When Mondale was trounced in 1984

I was looking over electoral maps today and came across this particularly painful one (note red and blue are backwards). In 1984 Mondale only won his homestate of Minnesota and DC.



For DUers old enough to remember, why was Mondale defeated so handily?

"If elected, I will raise your taxes."

Yep, he actually said that. The electorate wants its leaders honest, but not that honest.

at the democratic national convention in san fransisco, is his acceptance speech he said..."President Reagan will raise your taxes, and so will I. The difference is, he won't tell you, I just did."

"The difference is, he won't tell you, I just did."

To:

"The difference is, he will raise them for the middle class and the poor, but I will raise them on the rich."

And the Republicans impotent reply: "class warfare"

and Modale's Retort

"thats a war the middle class didn't start but which the middle class must win. our country deserves no less."

(edit:spelling)

I remember back in the late 80's SNL did a spoof about Walter Mondale(Dana Carvey was Mondale) and it was about him saying he wanted to raise taxes, all mondale said through the whole sketch was..."I know".

I didn't believe it was true cause I thought that SNL was doing a joke.

My opponent will not (paraphrase). so proving once again that honesty is NOT the best policy as the Bushcos have also proven.

Reagan not only raised taxes he increased the size of government workforce and government spending.

Reagan raised and lowered taxes at various levels. Check out Showdown at Gucci Gulch by Birnbaum and Murray that covers the 1986 tax bill that RAISED corporate taxes and LOWERED personal income. Also, there's the usual statement that the rich got richer and the poor poorer in Reagan's term, but my understanding is that more people (including my own family) entered the middle class during Reagan's term than ever before. Reagan's coalition - getting the rich and the religious together - worked wonders as well. He was as astute a pol as Mondale was inept.

And I always remember thinking, "I Love Minnesota".

Yeah, what gives?

When asked about his answer to the huge deficit, Mondale answered that taxes needed to increase to pay down the deficit.

Reagan just shrugged and claimed that "trickle down economics" would handle everything.

(The electorate had plenty of sheep then too!)

misleads itself into thinking there was/is/will be no problem is beyond me.

But we are beyond recriminations now...

Personally, I think our government has a moral reponsibility to the welfare of it's citizens. It seems like our dem candidates don't talk about taxes in a way that people can relate to and support.

Most importantly, our candidates need to drop the "raising taxes on the top 1%" thing, as 90% of America thinks they are in the top 1%. Candidates need to start throwing out dollar amounts or something. I am tired of my stupid $40k earning friends voting for republicans because of "taxes."

Something like trickle down economics.

Bubble up economics.

Targeted tax cuts to the middle class
middle class lives a better life
more economic activity
stockmarket goes up
everybody wins!

Democrats have to get off this horrible, annoying game of agreeing with everything Republicans say, no matter how incoherent, which they have been doing for a generation now. Every time some Republican attacks taxes, you can bet that every Democrat, "framing" books in hand, will "agree" and talk about how "everybody" "hates" taxes, and never mention why they are there at all. I remember even back to the 1980s, hearing Republicans and their corporate lobbyists attacking government, expecting some kind of a response--a fight--and getting instead Mario Cuomo and the rest saying, "Oh, yes, well, I want to 'privatize' everything, too, just like my Republican friends," and wanting to throw something at the TV every time. When Republicans threaten to lower taxes on rich people and corporations and undercut our whole social fabric, the "answer" from Democrats is: "We'll lower taxes--but on middle class people!" like a goddamned asshole. This routine, which has been going on for so long that a whole generation does not even know what we are, makes our side of the argument sound indefensible because even we do not espouse or defend it.

I think a few points should be made on this issue, over and over again so it will stick like the rest of this crap. For one thing, answer the goddamned lie that cutting taxes will "put more money in your pocket." Make the point that, as you lose the huge social fund of taxes paying for services, you lose the ability to get first-class services that you can afford. Imagine losing the shared, paid-for services we all use, (police, fire dept., garbage pickup, safety inspections of drugs and other products, water, etc.), and imagine you having to hire some overpriced (because of advertising, etc.) corporation to perform all these things. You would be broke immediately--then what? Make the point that, although the government would not have to pay for these things anymore, YOUR bill would not be eliminated; YOU still have to have these things done--but now you are on your own, chump. No one but rich people could pay for it all--except together, as a society, by taxes.

