns to refute these charges, but they stuck and harmed her.Reagan ran into momentary trouble when a Republican campaign ad used rock star Bruce Springsteen's hit song "Born In The USA." Springsteen, without publicly endorsing any candidates, remarked "I don't think the president understands the point of the song."
Reagan and Mondale held two TV debates in Louisville and Philadelphia on October 7 and 11. In the first debate, the president appeared tired and unaware of his surroundings. As a result of this, there was some questioning about his age and fitness to be president. In the second debate, moderator Edwin Newman asked "Mr. President, you are 73. You are the oldest man to ever be president. I remember how during the Cuban Missile Crisis President Kennedy had to go for days without sleep. If such a situation were to happen again, do you think you'd be up to handling it?" Reagan replied "Absolutely I would. You know, I have said before that I will not make age an issue in this campaign, in particular not my opponent's youthfulness and inexperience."That comeback sealed the election for the president much as his "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" remark in the 1980 debates. On Election Day, Reagan won reelection in a record 49 state landslide with 58% of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes. Mondale won 40% of the popular vote, 13 electoral votes, and nothing except his home state and the District of Columbia.Two weeks after the election, Reagan was asked by a reporter what he wanted for Christmas. He replied "Minnesota would sure be nice."
>>18404655>quoting a fast food ad in a political debateAmerifats, people.
>>18404655Not OP but...Just before Reagan took the stage at the 1984 convention, the campaign played an 18-minute video; the full version of their "morning in America" theme. I would strongly suggest viewing it in its entirety for the full effect; but it shows what a former professional actor and some current political and film geniuses can come with.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ax3CUi14kSome side notes:> the networks were outraged that they were being forced to show it, and kept flashing "paid political ad" at the bottom of the screen> it was the first national exposure to the (now famous) Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA"> The video takes the viewer through a full range of well timed emotions. The viewer will feel pride on cue, sad on cue, and patriotic on cueWhen originally broadcast, the video ends on a high note, the viewer feeling pride in America; and, just as the last notes of the song "God Bless The USA" ends, out on stage appears Reagan
>>18404662>Mondale chose as his running mate New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the first female on a major party ticket. He had also considered a black or Hispanic running mate. The choice of Ferraro, it was hoped, would attract women voters andman they were doing this shit already?
>>18404676I was reminded of the time they tried to make a big deal out of (then president) George Bush because he didn't like broccoli> mentions in passing he doesn't like broccoli> a bunch of people are 'outraged'> groups start shipping broccoli to the white houseAt least he kept his sense of humor while putting his foot down:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlzyIbmyM78
>>18404663Ferraro also didn't do much to get women voters. Unsurprisingly most women don't relate to ugly childless dykes.
Reagan was within 5,000 votes of taking Minnesota. Nixon didn't even get that close to all 50 states in 72, he would have needed an additional 250,000 votes.
in Reagan's immortal words, "There you go again."
>>18404655i was a kid at the time. reagan sold his brand better. he was simply more interesting and entertaining in the media.both ferraro and mondale were ok but not as big as personalities as reagan. what's scary is aside from how you feel about any of these characters is that a person can be elected based on their appeal and not on substance or ability. and don't slam me about hating on reagan, this isnt about him being capable or not but on how successful a brand he was based on his image. his folksiness, his ability to tell a story or present case to the public despite whether its true good bad or in between. people believed in him based on emotional connection.
>>18404710'72's tipping-point state went by 21.5% and '84's went by 19% so Nixon's win is still, strictly-speaking, still more impressive.
Reagan '84 was historic, but he's still only #3
>>18404747Ah yes that sneaky conman Reagan turned the election into a popularity contest. Btw did you see how JFK totally owned Nixon at that debate by being more charming than him? Kek, he outclassed him!
>>18404747personality and charisma is extremely important but midwits will never understand that. if you cannot connect with your people then you are not fit to lead, shrimple as.
Reagan did not get a home state boost from California. While he won the national popular vote by 18%, California voted for him by 16%. This unlike 1980 where California voted for him by 17% when he won nationally by 10%. California's break to the left was well underway.
>>18405116California contrary to popular belief did not really flip blue in the 90s, actually it happened much earlier. The state usually voted Republican in presidential elections during the Cold War because it had a lot of defense jobs in it, but state politics were mostly Democrat-controlled since the 50s and especially since 1960.
>>18405116all the same, the fact that the state usually did vote Republican in presidential elections back then led to political commentators talking about how they had an unfair advantage with all those electoral votes
>>18404747Mondale had a few funny/human moments like the where's the beef comment but he was mostly a boring guy.
>>18404662>be papist politician>support abortionWhy are they like this?
>>18404718Wyoming Rule?
>>18405045
>>18404747FDR was a very charming and charismatic bullshitter who convinced the masses they were going somewhere even when they weren't.
WHERE'S THE BEEF?
