turning things around with one line...

I think Mondale would have won. If you look at it, Reagan was in deep trouble until October 23, 1983 when the Beirut barracks bombing happened. Then he shoots up! Damn! I didn’t realize Reagan was saved by an act of terror just like 43!

See: https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/16/us/campaign-notes-reagan-leads-mondale-53-44-in-harris-poll.html

Marine barracks was in 1983.

Last edited Wed Apr 18, 2018, 12:01 AM - Edit history (1)

after which he continued to rise is approval. Beirut doesn't seem to factor in really.

From friendly Minnesota. Too nice, too intellectual like Carter, not a "strong leader" who would stand up to the Soviets like Marlboro Man Reagan.

I've even wondered if Reagan's gang may have installed their operatives in key places in the election system where they could rig the thing by fudging the numbers.

If your camp and others are going to drop nuggets about Reagan possibly having Alzheimer's, you best beat his ass in a debate. Mondale did in the first debate. They got a bit confident and built up the narrative about Reagan's age and mental status. The second debate didn't go as well.

that single, brilliant line (even Mondale laughed) neutered the age issue.

Just a guess

people recognized that we were goliath stepping on an ant.

Mondale was very boring, no charisma. Also country was not ready for a female VP. We are still not ready for a female Pres.

But I’m betting Raygun wrapped himself in the flag post 10/23 and gave one of those ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ speeches that the media fawns over that someone else wrote for him. And then everyone had to ‘rally round the flag.’ Puke.

and it helped him a lot.

Clinton won the popular vote and came less than 1% in a handful of states from being president.

But I think there were enough misogynists in 3 states to make the difference.

voter suppression and Russian intereference.

I don't miss her.

Mondale had been Carter's VP and was still associated with Carter's perceived unsuccessful presidency. He's a smart guy and would have been a good president, but he was never very charismatic and did not run an effective campaign. And his choice of a running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, turned out to be problematic because of some issues with her husband's tax return, and her own ethics record in the House. Reagan also had the advantage of incumbency.

has never been a winning campaign theme. And Geraldine Ferraro's husband appeared to be a bit shady, as I recall. Plus inflation due to the big increase in oil prices was finally abating.

I purchased my first home when Carter was presided and my mortgage was like 12%. High inflation and sky high interest rates killed Carter. I refinanced my home later in the Regan administration at something like 7%. So economically middle class people were seeing big relief under Ronnie.

I was in construction, mostly apartment complexes and the lower interest rates provided a much needed shot in the arm.
Also add a lack luster opponent, Beirut and the usual GOPee lies about trickle on economics.

IIRC, after the election, SNL even did a sketch which talked about that pledge (I think it was the Alex Karras hosted episode, with Gary Kroeger as Mondale).

he hired paul volcker to chair the fed. volcker had the plan to kill inflation by jacking up interest rates to kill the expectation of future price increases, knowing it would lead to a recession (indeed, that was a necessary part of killing expectations of future price increases).

he figured once inflation expectations were killed, he could lower rates again to get out of the recession.

carter said do what you gotta do.

it worked, but the timing killed carter politically as interest rates were crazy high at the time of the election. reagan won and then got the political windfall of emerging from the recession with inflation having been killed -- by a carter appointee.

the stock market bottom was in middle of 1982, and the economy official ended its recession in late 1982.

the fed discount rate that had been as high as 20% in order to stamp out inflation got cut to below 10%. slashing interest rates like that does wonders for stimulating an economy.

unemployment had gotten as high as 10.8%. that always takes longer to come down, but it was down to 7.2% by the time of the election.


despite his hateful policies, the media focused on his genial, grandfatherly charisma, and the booming economy and stock market.

it didn't help our cause that walter mondale, who of course was correct on every fact and policy matter, was horribly outmatched when it came to television politics.

If we weren't ready in 2016, we certainly weren't ready 30 years ago.

sadly i think a woman would have had an easier time at the top of the ticket then than hillary did more recently.

in many ways we've progressed since then, but then donnie came along and made it fashionable to be an overt hater again.
back then we had more institutional problems, but at least people were trying to move in the right direction.

these days it's a struggle just to not lose gound.

in any event, back then, as now, people largely ignore the bottom of the ticket except to confirm what they've already decided about the top of the ticket. people very, very rarely change their minds about the top of the ticket based on the bottom of the ticket.


eta: to be clear, not saying there wasn't sexism back then, of course there was. just saying that very, very few people who would otherwise have voted mondale switched their vote because of ferraro.

how "These days it's a struggle not to lose ground".

i fear he'll be treated as another nixon -- just one bad apple, somehow -- but he really needs to be treated as this century's hoover, the republican who made the republican party synonymous with disaster.