When corporate tax rates are higher and their profit margins lower, they reinvest in equipment, etc., and are more cautious, do not speculate, etc., and the economy is better--we get the benefit of a government that works, with social programs, and corporations tend to their own business rather than trying to kill each other (reporting of Barlett and Steele, etc.); which is why the economy has not been really secure since the '50s; that was when it was last done.

We also have to develop an answer that focuses the same critical kind of attention on the corporate world and its price-gouging as is now focused by the corporate media on government and taxes. Make people aware, by referring over and over to it, of how little the products they buy actually cost the manufacturer--and how little goes to the employees--and how much is worthless, price-gouging profit, which is killing us because of lack of regulations to stop it, not because it was needed. One of the worst examples of this abuse is insurance--make a point of it. What do you pay? What do you get? Since they penalize you by raising your rates for years after if you make a claim, then what is insurance for? What were you giving them all that money for? The sinful price-hikes of gas and oil, for vehicles and home heating--which had no basis other than profiteering, unrelated to hurricane "damage" or any other pretense--makes the case very easily; we all relate to it easily. Make the point that the real drain of your money is corporate price-gouging; worthless, unfair, unnecessary, and with no benefit to society, unlike taxes.

We need to stop this "strategic/framing" shit, which is only making everything worse, as everyone eventually recedes into a total fantasy world of lies, and just answer the goddamned thing, with anger and explanations.

but I don't remember this imbalance. I didn't realize the entire northeast (except DC) went Repug that year. That map is just UGLY.

He just resonated L-O-S-E-R, in a way that you could just stamp it on his head, while the Reagan-Bush ticket projected masculinity, muscularity and athleticism.

Mondale's one bright spot was the first debate. He actually gained in the polls after the first debate, but that didn't mean much because he was down 20 points going into the first debate. Any ground that gained was lost in the subsequent campaign and after the second debate.

she says that Mondale narrowed his VP pick to either Geraldine Ferraro or Michael dukakis.

Imagine a Mondale-Dukakis ticket?

There goes Minnesota.

In fact I thik it was in Ed Rollins book that he blamed losing Minnesota on Nancy Reagan.

In the final few days of the campaign, the Reagan campaign was spending its last money on a handful of states that they thought Mondale might win -- Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Minnesota.

Then a poll came out that said Reagan was only up by about 6 points in California. Nancy called rollins (I think it was Rollins) and insisted he move his ad money to California because it would be embarrassing to lose his home state. Rollins told her the poll was bad and he had others showing California safe, but in the end they pulled the ads from Minnesota to win California by 16 % (or 1.5 million votes) and Mondale won Minnesota by 3,761 votes.

No wonder the Right Wing went crazy about the Reagans miniseries....

Poppy resonated "Adm. Stockwell."

Just like arnold and bunkerboy.

They can't handle the truth!

TELL them everything is rosy and they are all just one step away from being rich millionaires like themselves, in spite of all their experiences and what they can see all around them, and the SHEEPLE will fall for it every time!

That is why I refuse to call THEM anything other than what they are - dumb, stupid, ignorant SHEEPLE.

We knew we were beat, but we didn't think it would be so bad.

Mondale was too wonky, too uncharismatic, and too easy for Reagan to play in debates. Then he said "I'll raise your taxes," and the rest is history.

I remember I actually had a brief glimmer of hope that maybe people would realize what a doddering moron Reagan was.

:evilfrown:

I think it was the second where Reagan got in the line about "not making age a factor" and "not holding the relative youth and inexperience of my opponent against him" line that went over so big. i do remember the raising taxes line, but I thought it was over after the "age" exchange.

rating significantly above 50% is a lost cause. No president has ever been unseated under those conditions or even close to it.

Part of this was also that Reagan's election occurred at a time that the Democratic electoral base had not yet settled out. This is a similar phenomenon to what happened to the Republicans during the period of 1932 until 1952 where the Democrats had a solid base in the south and chipped heavily into the northern Republican base. Similarly in the 1970s and 1980s the Democrats did not have a strong northern electoral base established and the south and west were firmly in the Republican column. At that time, there were still many northern liberal Republicans that still voted Republican on the national level. While Democrats were still elected on the local level in the south, they certainly had no electoral strength there except for Carter's 1976 run.

