John Bryan Jimmy Carter Howell Raines Popular Books

John Bryan Jimmy Carter Howell Raines Biography & Facts

From February 20 to June 12, 1984, voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for president in the 1984 United States presidential election. Former Vice President Walter Mondale was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 1984 Democratic National Convention held from July 16 to July 19, 1984, in San Francisco, California. Mondale won 38% of the popular vote, which meant 62% of Democratic voters voted against him when the non-Mondale vote was smooshed together. Gary Hart offered a new breed of Democratic policies that foreshadowed the presence of Bill Clinton eight years later, and Hart finished with 36% of the Democratic primary vote and he won 26 contests, most of which are in the whole region of New England and most of the Western United States, indicating that there were Democrats who are still mad at Jimmy Carter for the disastrous 1980 elections, so they took it on Carter's former Vice President Mondale. In the general election after the Convention, Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his nominee for Vice President to win the female vote, and ran a liberal campaign on passing the Equal Rights Amendment, a nuclear freeze, continuing the New Deal and the Great Society, and criticized Reagan's economic policies. Mondale and Ferraro went on to lose to President Reagan and Vice President Bush in a landslide, losing all but Minnesota and Washington, D.C. for just 13 electoral votes and 40% of the nationwide popular vote. Candidates Nominee Withdrew during primaries or convention Withdrew during primaries Timeline Background The Commission on Presidential Nomination was formed in July 1981, under the leadership of Jim Hunt. The commission sought to increase the power of elected officials, who could choose a more moderate and ideologically representative candidate. Alan Cranston, Gillis William Long, and Walter Mondale supported giving elected officials positions as uncommitted delegates while Ted Kennedy opposed it. The report was completed on February 5, 1982. The commission allocated 568 delegates, 14% of the total, to unelected superdelegates, who were party leaders and elected officials. The primary schedule was reduced to occur from March to June, with the exception of Iowa and New Hampshire. 411 of the superdelegates were elected officials and 157 were party officials. Members of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate accounted for 200 delegates. Mondale's campaign capitalized on this and Richard Moe, with 20 lobbyists, gained support for Mondale from members of Congress. Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. lobbied for congressional support for John Glenn. The majority of delegates were selected through primaries. Twenty-six primaries were held in 1984, less than the thirty-one in 1980. Mondale performed best in states with primaries while California was the only primary that Hart won. Hart won more caucus states than Mondale. Overview and pre-contests Kennedy, one of the leading possible candidates, announced in December 1982, that he would not run for the presidential nomination. In June 1983, Cranston won a series of straw polls in Alabama, California, and Wisconsin and placed second in Massachusetts. Mondale won a straw poll in Maine in October. Glenn criticized the excessive spending on the straw poll as Cranston and Mondale both spent $100,000 and Hollings spent $25,000 while campaigning for it. Jackson ended up winning 21% of the national primary vote but received only 8% of the delegates to the national convention, and he initially charged that his campaign was hurt by the same party rules that allowed Mondale to win. He also poured scorn on Mondale, saying that Hubert Humphrey was the "last significant politician out of the St. Paul-Minneapolis" area. Colorado Senator Gary Hart was little-known when he announced his run February 1983, and barely received above 1% in the polls compared to other well-known figures. To counter this, Hart started campaigning early in New Hampshire, making a then-unprecedented canvassing tour in late September, months before the primary. This strategy attracted national media attention to his campaign, and by late 1983, he had risen moderately in the polls to the middle of the field, mostly at the expense of the sinking candidacies of John Glenn and Cranston. Hart criticized Mondale as an "old-fashioned" Great Society Democrat who symbolized "failed policies" of the past. Hart positioned himself as a younger, fresher, and more moderate Democrat who could appeal to younger voters. He emerged as a formidable candidate, winning the key Ohio and California primaries as well as several others, especially in the West. However, Hart could not overcome Mondale's financial and organizational advantages, especially among labor union leaders in the Midwest and industrial Northeast. Hart was also badly hurt during a televised debate when Mondale used a popular television commercial slogan to ridicule Hart's vague "New Ideas" platform. Turning to Hart on camera, Mondale said that whenever he heard Hart talk about his "New Ideas", he was reminded of the Wendy's fast-food slogan "Where's the beef?". The remark drew loud laughter and applause from the audience and caught Hart off-guard. Hart never fully recovered from Mondale's charge that his "New Ideas" were shallow and lacking in specifics. Earlier in the same Democratic primary debate, Hart committed a serious faux pas that largely went underreported. Asked what he would do if an unidentified airplane flew over the Iron Curtain from a Warsaw Pact nation, Hart replied that he would send up a United States Air Force plane and instruct them to determine whether or not it was an enemy plane by looking in the cockpit window to see if the pilots were wearing uniforms. Fellow candidate John Glenn, a former Marine Corps fighter pilot, replied that this was physically impossible. At a roundtable debate between the three remaining Democratic candidates moderated by Phil Donahue, Mondale and Hart got in such a heated argument over the issue of U.S. policy in Central America that Jackson had to tap his water glass on the table to get them to simmer down. Jackson's campaign was bolstered after he led a delegation to Syria that convinced Hafez al-Assad to release Bobby Goodman in January 1984. Jackson received large and overwhelming positive news coverage. However, positive news coverage ended after he called Jews "Hymies" and New York City "Hymietown". Jackson was also criticized for his relation with Louis Farrakhan. Early contests Mondale won the Iowa caucus with a plurality of the vote. Glenn performed poorly and came in sixth. Hart's campaign was bolstered by his second placing show. Hart, despite not winning Iowa, was now viewed as the only viable opponent to Mondale. Hart was polling below 10% nationally in late February, but was polling above 30% by March 2, and.... Discover the John Bryan Jimmy Carter Howell Raines popular books. Find the top 100 most popular John Bryan Jimmy Carter Howell Raines books.