Questioning his mental status and then him "winning" the second debate. If you are going to claim someone has Alzheimer's, as many were doing at the time, you better beat them in every debate.

"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," Reagan Second Debate

Just before the campaign we entered into military operations in Grenada. We were in and out and able to claim victory. That involved kicking "commy" ass. Reagan also tied it to Russia and Cuba. American enemies one and two.

The economy was recovering.

We had just thumped our chest big time with the Olympics in LA.

Morning in America baby! People really like that stuff.

Ohh. He was also running against Mondale.

I paid less attention to 1984 than any election of my lifetime because I knew Reagan was a cinch. There was no way two consecutive incumbents were going to fail, when their party had been in power only one term.

I remember one old guy talking to be in a shopping mall in fall 1982. He saw me reading the front page of the paper and asked who I thought our next president would be. I said, "Probably the one we have now." He got loud and acted as if I were an idiot: "He doesn't have a prayer in hell." I'll never forget the mean dismissive look on his face when he said that.

That is the type who relies on daily details and not the big picture. Reagan may have been in trouble in 1982 but I sensed the economy couldn't remain at that level. Incumbency wasn't the only boost for him. It was a Republican uptick period to begin with. I didn't read that "Emerging Republican Majority" book but I was aware of it, largely due to a right wing professor in college who mentioned it several times in smug fashion while visiting our student newspaper office. That was '78 just after the midterm. I was new in college and so close after Watergate I didn't want to believe the GOP had somehow rebounded already. But when that professor was touting a book with landscape significance I had to conclude there was plenty of weight to it.

I saw Mondale campaign at the University of Michigan. My first time going to a political event and the only thing I remember him saying was to vote for him because he came to the campus to campaign in person and Reagan didn't. I thought that was a lame reason to vote for him, but I did because I hated Reagan.

...unpopular for about a year. At first, he pushed the ultra-"Conservative" agenda... it was not really working, so he became more moderate. He worked with Democrats - famously with Tip O'Neil - and the country changed direction. Also, he was shot and people gave him another chance. So, he gained the power of incumbency.

In foreign polity, the Iron Curtain was crashing an Reagan benefited... it started during Carter, but Reagan also saw it coming and knew how to get in front of a parade and march. Near the end, he had that bad debate and prepared his line for the next one - Mondale just melted with a smile, alas...

those driving the narrative were wealthy and they did just fune under ronnie

rather not confront is that at least a third of our fellow citizens choose to remain blissfully ignorant of what is in their true best interest. They find much more comfort in being treated like dull children than in having to make their own "big boy(or girl)" decisions. They have been conditioned to simply disregard any political thought that won't fit on a bumper sticker and have no idea that opinions are not the same as facts.

In short, they are dumber than a box of rocks and damned proud of it. And, of course, one cannot be either a patriot or a Christian AND a Democrat so any tactic used against us is totally justified.

That's how.

Most Republicans and conservatives tend to look at voting as their duty and they're pragmatic about it in not wanting a Democrat to win and voting for the Republican candidate even when they are less than perfect for them. I bet millions of Republicans voted for Trump even when they didn't like him because the Supreme Court was important to them (if the Left only had that foresight).
Democrats, the Left, have a strong tendency to need to be motivated to vote, to be excited about the candidate and are far less willing to tolerate their imperfections. As a result they are too often fickle and undependable voters and too easily abdicate their responsibility to vote for the best Democrat even one that is less than perfect.
That was how Reagan was elected, that was how Trump was elected.

"Traditionalist" wave at the time.

He won in 1980 by a landslide, so that is a big factor. His approval may have not been very good, but the landslide win in 1980 indicated that Americans probably wanted to go back to "traditional values".

Putting a women on the ballot didn't work when Americans wanted to wave flags and eat apple pie.
I think putting Ferraro on the ballot was a good idea, but it probably was not what America wanted at the time.

And made people feel good. That was enough to win 49 states