Mondale did not help matters by running an unappealing campaign in which of course he promised to raise taxes. In a period of 4%+ growth following the period of double digit inflation and two recessions that happened between 1978 and 1982, voters were unlikely to dispute what they saw as an economic recovery. Granted, this had much more to do with Paul Volcker than Ronald Reagan, but Reagan got the credit nonetheless.

but again, carter got nothing but the blame for volker jacking up interest rates to the moon while reagan got all the credit for volker's actions righting the economy.

By far the least hope I ever had. I was just out of college and my rightwing friends kept talking about the campaign while I shrugged and changed the subject. For some reason they were even worried for a while, specifically in the spring and after the first debate.

But as Zynx indicated, incumbents with high approval numbers are a cinch and Mondale was hardly inspring enough to compete. It was during that cycle I realized it took a special charismatic opponent to either oust a presidential incumbent, or threaten to. Reagan had every rose garden advantage and those sickening "Morning in America" commercials were running day and night.

In '82 and early '83 when the economy had been horrid there was optimism among Democrats, many telling me Reagan "doesn't have a prayer" of re-election. I remember that quote specifically. Within months everything had changed so I always apply that memory to situations like now and don't assume anything regarding 2006.

critical as well. Look at the elections between 1968 and 1988 and try to point out a Democratic base of more than 100 EVs. I dare you. ;-)

and the results are pretty striking.

Kerry did 8 points better than Dukakis in New England, 6 points better in the Mid Atlantic, 5 points better in the South Atlantic, and 5 points better in the West. He lost points in the South and in the Mountain states.

Some of the states we've picked up in the interim (CA, IL, PA, MI, NJ) are rich in electoral votes, enabling us to win twice in the EC and come damn close twice.

Dukakis won 111 electoral votes in 1988. Kerry won 252. But Kerry's popular vote percentage was only about 2.6% better than Dukakis's. The reason for this is pretty simple; Democratic support has solidified in big states while stagnating or dropping off in most of the rest.

The Republicans established theirs first while retaining a great deal of support in the north as is observed by their significant strength in Illinois even in close elections. However, over the past 16 years or so urban northern voters have moved even more Democratic and suburban northern voters have moved from being solid Republican to being swing voters, solidifying a Democratic advantage in most northern states that didn't exist before.

Northeast/Mid Atlantic and now the west through California.

Alot has changed since 1988. Good for us of course.

We got blown out in '72, 80, 84 and not very close in '88 so the base looks flimsy to non-existent. If Democrats started winning the popular vote with 55% or 58% nationwide in many consecutive or nearby cycles then some of the GOP base states would flip in our direction. But the partisan index numbers would reveal they were still more Republican than the nation as a whole.

I agree we now have more states we could win even if our nominee lost big, but the GOP has more margin for error and more states and electoral votes they would carry even if our nominee won by Reaganesque numbers. My presidential chart doesn't go back earlier than '88. But Chris Bowers on MyDD.com went further back when he did his chart a couple of years ago. It would be interesting to look at it and see which states had partisan index margins favoring our side in those blowout years even though we lost them due to the huge national preference.

northern states would be quite a bit smaller than base states should be at the time. I also think that the particularly poor Democratic electoral performance is actually a result of the Democrats not having any strong electoral base. Thus I believe a 50/50 election for a Democrat in this time period would have actually been an abnormality as the country leaned Republican in terms of national voting trends. I think if the 1984 election had been held 20 years later with Mondale running against Reagan, Mondale could have gotten over 100 or even 130 electoral votes.

I never thought of it that way before. I have looked at electoral maps a lot lately, I do think there is a little bit of science to the way elections often unfold. I pay attention to this information because I think some of this information might be helpful to the way we choose candidates and run campaigns. And I don't trust always trust our dem leaders and campaign strategists to know what is best!

There are definite ways of interpreting the outcomes of elections. I study political history, specifically electoral history as a hobby and I have developed a number of theories by looking at the data over the years. A good site that I heavily endorse for this field of study is http://uselectionatlas.org/ That's a great site.

whether it be now or three years from now, I'd be interested in your personal analysis of '08 contenders, and what you think about their electoral chances.