Sometimes it's not even what a president does, but the image he projects that can inspire confidence and convince people everything is a-ok. That's why Jimmy Carter failed, he looked and sounded defeatist and dragged the country down with him.
>>18404664It's all bread and circuses to placate the serfs.
>>18404710when Seattle and Marin County vote Republican you know it's serious shit
>>18405775that's San Mateo County. Marin last voted Republican in '76. still, i wonder what's with those blue coastal counties in the PNW while Seattle is red.
>>18405779>still, i wonder what's with those blue coastal counties in the PNW while Seattle is red.The Democrats still had a fairly decent farmer constituency back then, mostly but not exclusively in the South. Republicans had a stronger presence in the suburbs.
>>18405328It’s mostly demographic shift, California was majority white back then. Now it’s plurality Hispanic.
>>18405807>It’s mostly demographic shift, California was majority white back then. Now it’s plurality Hispanic.White voters shifted Democrat, black and Hispanic voters voted Democrat in '84 at about the same margins as today. In fact Mondale got like 90% of the total black vote in the presidential election.
>>18404655>Jesse Jackson's campaign was cut short when he was caught making anti-Semitic remarks by referring to New York City as "Hymietown."I thought that was Al Sharpton.
Reagan was a very good TV salesman. He sold bullshit to America and most people bought it hook, line and sinker.
>>18404655One of the worst presidents ever won in a landslide. That’s literally the most American thing ever.
>>18405881Worse than several 19th century presidents or Hoover? Let's not get carried away here.
>>18405883I’d say he’s the worst one in modern history for sure, Selling crack to the inner cities, Spreading misinformation about the AIDS pandemic you can legitimately blame a good chunk of the 31 million AIDS victims on Reagan firing the CDC director for even mildly addressing AIDS, privatizing prisons, The drug war, selling weapons to Iran, funding the contras with Iranian weapons money and drug money, Closing the mental health hospitals. He’s legitimately one of the most dvil Americans in history maybe not top ten worst there were a lot of even more genocidal pricks but he’s up there.
>>18405883How is that getting carried away? Yes, objectively he’s one of the worst ever. His policies are the reason we face so many of our modern problems. Trickle down economics is one of the most fraudulent and ridiculously stupid concepts ever proposed. It has been a catalyst for corporations literally running our government; more so than they did before his presidency. The war on drugs has had a tremendous negative impact on society, particularly on minorities. I love it how people that criticize RR get told to not get carried away because they dare call into question one of the least popular presidents ever. He was absolutely a piece of shit. I never said he was worse than anyone you named, so you assuming I was saying he was THE worst is just making you seem like the naive one. Fuck Reagan and fuck you too.
>>18404710Hmm, still couldn't carry Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens.
>>18405900NYC last went Republican in 1924. Actually Queens tends to be the most Republican-leaning borough; they went for Eisenhower and Nixon. Bronx and Manhattan are much more solidly Democrat.
>>18405913Nixon also only lost the city by three points in '72. He easily carried Staten Island and Queens, barely missed getting the Bronx and Brooklyn, and lost mostly because he got buried in Manhattan.
>>18404710I'm not a Republican but it's amazing (and worth noting) how blue Washington D.C. is, and has been for decades, compared to the rest of the nation that it ostensibly represents.
>>18405924People live in D.C. that have nothing to do with representing the rest of the country. In fact, that's a bone of contention lately because the people who actually live in D.C. get no voting representation in Congress. So they get less say in how the country is run than anyone else (well, short of Puerto Rico, Guam and the like).
>>18405927I meant symbolically. If the shoe were on the other foot, if D.C. were populated by Bible-thumping rednecks that have voted Republican by 80-90% margins for half a century, I bet Democrats would have raised a stink about it at least on a cultural note, and wouldn't support its statehood, for that matter.
>>18404710damn why you so blue, Minnesota?
>>18405942it's full of Scandinavians and they're genetically programmed to be socdem cucks
>>18405945>it's full of Scandinavians and they're genetically programmed to be socdem cucksBullshit. There are tons of rural redneck Scandi hicks up there who are staunch Republicans and do not identify with their distant cousins across the pond. MN's voting tendencies are for reasons other than genetic heritage.
>>18404655i remember this election when i was a kid. yeah i knew Reagan was popular but i didn't think this popular.
>>18405959Part of it was the Democrats being in disarray. They tried going back to appealing to organized labor but labor was far gone in decay by this time.
>>18405961>Part of it was the Democrats being in disarray. They tried going back to appealing to organized labor but labor was far gone in decay by this time.Unions did _not_ have a good reputation by the 80s. The image most people had of union workers was coked-up UAW guys installing body panels on cars incorrectly and going out to smash up Toyotas out of anger that Toyotas actually had correctly installed body panels. This is something zoomlennial Bernouts fail to consider.
>>18404655the Electoral College is bullshit, Reagan won 57% of the popular vote and this map makes it look like he won 90%.
