A map, for those who have forgotten this

[Recursion]

Mondale ran as an economic populist with an emphasis on social justice, reining in corporations' power, raising taxes on the wealthy, and saving social security from attempts to privatize it. He ran on a nuclear freeze pro-peace platform.

Democratic activists were sure that once Mondale got up and spoke truth to power, the people would rediscover their inherent liberal beliefs and values and come flocking to the polls. What we got instead was this:



The country has not moved to the left since then; if anything the electorate is more wary of government intervention in the economy (though not as much as they were, say, 5 years ago).

For all the pissing and moaning about the DLC, it was created after this election to address the pretty much undeniable fact that our party had completely lost touch with most voters in America, and was trying to lead the country in a direction the country just didn't want to go.

Bernie Sanders is a very good man and an effective legislator. But if you think he would do better than Mondale, you're absolutely fooling yourself. Somewhat left-of-center Presidents like Clinton and Obama (more on this in a moment*) have done what could be done in an increasingly conservative country: ameliorate some of the damage from our rightward lurch, and gradually turn the parts of our economic and legal system that they can turn as far to the left as they can turn them.

I'm opposed to a third party or primary challenge from the left not because I want more corporate power but because I want less: repeating the 1984 map (which is what that would do) does not make our situation any better; it makes it much worse.

*on that: Obama, unlike Clinton, is not (yet, at least) framing policy from a standpoint that Democratic values are wrong, just that they're not attainable; that's why it's not "triangulation" in the Clinton/George W. Bush sense.

[OHdem10]

1. I guess we just as well hang up our hats, hand the government

over to Republicans. Ihave been thinking this for
a while now..

[Recursion]

4. No, that would be the effect of nominating someone like Sanders

Which is what I'm arguing against.

[Ken Burch]

60. Since there can't be anything progressive in a second Obama term

renominating him is voting to give up, both on any other change(since tiny changes can't be progressive).

Your calling for us to repeat the same strategy that's failed since Pat Brown tried it against Reagan in 1966: run a centrist against the right-wing candidate. That result has had an 80% failure rate since then.

[avaistheone1]

2. "No we can't"

has started early this morning.

Funny how what the American people want is always readily discarded.

[Recursion]

3. If the American people wanted that, they would have voted for Mondale

Do you see the map?

[NorthCarolina]

16. Funny how "History" has ultimate meaning here, and yet this same crowd

will vehemently disagree with anyone who believes that, based on Congressional voting history, the Payroll Tax Holiday will never be eliminated once enacted. They immediately fire back some BS about not having a 'functional crystal ball' to see the future, so the contention that the hit to SS will end up being permanent is 'speculation'. Of course when it comes to a primary challenge to Obama, well past history suddenly means everything, and their crystal ball is FULLY operational, crystal clear picture to them viewed through a shiny new coat of Carnauba wax. I can't for the life of me figure out what motivates these folks. They are so unlike ANY Democrats that I know.

[Recursion]

18. Reagan raised FICA levies

Right after this election, in fact. It even has the political advantage of not technically being a "tax".

[hobbit709]

5. You really believe those were the only factors in that election?

The Iranian hostage deal, gas prices, and such had absolutely nothing to do with that election.

[Recursion]

9. This was 1984, not 1980

The hostages had been home for almost 4 years, and gas prices were down.

[Donnachaidh]

33. and that recession was not as deep as this one

So the Reagan comparison is total bullshit. IMO.

[Le Taz Hot]

113. Wrong.

The hostage crisis ended the day Reagan took office and that was the 1980 election. Carter was elected in 1976.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. And Mondale ran a bad campaign

But that doesn't matter I suppose since he was so librul. :eyes:

[SoCalDem]

99. Mondale had the charisma of a three-day old biscuit

:(

[HughBeaumont]

105. At the DNC in San Fran -

. . . in 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."

Sigh.

The Jackal media and the RNC, of course, misquoted him (which was really all they needed to do), took the ball and ran with it.