I attended college in California in the Reagan '80s and never dreamed it would swing in our favor this soon. Reagan beat Carter by nearly 10 points in California and Mondale by 18. Of course, that was his home state and he'd probably win it today, but much closer and even post-Reagan the numbers are dramatic in our favor. California was 4 points more Democratic than the country as a whole in '88 but that has steadily risen to more than 12 points last year. I guess we can credit Pete Wilson.

California's electoral votes went above 50 after the 1990 Census. Pete Wilson also destroyed Hispanic support for Republicans. Also, in the Northeast, many of the suburbs in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, and DC were solidly Republican. Westchester County, NY, Montgomery County, PA, and Fairfax County, VA were also full of Freepers just 20 years ago. Now they are fairly blue. Long Island also voted for Reagan by big margain but now has become blue. BTW, Vermont was also solid red until Bill Clinton came. VT was only one of two state not to vote for FDR in ANY of his elections, the other was Maine. In the 1980's, the Northeast hadn't realigned yet, while the South already was doing it for the Republicans.

I know recent electoral history fairly well but not going back beyond the '80s. I definitely should study regional trends more closely. I always appreciate posts like that one.

When Dukakis ran, he lost the country by approximately 7.5 points and lost IL by 2 so IL was about 6 points more Democratic than the rest of the nation, but in 2004 while Kerry lost nationwide by 2.5% he won IL by 10.5%, making IL 13 points more Democratic than the rest of the nation. A Democratic would have to get totally waxed now nationwide in order to lose IL.

get a Reagan/Nixon style blowout in their favor, but the Dem candidate would take only 390-425 EV's. Democrats could never get 49 states the way things are set up.

As opposed to a former Vice-President, who had almost ZERO Charisma, who had been out of office for 4 years (not that anyone noticed, Vice-Presidents were usually invisible back then).

Nobody was going to beat Reagan in that race.

A better question would be, why Mondale and why did he pick the first Female Vice-Presidential Candidate? Did he think she would actually help him, or did he know he was going to get his ass kicked, so why not be the first to pick a Woman and be remembered for something?

I do remember that election, that was the first one I was able to vote in, and I remember at 5:00pm, the minute NBC signed on to start the election night coverage, my home state (the one I grew up in) Indiana, had already been called for Reagan and was already Blue.

One more note: I think that was the year they first had the Red/Blue maps at the networks, and NBC had that color scheme, but at least one other had it reversed.

I think it was lower than all FDR's elections, LBJ, Truman, Hoover, and a couple of others.

ant than equality (or equitability -- I can't remember the exact quote).

Ugh.

He trails LBJ in 1964, Nixon in 1972, FDR in 1936, Harding in 1920, and is practically tied with Hoover in 1928. EVwise he had the second largest margin ever, only surpassed by FDR's win in 1936 if we don't count Monroe's uncontested election and Washington's two elections.

Only Maine and Vermont voted against him. Prior to the election, the adage had been "As goes Maine, so goes the Nation."

After the election, the adage became "As goes Maine, so goes Vermont."

like to pretend it was.

Reagan was really hurting the economy. His huge deficits high interest rates choked out inflation, but it also gave the US the second lowest growth rates of all western democracies in the 80s (behind the UK, which used high interests rates even longer than the US).

Had the Democrats run a better candidate than Mondale, they could have gotten much closer to Reagan.

525-13 electoral votes is a landslide. I'm not going to dispute this point. The win however was not an endorsement of a conservative Republican agenda as much as it was voters saying they did not trust Mondale to run the country. This is similar to FDR's win in 1936 in the sense that FDR soon found out that voters did not give him the broad authority to do whatever he wanted such as court-packing.

to do whatever they wanted. In that sense, no president has ever had a mandate.

People vote for a president for all sorts of reasons. You have single-issue voters, "personality" voters, yellow dogs, et cetera ad infinitum. Some vote for a candidate because his opponent is a jackass. Some vote for a candidate because his opponent isn't enough of a jackass. Few people vote for a candidate because they support his entire platform.

Of course, with our two party system, the likelihood that either candidate is going to represent the views of a majority of Americans is slim. But, he can represent enough of their views (or appeal to them enough personally) that they'll vote for him and give him a majority.

Therefore, he can claim a "mandate" that doesn't really exist.

provided a mandate. 1932 was one that provided a mandate for larger government, 1920 was an endorsement of conservative economic policies that lasted for a decade. There are others I could point out, but those are two of the very few elections that could be called mandates.

and claim they were not mandates.

