Does anyone remember the last three weeks of the Mondale campaign?

I'm trying to imagine what the Freepers are going through right now.

:D

No, no I don't.

Knowing you are walking into a beating is just no fun at all. Mondale and Dukakis did not of course resort to the sort of vile crap that McKlan has descended into.

I was 2 and 6 years old for Mondale and Dukakis, respectively.

1992, 2000, and 2004 were all pretty close up until the last minute. I do remember 1996, but that was a loss for their side, not ours.

And we did well.

Harkin, Gore, Kerry were elected the first time to the senate in 1984.

I think we won Rockefeller and Simon in 1984, also, but Kerry and Harkin were the two races I was most involved with. Well, those and Doggett's, but we lost to Gramm in that one. Lloyd later ran and won a seat on the State Supreme Court, then ran for and won his current congressional seat.

I did a little work with the Mondale campaign (fundraisers, mainly), but I bailed on them by the first or second week of October.

for the Repukes, seeing as their chances of gaining ground in Congress are also ZERO.

I had already accepted the loss of the presidency, so I was ecstatic on election day with the wins we made. I spent most of October, 1984, in Iowa campaigning with Tom, and he's never disappointed me in the 24 years in the senate since. And the work of Kerry and Gore speak for themselves. Paul Simon's tenure was exemplary.

I have to admit that Rockefeller has been a disappointment.

As an Illinoisan I had a chance to see Paul Simon's work first hand - one of the best senators to have served in that body for decades.

I always got along well with Floyd. He was a former congressman, I think from Indiana, and he was a great AA to Simon.

I always liked Paul a lot. He was a good guy.

he was actually in good form because he finally stopped trying to talk like a moderate whose main domestic concern was the budget and went home to being the fighting Hubert Humphrey liberal he was. It was too little too late, but he did well enough in the first debate with Reagan that he had some temporary momentum.

Some of the girls in my dorm were horrified - horrified! - to find that I had Joan Growe campaign buttons in my room (she was running against Republican Senator Rudy Boschwitz).

One girl clutched her chest and said dramatically, "You know she's a....Democrat, don't you?" She emphasized "Democrat" as if it were deadly, communicable disease.

The Young Republicans on campus were ALL OVER THE PLACE. And this was in Minnesota. It was pretty demoralizing (though Minnesota, of course, still went to Mondale).

I still couldn't tell you what the Freepers are going through now, though. The sense of loss and sadness in 1984 is not comparable to the vitriol and hatred flowing through Freep veins.

:grouphug: We should never forget what it was like

In my workplace, in 1990-92, there was a loud vicious anti-Liberal contingent in the lunchroom that drove me out of it. They were allowed to get away with it because the lunchroom is neutral ground - and the leader was the controller, who ran the building. These white collar assholes sneered and taunted anyone who wasn't a Republican - it was disgusting. I genuinely could not understand what was so terrible about caring about the poorest of us, paying your fair share of taxes, and wanting everyone to prosper. Still don't. They appeared to be just what they were - and probably still are: selfish self-absorbed I've-Got-Mine-So-Fuck-You bigots. But the constant put-downs were too much to take, and slapping them wasn't beneficial to my career. I just stayed away from them altogether. But when Clinton won in 1992, I was able to go into the lunchroom again because his election stopped that shit cold. :) It was a beautiful thing.

I occasionally dated a guy who worked for one of our subcontractors, and at one point, our conversation turned to the election. When he found out I was planning to vote for Dukakis, he was amazed.

"How can you work for and not vote for Bush?" He was honestly bewildered.

First, I didn't subscribe to the "I got mine!" mentality, and second, Company had been around in some form since the 1940s, and no Democratic administration would have been a threat to it anyway. My father managed to work there from 1961 to 2002 while voting Democratic every time.

NT

("Christian college" is too broad a term and calls to mind fundamentalist evangelicals.)

But I don't recall much of the lead-up to that election ... I wasn't as tuned into politics, although my hatred of Reagan burned with a white hot flame. Everything about elections was much, much different without the Internet.

I remember Ferraro's hubby being investigated.

I remember that toward the end everyone pretty much knew he was going to lose big time.

I also remember him posing for a picture with a copy of the "Dewey Defeats Truman" paper from that election....which I thought was kind of pathetic.

and was more interested in beer. I did not have a political awakening until 1986.

Both 1984 and 1988. AND 1980. I don't know how Dems kept their spirits up, those were some low low moments, let me tell you. But I can tell you that the day after the election in 1992 was more AWESOME and SATISFYING than I can explain. I was flying high right through to 1997...

When we win, your feet will barely touch the floor. You will smile, and laugh more, and... wow. I can't wait to feel that way again! I will blubber like a baby.

Raygun was about to win this one by a landslide--with his finger on THE BUTTON! :hide:

I was at my grandparents' in rural South Dakota and the election had just taken place. I was young enough that the only name I recognized from the news was "Reagan", and I asked my Grandpa "Did you vote for Reagan or the other guy?". He replied, "The other guy". Even though Mondale lost, it's still a good memory for me.