[jillan]

6. And Howard Dean not only reminded everyone, but proved, that inside all those red states

are alot of Democrats.

I believe this country is split down the middle and that is why politics has become so heated.

[Recursion]

7. When?

He proved that he could do well in caucuses among the Democrats that are in those states, not that there are a lot of them. He also proved that if you fund state parties well you get better results. When and how did he prove that there are "alot of Democrats" in red states?

[MannyGoldstein]

21. You don't remember the 2006 Dem takeover of Congress?

After losing 6 straight shutouts with the DLC in charge, Dean took over and we swept back into power. Until the DLC took over again.

[Recursion]

23. You mean when we ran conservative Democrats to win conservative districts?

And then lost those conservative Democrats 4 years later? Yes, I do. The states weren't full of "Democrats", and certainly not full of progressives.

[MannyGoldstein]

24. It was a start. Obama is an end. nt

[harun]

8. It isn't 1980. it is 2010. Just because the people went that way in

1980 does not mean there is a mandate to implement Reagan's world view for eternity.

What do you think this means?

[Recursion]

12. That map wasn't 1980 either; it was 1984

What do you think this means?

That Obama didn't run on implementing a liberal agenda but on compromising and taking good ideas regardless of their source, as well as on transparency (his big failure to date, IMO) and accountability.

[harun]

69. I see ideas from the Enterprise Institute, as soon as he implements a

Progressive idea you let me know.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. America votes for Presidents on personality.

If Reagan had Mondale's politics and vice-versa, I'm not sure that Reagan still wouldn't have won.


When the personalities are close the races are close. Carter/Ford, Gore/Bush, Kerry/Bush.
When they're quite distinct you get bigger blowouts. Reagan/Mondale, Reagan/Dukakis, Obama/McCain.


It's sad to say but executive elections are more akin to an high school election than a competition of ideologies.

[Recursion]

14. And height, allegedly

But I do take your point.

[Gaedel]

79. How about 1972, Nixon vs McGovern?

An unattractive schlub like Nixon totally blew away the progressive darling, war hero George McGovern. That wasn't a case of attractiveness. Compare the attractivenss and charisma of Nixon and Agnew with McGovern and Camelot legacy Sargent Shriver.

That blowout was as bad as 1984.

[Recursion]

81. My grandmother met McGovern

And trying to be polite (she was a Republican) said, "My son voted for you!" to which he said, "Oh, is that who it was?"

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

95. Here's where the strawman entered:

When you changed "personality" to "attractiveness."

Secondly, using the exception to the rule is foolhardy since I never posited that it was absolute.

[Gaedel]

96. I thought that Tricky Dick was going to win

But I never expected a FDR/Alf Landon blowout.

Amazingly, we lost very few house or senate seats despite being absolutely flattened in the presidential race.

White's book "The making of the President 1972" is a good read on the unfolding campaigns. Unfortunately, I loaned out my copy and never got it back.

[Echotrail]

11. We can't win anyway so we might as well not try.

Support Obama for survival of the party. We should show our approval when he consistently acts in direct opposition to the country's greatest needs and his own promises. The main thing is a thriving party, not what the party leaders DO.

:sarcasm:

[Recursion]

13. Jesus people, not getting everything we want isn't a "loss"

My point is that maximalist demands, particularly from our side of the spectrum, make a lot of the electorate deeply uneasy, and that we accomplish more when we set our aims realistically.

[T Wolf]

15. EVERYTHING?!?!?! True Democrats have not gotten shit from this president and congress except

capitulation to the pukes on every god-damned issue. Not vetoing Lily Ledbetter is not enough - not by a long shot.

The two parties may not be totally, perfectly identical but they are

functionally and operationally close enough for government work.

That work being the destruction of the working and middle classes for the benefit of the rich.

[MannyGoldstein]

17. I guess FDR ran on the same platform as Reagan!

Who knew that FDR and Reagan were pretty much identical?