How much of FDR's "mandate" was due to other qualities? What about personal likability? Hoover was a cold fish and FDR was charismatic as hell. What about voters who blamed Hoover (unjustly) for the Depression and felt (justly) that he wasn't doing enough? FDR's platform during the campaign wasn't big on specifics; his main theme seemed to be "Government can do something." He didn't say what.

And how much of Harding's victory in 1920 was due to fatigue after WWI? People were tired of entanglements in foreign affairs; they associated such entanglements with Wilson and the Democrats. Like FDR 12 years later, Harding was short on specifics; he spoke in generalities that apparently resonated with voters.

If you look at any presidential race, whether won in a landslide or a squeaker, you find that most of them were won for relatively mundane reasons.

for a time at least.

What, he needed 60% for it to be a "landslide"? Record is 61% so I think in this case they were justified in crowing about the scope of his victory especially coming on the heels of Carter who lost reelection with 41% and only 6 states.

I'd be happy to see a Democratic "landslide" of 51% since only Carter broke 50% (50.1% to be exact) since 1964...40 YEARS.

Top 10, 20th Century

1. LBJ - 61.05% (1964)
2. FDR - 60.80% (1936)
3. Nixon - 60.67% (1972)
4. Harding - 60.32% (1920)
5. Reagan - 58.77% (1984)
6. Hoover - 58.21% (1928)
7. FDR - 57.41% (1932)
8. Ike - 57.37% (1956)
9. TR - 56.42% (1904)
10. Ike - 55.18% (1952)

and an excellent communicator, and Mondale ran a lackluster campaign. He was also the VP of a president who couldn't get a second term. Then the older Bush became president and he got stuck with the results of all the debt he built up, which was a very bad recession.

You dont say something like that in a the middle of a political campaign.

Also, Reagan was wildly popular despite all of the problems he had.

"Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did." - Walter Mondale, 19 July 1984

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/shownomination.php?convid=21

Worst of all, Mondale chose to say it during his acceptance speech.

He was right, of course. Reagan did raise taxes. But right is not always might -- at least not electorally.

...administration, he was virtually deified. Also, Mondale's pick for VP was political suicide.

unlike the capitulating John Kerry. GO AWAY JOHN!

and taught there for a while. Not such a bad exile.

on edit -- oops -- I was thinking Dukakis.

Mondale was ambassasor to Japan during Clinton's administration.

But sadly Norm Coleman beat him for the vacent Senate seat in 2002, how bout that, Minnesota the only state that Mondale carried and he couldn't win the Senate race.

Mondale had not run for office in 18 years and in 84 he had won the state by under 4000 votes.

Try cracking open a real history book.

People bitch about canidates lying about campiagn promises. They lie because no one wants to pull a Mondale.


(And yes, I'm still pissed off about how he lost to Coleman because the Repukes made up shit about his friends "turning eulogies for Wellstone into campaign speaches". :mad: )

In 1992 Bush only won 37% of the vote, a smaller percentage than McGovern, and yet he still won in 18 states. In 1996 Dole won the same percentage of votes as Mondale, and he managed to win in 17 states. Barry Goldwater won only 38% of the vote, but he won in his home state and five southern states..each of which Nixon had lost four years before!

Kerry won more than 48% of the vote in 2004, but only won in 19 states, Bush won less than 48% of the vote in 2000..yet won in 30 states. If this trend continues, winning the popular vote will only become an insignificant afterthought for all future Presidential elections.

explanation is that republicans have done well in the sparsely populated states in the west (not west coast though) for a few decades.

I am thankful that we have as many dem governors as we do. In general, there are a greater number of red states than blue states.

IFRC, Reagan and Mondale debated 3 times. In one of the debates, Reagan spaced. He clearly had some type of alzheimers episode. He was clearly in no shape to be president of the US. Yet, even after that, he was re-elected overwhelmingly.

What should we chalk that up to? To me, it's clear evidence that a large proportion of the American public is generally uninformed and base their vote on the superficial information that get from the evening TV news.

After Reagan's episode, he should have withdrawn from the race.

or was that later on?

See Here.

criticize him in any way.

Commentators referred to him as "the Teflon candidate," because no matter what failings his opponents brought up, the media soon dropped it and went back to their worshipful attitude.

