1980 & 1984: Landslide Elections

This week I will be covering 2 elections, 1980 and 1984. Both of these are elections result in the some of biggest landslide elections of the 20th century. Winning 489 of 538 electoral votes (90.89%) in his first election and 525 votes (97.58%) in his second, Ronald Reagan enjoyed 8 prosperous years in office. With little challenge during both his elections I’ll be mostly talking about what made Reagan such an appealing candidate.

So without further ado, 1980: Incumbent Jimmy Carter vs. Ronald Reagan. A Californian movie star for some time, Reagan had a gift for speaking. Known as the great communicator he was able to capture the emotions of those he was speaking to and connect with them in a way few can. Now we all know (because I just told you) that Reagan wins this election. But after losing the bid for Republican Candidate just four years prior, how to he come back to win so convincingly. If you think back to the previous election, Gerald Ford was the incumbent. Only once in history (1852-Franklin Pierce) did an incumbent president lose his party’s nomination. The fact that Reagan made Ford work for his nomination shows that he was a strong candidate. Back to 1980. Carter, the incumbent this time around won his party’s nomination with only a small amount of resistance. Reagan had a similar primary process wiping the floor with his competition then sealing the deal by taking his “top rival”, George H.W. Bush, as his running mate. A Republican party united under its strongest 2 candidates was now competing against a democratic party who had already seen their candidate in action. Being an incumbent is often a 50/50 shot with citizens. In the case of Carter America was done with him. One of the biggest pieces to this was a hostage situation during election season. On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students held 52 Americans hostage. Carter put a lot of resources into securing the release of these hostages to no avail. This, compounded with the rising energy crisis of 1979 where gas stations were forced to limit the amount of gas people could buy, sealed America’s view on Carter. It was an easy decision for many to vote for Reagan.

Four years later Jimmy Carter’s political fate was not the same for incumbent president Reagan. He started on the right track by securing the release of the Iranian hostages early into his presidency. Now an extremely popular term that floats around (and has been brought up a lot in this year’s debates) is Reaganomics. Reaganomics simply explained is the economic policy that Ronald Reagan set up while in office. This system consisted of reducing government spending, reducing income tax, shrinking government regulation, and controlling inflation. While Reagan’s economic policies led to an extreme boom in the United States economy, systems that had been put in place during President Carter’s administration also had a huge impact on ending the high oil prices. As with a lot of history, it takes a bit for actions to have an affect. Reagan received many of the accolades for an economy that had been improving since his predecessor. Regardless of why the economy was doing well, 1984 saw a steep decrease in oil prices and a peak in economic prosperity (similar to that following WW2). As election season rolled around Reagan and Bush faced no competition within his party for re-nomination, easily sweeping 98.78% of votes. Knowing they would be competing against the popular Reagan, the democrats tried to find a strong candidate. They selected Walter Mondale, Vice President of previous President Jimmy Carter. Though Mondale was popular during his time, he was no match for the incumbent. With 97.58% electoral votes, Reagan won re-election.

It is interesting to study Reagan’s elections and presidency especially at this time in the 2016 election process. During the Republican debate only a few weeks ago, Ronald Reagan’s name was said six times. He was even quoted in an attempt to remind Americans what a strong Republican presidency looked like. His years in office were a reminder that foreign politics, the economy, and the power of a commanding speaker are major factors in the election of our nation’s leader.
I would like to thank https://thedaveyawards.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/the-1984-davey-awards/ for this week’s picture. Next week Wednesday (the 16th) at 8PM is another Republican debate. I’ll be writing piece on this debate just like the last one so stay tuned. Again any suggestions for favorite elections are more than welcome! Thanks for reading.

1977: A Break From the Norm

There is a saying that nothing happens in a vacuum. Presidential elections are a perfect example of this.  In the early 1970s, a scandal broke out later to be known simply as Watergate. Now this piece is not going to be about Watergate, Nixon and his resignation. Instead I’m going to be writing about the aftermath of this trauma, but it is important to understand that America didn’t trust politicians at this time. On top of the Nixon scandal, his vice president Spiro Agnew was forced to resign only a year before Nixon’s fall from grace. He was replaced with Gerald Ford who would eventually finish Nixon’s final 3 years. With Nixon linked to power-hungry phone tapping schemes, the country wanted someone who was not a politician. (Similar to what looks like might happen in this election)

The 1977 election brought with it two very different candidates. For the Republicans, incumbent Gerald Ford and for the Democrats, Jimmy Carter. Gerald Ford had already endured 3 hard years following Nixon’s resignation. On top of having to deal with the rising energy crisis and  the ending of the Vietnam war in 1975 , he also had to determine how to handle Nixon’s resignation. In an extremely unpopular decision, Ford pardoned Nixon of all crimes he may have committed, meaning that he would not face criminal charges for any of his involvement in Watergate. The country was stunned by this bravado and it was in the front of voters minds as the 1977 election came up. Running against Ford was Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer and engineer from Georgia. Jimmy Carter was a devout Baptist and did not play by the political agenda that politics of the age did. He was little known in the world of politics. This was important for how he fared in this election. By distancing himself from the drama and chaos of the dirty politicians of the time he was able to identify with those looking for a change.

It is rare that a president is someone who is not a prominent politician. It may seem that with Ford’s political background and experience that he should have won in a landslide; however the election was extremely close. With 297 Electoral Votes to Ford’s 240 (Ronald Reagan actually received one vote from an elector even though he wasn’t running) and only 50.1% of the popular vote, Carter snatched the presidency. The reason Carter received such a large percentage of the vote seems to be because of his distance from the scandal. The way the votes swung around the country was radically different than most elections. Ford won most of the West while Carter won most of the East. Even states that are traditionally either Red or Blue did not vote in the way that was expected. For example California, a traditionally blue state, voted for Republican Ford and Texas, a traditionally red state voted, for Democrat Carter. The country seemed to be at a loss about whether to vote for the intelligent peanut farmer or the seasoned political veteran with ties to a corrupt presidency. It appears however that an important piece that lead to Ford’s close demise was in “asserting that there is no Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe and the never will be under a Ford administration.” This was at a time where the Vietnam war had just ended and the Cold war was still clearly a key player in world politics.The final nail in Ford’s presidential coffin was simply a country wanting not only a change in leadership, but also a change in the way the nation’s leaders dealt with other politicians.  

It has been shown over and over again in elections that the people who the candidates know and are associated with can make or break an election for them. In this case, Ford’s proximity to the corrupt politics, and Carter’s distance to them made the election. If history truly does repeats itself, it will be interesting to see if in this upcoming election if not being a politician will win the election for someone.  

This weeks featured image is thanks http://www.snipview.com/q/Sudanese_presidential_election,_1977

Also if you have any suggestions for an election you would like to see me write about, or thoughts on anything I write, tell me in the comments.