>>18405961yeah that whole Springsteen/Farm Aid/heartland rock bullshit was all a Democrat fundraising effort when they were trying to go back to proving they were the party of the working man instead of welfare recipients and dudeweed people.
>>18405973Reagan was definitely popular. Yes there were people who still voted for the other party, just as there were people who didn't vote for FDR in '36 or Eisenhower in his elections, or Nixon in '72 but all of them had a wide ranging appeal to a broad swathe of the electorate which you don't see today where it's more about finding a particular niche, stirring them up, and encouraging them to vote. Reagan got people excited to vote just like FDR and Ike did.
>>18405981i wonder if we'll ever see another 1936, 1952, 1972, or 1984?
>>18405973>the economy had recovered and was doing well for most of the country by 84 (the Rust Belt excluded)>Mondale, while a pretty intelligent guy, was also quite boring and didn't get anyone excited>politics were also still pretty moderate and the two parties didn't cater to the extreme wing of their base (either the hardcore left or insane libertarians who want to go back to the 19th century)>Reagan himself was relatively moderate and didn't back some of the more extreme libertarian beliefs like abolishing all gun control laws and social safety nets>Dukakis four years later was also a dull guy and the economy was still doing good>by 92 with a recession and the GOP being exhausted at the executive branch allowed Clinton to win with an upbeat, youthful-feeling image and campaign>also Reagan gets a lot of credit for winning the Cold War, yes the Soviets did partially fuck themselves over but he definitely helped them along>since the OPEC embargo the country had had serious inflation and crime issues into Reagan's first term>even the best crime/inflation/unemployment numbers from the Reagan years were still high by today's standards but it had definitely improved over the Carter years>the computer industry was like the Wild West, it was new and exciting and was a big emerging sector of the economy>we had only just started outsourcing jobs overseas and had not yet found out why it was a bad idea>the overall public mood was a lot more optimistic and good-time fun than the 70s>young people could have a good time and do pretty much whatever they wanted despite Tipper Gore's best efforts to the contrary
Reagan was a disaster, but most of the ill effects of his presidency were not realized until after he had left office (the founding of al Qaeda, the erosion of the middle class through trickle down economics, allowing Christinsanity to influence public policy, etc). And the Iran-Contra Scandal had not begun yet.
>>18404710strange how Republican counties are always rural ones with like 5 people living in them while all the areas with actual people/jobs/an economy are blue
>>18406013>Reagan himself was relatively moderate and didn't back some of the more extreme libertarian beliefs like abolishing all gun control laws and social safety netsnot at all. Reagan was the guy who let the Heritage Foundation and the Southern Baptist Council dictate most of his policies. the HF is a nefarious outfit that preaches small government blah blah blah but actually it's to gut regulations and social safety nets so they can go back to their fantasy of the Gilded Age with child workers in coal mines working for $5 an hour and black corpses swinging from trees.
>>18405881RR is only unpopular in the bubble of Reddit and NPR.
>>18406041not true btw many modern historians rank Reagan in the bottom 10 or 15 presidents
i wonder if any boomers who voted for Reagan regret it now?
>>18406044I live in a deep red area of the Midwest. Pretty sure the last time my county voted Democrat was for LBJ in '64. We didn't vote for Clinton or Obama in either of their elections. So lol no Reagan is a deified figure around here and everyone considers him a top 5 president. I even meet boomer Democrats who go "But he was one of the good ones." So no they don't regret voting for him.
>>18406045nobody ever thought boomers were smart or had any judgement
>>18406047Boomers were the largest but not the only voting bloc in 1984.>the early part of Gen X could vote, they didn't turn out much or maybe voted third party, i believe 88 was the first election that had a decent amount of Gen Xer participation>boomers were young to early middle age adults, around half or so voted for Reagan>Silent Generation voters were late middle age, in their late 40s and 50s--the majority of them voted for Reagan>there were also GI Generation voters in their late 50s to 70s, a lot of them voted for him too (although my grandfather voted for Mondale because he was a loyal union Democrat/USW member and just couldn't vote Republican).
>>18404710it feels quite weird to look at a map where Texas and Alabama have more blue than California and Oregon
>>18404710It seems that even in the Rust Belt states which were the hardest hit economically back then Reagan still won handily, just the Pittsburgh area remained safe Democrat territory
>>18405815>In fact Mondale got like 90% of the total black vote in the presidential election>blacks voted for the party of gibesmedatShock?
>>18404710the good thing is most of that sea of red was empty wilderness and farmland that few people actually lived in
>>18406033>>18406071Palpable seethe went into these posts
>>18406033>>18406071Anons, cities vote Dem so reliably because of all the black people that live in them. I wouldn't be so proud of that fact.
>>18406033Republicans win by placating the lowest of America
>>18406020>Reagan was a disaster Gee, like every other president?
>>18406152Dems can't win anything without the black vote for decades now.
>>18406013if you compare the music hits from 84 they sound pretty cheerful and bouncy while stuff from 80 sounds gloomy