I once saw a cartoon comparing Reagan, "the Teflon candidate," with Mondale, "the Velcro candidate," the one who was indelibly tagged with negatives by the media.

That year, the Dems and their corrupt "super delegates" really screwed us. Gary Hart at the time may well have beaten Reagan- who despite being the media's darling- was NOT that popular and his policies were still out of step with a mjority of the population.

Hart was telegenic, intelligent and played to Reagan's weaknesses- whereas Mondale contrasted with with his strengths.

Look at the regional primary map and you'll see why Hart could have beaten Reagan- and why Mondale had no chance:

won the nomination. No one was going to beat Reagan given the economy that year. Hart might have done a point or two better but he had his own flaws not exactly coming off as the most warm and fuzzy or people and a bit stand offish.

during Reagan's first term, and his popularity was down in the 30's for a while.

Although the recession bottomed out in 1983- unemployment was still hovering close to 10% going into that election year.

I think a lot of people fall for the myth about Reagan- that he was Mr. popular- when in fact, neither he nor his policies were very well received (fawning media aside).

The trouble was that there wasn't anyone else that moderates wanted to VOTE FOR- people didn't see a viable choice.

Hart might have been that person- but Mondale surely was not, and it didn't take a genius at the time to see that.

that's official unemployment.

But the media kept fawning over him, and he (or more likely, his advisors) learned from Margaret Thatcher's surge in favorable ratings after the Falkland Islands war.

In the fall of 1983. the following things happened:

1. The Marine barracks in Lebanon were bombed, killing over 200 Marines. This was considered a black mark against the administration.

2. Almost immediately afterward, Reagan sent troops to "liberate" the island of Grenada on trumped up charges. Supposedly Cuba was turning it into a military base. Actually, 500 Cuban construction workers were helping it build an airport that could accommodate tourist traffic, and the U.S. military actually completed the airport after the invasion. However, the news media played it up that Reagan had "liberated" Grenada, and wouldncha know it, all the grade school patriots rallied around the flag.

(This is the first time I noticed the stark difference between American and Canadian news coverage.)

3. The Soviets shot down a Korean passenger airliner over Sakhalin Island. At the time, no one was sure what had happened, except that hundreds of people were dead, but Reagan went on TV and acted as if the Soviets routinely shot down passenger plans just for the hell of it. Time Magazine had a cover story, "Murder in the Air." The media carried on as if only the Reagan administration stood between us and total Soviet domination.

That was what happened immediately before the 1984 election season.

the media started to fawn over Republicans. Gee, I wonder what caused that?

how to look good on camera. He also had a kindly "aw shucks I'm just plain folks" image from his TV appearances in the 1950s, so I suppose some reporters who grew up watching RR on Death Valley Days or General Electric Theater felt that criticizing him would be like criticizing viewers' grandfathers.

recovered strongly into 84 which gave Reagan a huge boost. That line of "are you better off than you were 4 years ago resonated with a lot of people especially compared to the last year of Carter.

Inflation was a big issue and dropped from 13% under Carter to 4% under Reagan. Unemployement peaked at 10.8% in nov 82 but was down to 7.2% in nov 84 so people were seeing a recovery and sad to say but there is still a poor folks be damned feeling in the electorate so polices that had hurt the poor did not effect the vote of swing voters.

only. With that said, Gary Hart would have lost, but by a much SMALLER margin. 54% Reagan/46% Hart. Hart would have also one states such as Massachussetts, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey (increased share of the vote in MN too). Reagan's massive margins in other states in the Northeast/Midewest would have been drawn down a lot, obviously because the entire MOE would have fallen.

Still it would have been a loss, but not a total loss. Also, the GOP may have not gained 12 seats either.

The only person who I could think of who would have defeated Reagan would have been a Democratic Version of Reagan.

As many people have mentioned about Walter Mondale, who would have been a great President--much more left-wing and populist than many people apparently realize--the reason was the straightforward honesty of telling people that the economy, the deficit, the debt, were all getting worse, that taxes would be needed to be raised to meet this crisis, and that Reagan will not tell you that this is needed, but will either end up doing it or the economy will get much worse. Recall the severe recession of 1981-1982, caused by the evil bastard Reagan's tax cuts, and how, later during the second term, the hypocrite did raise taxes, fees, etc. etc., many times, and only then showed any progress at all on some of these problems--just like Mondale said.