[Recursion]

22. FDR ran in a much more liberal era than 1984 or 2010

I too wish we hadn't been lurching to the right for 40 years, but pretending we haven't doesn't help anything.

[MannyGoldstein]

25. No

Not even close.

FDR made the country Liberal by fiercely instituting policies that helped working Americans.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Agreed: The prevailing ethos in America in the 1930s was NOT liberal

It was definitely socially conservative (dark-skinned people had no rights, sexual standards were pretty Puritanical), and also economically conservative in the sense that "taking charity" was considered a sign of weakness.

The actual prevailing attitudes were pretty close to what the Republicans espouse today: worshiping the rich, despising the poor. That's one reason why Hoover muddled around for four years after the Crash of 1929.

[Recursion]

34. Well, no

It was definitely socially conservative (dark-skinned people had no rights, sexual standards were pretty Puritanical)

So was FDR, for that matter.

and also economically conservative in the sense that "taking charity" was considered a sign of weakness.

Umm.. no.

And socialism was still a nearly-viable presence in American politics (not nearly as much as it had been 20 years before that.

[MannyGoldstein]

47. Even FDR was against "the dole" when he took office!

I highly recommend that you do some reading on this - you might find it fascinating.

One book I recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Fear-Hundred-Created-America/dp/B0028N72NU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292254241&sr=8-1

[Recursion]

49. Yes, he ran on cutting taxes and decreasing "government interference" in 1932

And he was attacked pretty mercilessly by the populists of the day (Father Coughlin and Huey P. Long, anyone?) for consolidating corporate power and picking large institutions to survive the economic collapse.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

62. Umm, yes

Socialism was viable in the sense of people organizing for better working conditions, etc.

But there was still a huge bias against anyone who "took charity."

[Le Taz Hot]

114. +1

Thank you!

[Bluenorthwest]

70. Tell that to minority communities

Tell that to the workers who were being beaten by Pinkertons. The gay people being hauled off to jail. Segregation of everything. Yeah, the 1930's were just soooo liberal!

[proud2BlibKansan]

83. Prohibition was a much more liberal era???

[Recursion]

84. It was even *called* "The Progressive Era"

Though admittedly the very tail end of it. Prohibition came from the left; it's a spiritual cousin to our current anti-smoking crusades.

[JackRiddler]

90. Sad fact: Prohibition very much came about because of progressive support.

It brought together a grand coalition that allied women's suffragists (it was seen as a measure to protect women from drunken husbands and broken families) and public health reformers and doctors' associations with the Christian temperance movement, eugenicists and more traditional forces of racism and anti-immigration. Also, industrial capitalists were all for it as a productivity measure and a way to nail unionists through selective enforcement.

[hedgehog]

19. I have some disagreement with your premise. I voted in 1980,

and I remember Mondale as suggesting that the country could no longer afford the New Deal. To me, Mondale was preaching that we'd just have to give up on the American Dream of a comfortable middle class. I saw him retreating into his gated community in Minnesota and giving up without a fight. That may or may not be what he ran on, I'm just saying that that's the impression I got out in Ohio. At the time, everything we learned about a candidate was filtered through the big three networks and a couple publications like Time, Newsweek, etc.

If my impressions were representative, regardless of what Mondale actually stood for, people may have thought they were choosing between someone who had given up and a wild card who might make a change.

[Recursion]

20. Why have 3 people now said Mondale ran in 1980? (nt)

[hedgehog]

91. Us older folks tend to blur dates........i just saw the name Mondale and didn't

really notice the date.

[JackRiddler]

88. See, that's the thing. No matter how far to the right Democrats run...

if they win, it's because they were "centrist," if they lose, it's because they were too "liberal" after all. The mythic logic is invincible.

Also, whether one is to be called "liberal" or not is determined not by the candidate or by an evaluation of positions and statements, but by an evidence-free consensus labeling process among corporate media pundits who lean Republican -- Oh, sorry, "centrists."

