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United States presidential election, 1984 (view source)
Revision as of 22:40, May 14, 2016
, 22:40, May 14, 2016expand
[[Image:84-main.jpg|right|thumb|300px|"I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience." - President Reagan]] President [[Ronald Reagan]] was still popular and approved of by the time came for him to be reelected. While Reagan easily won the [[Republican]] nomination with hardly any dissent, [[Democrat]]s searched hard to find a candidate they thought could win. They eventually chose former Vice President [[Walter Mondale]] as their candidate. Mondale surprised America by choosing Representative [[Geraldine Ferraro]] as his running-mate, the first female Vice Presidential candidate in history and a political unknown. Despite his popularity, Reagan campaigned hard for reelection; however he seemed to look rather exhausted in the first of the [[Presidential Debates]] which was on the economy, an area where his administration had been strong. He improved by the second debate which was on foreign policy -- an area where he did not yet have the same strong accomplishments, but Reagan appeared fresh and experienced and bounced back.
[[Image:84-main.jpg|right|thumb|300px|"I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience." - President Reagan]] President [[Ronald Reagan]] was still popular and approved of by the time came for him to be reelected. While Reagan easily won the [[Republican]] nomination with hardly any dissent, [[Democrat]]s searched hard to find a candidate they thought could win. They eventually chose former Vice President [[Walter Mondale]] as their candidate. Mondale surprised America by choosing Representative [[Geraldine Ferraro]] as his running-mate, the first female Vice Presidential candidate in history and a political unknown. Despite his popularity, Reagan campaigned hard for reelection; however he seemed to look rather exhausted in the first of the [[Presidential Debates]] which was on the economy, an area where his administration had been strong. He improved by the second debate which was on foreign policy -- an area where he did not yet have the same strong accomplishments, but Reagan appeared fresh and experienced and bounced back.
==Primaries and convention==
In 1984 longtime party mechanic Walter Mondale entered the convention 40 delegates shy but secured the nomination with Superdelegates, a contingent of unelected party insiders he helped write into the rules two years earlier. Superdelegates include sitting and former elected officials who can bypass regular rules governing delegate selection to avoid a grassroots backlash and still enjoy a position of power, prestige, and privilege<ref>[http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511228164 DNC Chair Says Superdelegates Ensure Elites Don’t Have To Run “Against Grassroots Activists”], Ben Norton - Salon, Saturday, Feb 13, 2016. democraticunderground.com</ref>.
Insurgent challenger Sen. [[Gary Hart]] won 26 states and 1164 delegates at the convention. Walter Mondale won 17 states and is said to have amassed about 1600 delegates. [[Jesse Jackson]], the first African-American to win states in a major party primary, questioned the disparity between his vote total and delegate count, but even the New Left turned New Democrat, Gary Hart, echoed the DNC in poo-poo'ing Jackson's complaint<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/20/us/disparity-between-jackson-s-vote-and-delegate-count-vexes-party.html?pagewanted=all DISPARITY BETWEEN JACKSON'S VOTE AND DELEGATE COUNT VEXES PARTY], By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM, ''New York Times'', May 20, 1984.</ref>.
By convention time Hart was beating President Reagan by 10 points in national polls, but Mondale won nomination by capturing virtually all the Superdelegates. But most scholars and historians agree Mondale lost the General Election right there and then in his Acceptance Speech by vowing to raise taxes on the American people.
Even at this late date more than 30 years later it is hard to ascertain just exactly how many Superdelegate votes there were at this crooked convention. As of April 2016 Wikipedia's 1984 Democratic Primaries page still does not even mention the term "Superdelegate" anywhere. Multiple original sources put the figure between 550 and 800; ''[[Nation (magazine)|The Nation]]'' magazine says "roughly 700" <ref>[http://www.thenation.com/article/not-so-superdelegates/ Not So Superdelegates], By Ari Berman Editorial, ''The Nation'', January 31, 2008.</ref> and ''Salon'' says 550 <ref>[http://www.salon.com/2015/02/15/exclusive_americas_last_great_convention_mondale_jackson_hart_dish_to_salon_about_wild_1984_dnc/ America’s last great convention: Mondale, Jackson & Hart dish to Salon about wild 1984 DNC], Phil Hirschkorn, ''Salon'', Feb 15, 2015.</ref>. Wikipedia is silent on the matter. Whatever the result, it is patently clear the Democratic establishment was not going to let anyone other than Walter Mondale win the nomination after Sen. Kennedy who helped write the rules for a two-way contest between himself and Mondale forfeited the race in 1982<ref>[https://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Zaller021102/Zaller.pdf Beating Reform:The Resurgence of Parties in Presidential Nominations, 1980-2000], Marty Cohen , David Karol, Hans Noel, Daniel Zaller, University of California Los Angelas, 9/17/01, p. 14 pdf. www.princeton.edu </ref>.
President Reagan ran unopposed in the primaries and won re-nomination.
== Campaign ==
== Campaign ==