There was also, as always, a completely unfair way of covering the two candidates--Democrats always attacked and treated with suspicion; their Republicans laughed and joked-with, and treated as if they were competant and the majority, neither of which they are. Despite continuing polls showing that Reagan was not particularly popular, and that most Americans disagreed with Reagan's cuts to domestic programs, (who can ever forget the Medicare-cuts Congressional hearings, where cancer patients testified from their wheeled-in hospital beds; and were then cut off? Republican devils learned from that: that is, don't have public hearings when you cut these poor people off), the media always treated Reagan, to this day, like some beloved Star Daddy Corporate Exec thing. Reagan won by about 18%, but because of electoral college votes goiing all to the winner, it was much more lopsided. My Mom, originally from Minnesota, used to wear a very popular sweatshirt that read, "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Mondale." (Reagan beat Carter 26-24%, but that was called a "landslide" by the media, too.)

When Geraldine Ferraro was announced as Vice-Preidential candidate, the male media went on two simultaneous attacks: 1) A bizarre attempt to portray Mondale as a "wimp" for "caving" to women and their nagging complaints, rather than the favorable telling that Mondale supported women's rights; and 2) A slanderous campaign against Ferraro's husband, for supposedly cheating on some tax, blind trust, whatever it was, for which there was no evidence. Remember, this was after they had found evidence that then-Vice President Bush illegally manipulated stock purchases and government policy around what was supposed to have been a blind trust of Bush's. The male media covered it up.

As mentioned by others, the main reason was that Mondale was honest enough to tell the American people that their taxes would have to be raised, but that it would go almost completely to rich people and corporations. Since most people support this, the media had to find a way to lie about it, and to pretend that Reagan's obvious lie about low taxes and simultaneous increased military spending somehow being possible, was not an obvious lie. Also, there was a lot of suspicious Republican redistricting going on then, too (the 1991 book "The Illusion of a Conservative Reagan Revolution" by Larry Schwab, etc.).

...not the first time. But I helped out locally with that campaign, and I do NOT remember his loss that large. I remember being depressed we lost, but NOT by nearly that much??

Time has a way of distorting things, I guess.

It was the the color of Communism! It was evil to be a "Red state!"


That said, ouch.

with his "morning in America" campaigns that never even mentioned the elections or the party.

And, you can go 12 years earlier with a similar map for McGovern, only this time it was MA and DC.

You get the idea. The tax cut thing is the ONLY reason
repugs win what they win. They lose on every other issue.

We knew we were taking a beating on Mondale, but we hoped to survive the congressional races. We had some young guys running for Senate the first time that we had high hopes for. Guys with names like Congressman Gore, Congressman Harkin, John Kerry, and a few others.

But we knew the beating was coming by then. We ended up at some piano bar in a nice hotel in Georgetown, drowning our sorrows in a soulful, communal rendition of PIANO MAN.

Helms was reelected on Reagan's coattails after the nastiest ugliest campaign I've ever seen.

Some of the slimeballs who helped Helms went on to help Elizabeth Dole win her election in NC - and of course, helped w in his campaigns.

I cant help but wonder if this was case of doing something too well.

intentions and a smiling facist, American voters have a long history of making the wrong choice.

Reagan was a popular incumbent and about 7 democrats fought each other during the primaries.

This was the "where's the beef?" campaign.

If memory serves me correctly, Tom Harkin, John Glenn, Jesse Jackson, Alan Cranston, and maybe Dick Gephart ran too.

This was also the year of John Anderson, the Indy who reminded everyone of Dennis the Menace's father on TV.

Correction: Anderson ran in '80

so they claimed they voted as they did - because they didn't think Ferraro had enough experience to be VP and one heartbeat away from the presidency.

Same folks voted for the Bush/Quayle ticket later (ya, Quayle had SO much more experience :eyes:) Leaving me with believing either they were unwilling to vote for a ticket with a woman on it - or they wanted the whole tax (me me me) cut/or no new taxes thing, but didn't want to admit their self-centeredness (back then folks still believed that the govt needed taxes to run - didn't like them but knew there was a bigger function - now after years and years of Randian propoganda this isn't true - folks seem to think that govt can function on nothing - hence the massive deficits of the day.)

The Cold War was on. Under Carter much of Africa and Nicaragua had been sucked into the Soviet Imperial orbit. The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan under Carter and Iran had fallen to the Mullahs. People wanted someone strong to protect them.

Reagan's capture of Grenada, and support for anti-communist guerrillas in several countries, and support of the gov't of El Salvador against the commies, (The Left predicted that El Salvador would be another Vietnam. Didn't happen.)and his tough stance against the Soviets themselves made him look like a strong warrior to protect us. Plus he had started a massive rebuilding of the military.

The economy was definately recovering after the disaster (Double digit inflation and double digit unemployment) of the Carter years.

Mondale was associated with Carter, promised to raise taxes, and picked Ferraro. The Ferraro move is what I call a multiplier move. If you are strong, it makes you look stronger. If you are weak, it makes you look weaker. Mondale was already weak in the polls and it looked like he was looking for her to save his campaign. Instead she helped sink it.

People were simply afraid that Mondale would mean a return of Carterism.

I honestly think that it was because Mondale had no charisma, and no ability to project that he was a leader. He was short, unattractive, not very articulate, and had a whiny voice. Maybe those things are superficial and shouldn't matter, but they do. Reagan had loads of charisma, and projected himself in a way that made him seem like a strong leader (it was an act, but one that he was good at pulling off).

I think it's likely that noone could have beaten Reagan, but I think a different candidate (like Gary Hart) would at least have lost respectably, rather than inflicting the extreme humiliation on our party that Mondale did.

From what I can recall, Mondale was far and away the choice of the Democratic establishment. I'm not sure that they've learned anything since then.

Reagan seemed to stop it dead and for that he was re-elected overwhelmingly. Inflation was a monster no one wanted to risk again. I don't think Mondale's loss was because he suggested raising taxes. It was because he was an ineffective campaigner who happened to be running against a very popular incumbent

Reagan was not popular. Reagan was not popular. Further, Reagan was not popular.

The 1991 book "The Illusion of a Conservative Reagan Revolution," by Larry Schwab, had a chapter called "The Illusion of President Reagan's High Popularity," (chapter 3), which contained Gallup polls--back when Gallup was still a scientific polling organization, and not a corporate/Republican front, as it is now--tracking public opinion on Presidents over many decades. Part of it is this:

Results of the First Gallup Poll Rating in Each Administration from Eisenhower to Reagan:
Eisenhower__78%
Kennedy____72%
Johnson____78%
Nixon______59%
Ford_______71%
Carter______66%
Reagan_____51%

Yearly Average of Presidential Popularity Ratings, 1953-88
President 1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year 4th Year 5th Year 6th Year 7th Year 8th Year
Eisenhower___70______65______71_____73______65_____55_____63______61
Kennedy_____76______72______63
Johnson_____74______66______51_____44______42
Nixon_______61______57______50_____56______42_____26
Ford________54______43______48
Carter_______62______45______37_____41
Reagan______57______44______44_____56_____61_____62______48______51

There has not been a truly popular Republican President, sustained popularity and somebody the majority of people actually agreed with, since Eisenhower. There is a reason for that: this is not a Republican/conservative country; it is merely cursed with a corporate Republican media pretending to be popular. As for the claim that that annoying, phony, heartless bastard had "charisma," the only thing I can suggest is medication, and a more accurate memory.

and the election of 1984, and most polls generally show that. He is obviously no Washington, FDR, Lincoln, etc but compared to recent presidents Ford, Nixon, HW Bush and Bush, he is certainly more popular. He is probably more popular than Carter *as a president*, but Carter's post presidential work is highly revered. If you took Vietnam our of the equation, LBJ would probably trump Reagan.

That would lead me to believe that he is one of the most popular presidents in the last couple of decades. Most of the polls I have seen seem to support that. If you have more polls than just that Gallup one, I am all ears. Obviously most Americans don't even know most of our presidents, so who the poll is asking (citizens vs. historians) is going to have different results.

Here is an interesting one where people picked the best president. Abraham Lincoln 15%, John F. Kennedy 13%, Clinton 11%, Ronald Reagan 10%

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/2003-05-26-wickham_x.htm

Zobgy, a self proclaimed democrat, had an interesting poll putting W. Bush up against the last few presidents in a hypothetical election. W. lost to everyone, but he lost the most to Reagan.

http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1020