[jpgray]

26. What ought Reagan to have concluded looking at the 1964 electoral map?

Might you admit that epochal changes in the electorate over decades make this sort comparison ridiculous? Comparing the present with the past is useless if your point is made by eliding whole revolutions in thinking and culture. This can lead one far from the subject of inquiry and easily into error, no?

[Recursion]

30. That he should exploit racial resentment in the south and midwest

Which seems to have worked.

[jpgray]

46. Well, we know from that a black man could never win in the south and midwest

Certainly not Indiana and North Carolina. Am I right?

:dunce:

This is seriously one of the stupidest analogy threads I've seen on DU, and that's saying a damn lot.

[Recursion]

48. *sigh*

It's an example of running too far to the left (or right; see the Johnson/Goldwater map you posted upthread) because you've bought your own echo-chamber narrative and believe the country has a silent majority that agrees with you.

[jpgray]

54. Bush then was less to the right than Kerry was to the left?

Or is it time to admit that there is more than a single overwhelming influence in elections, and that instead elections are decided by a complex web of labyrinthine causes and effects? People constantly overgeneralize this to make simple points, but that doesn't make it right.

I agree that Bernie ain't winning, and my money says he ain't running. But this is just a bad way to make your point.

[Recursion]

58. Yes; W was a triangulator

He was a Republican who spent tons of Federal money on health care and education, and wanted to soften our draconian immigration laws (and took serious hits from the right for all three of those). Though Kerry was definitely on the centrist end of our party, which was probably a big part of why the election was so close.

[tjwash]

32. Reagan was still making cut-rate B grade movies in 64

But go ahead and keep comparing apples to hand grenades.

[jpgray]

51. The premise of this thread is that a generation-old map determines today's political reality

In other words, that Reagan in '80 should have looked at Johnson's '64 map, and said "It's hopeless."

Incidentally, I seem to remember Reagan giving a speech in 1964, but I'm sure it was nothing political. Right? You're the history expert.

[Recursion]

66. If it makes you feel better to think that's what I'm saying... (nt)

[RZM]

78. Actually

1964 helped put Reagan on the national political map. Though Goldwater still got trounced, this speech helped him raise a lot of money:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvg7lRsCVJ8

[Recursion]

80. By 1964 he had been doing his GE speeches for 8 years

And had already made a splash by endorsing Nixon 4 years earlier (while still being nominally a Democrat). He spent over a decade building the base that got him to the CA governorship in 67

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. Mondale ran an inept, foot-in-mouth campaign

AND had the corporate press lined up against him, and I say that as a Minnesota native who likes Mondale.

You don't START your campaign by saying "I'm going to raise your taxes" and looking gleeful about it. When I saw that, I knew it was all over. Whoever his campaign coordinator was should have been fired.

But even so, a Minnesota cartoonist contrasted the treatment of the two candidates. Reagan as the "Teflon candidate" (no matter what he was accused of, the Establishment stuck up for him) and Mondale as the "Velcro candidate" (whatever he was accused of stuck and was discussed endlessly, no matter if it was true or not).

[Recursion]

37. Everyone always says the press is against them

Reagan was pretty thoroughly mocked in the press during both elections, which only fed into the whole "east coast liberal elites" narrative.

[JackRiddler]

44. Just out of curiousity, how old were you in 1984?

I'm trying to figure out if its naivete or stupidity at work here.

[Recursion]

45. One hundred and three (nt)

[JackRiddler]

50. That's about what I would have guessed.

[Bluenorthwest]

75. I attended speeches by all the major Democratic candidates

that year. And your version of that election cycle sounds made up from a Republican chap book.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

52. Me? I was in my early thirties

so I actually remember the Reagan-Mondale contest.

[tjwash]

28. Don't forget the 1980 map, when the Dems ran a primary challenger against Carter

Good on ya too... pretty gutsy thread. I see by the overwhelming wailing and gnashing of teeth in response-land here, that folks aren't really enjoying the history lesson.

[jpgray]

31. And Jesse Jackson's primary campaign proves no black man should run...

Oh wait.

[JackRiddler]

76. Yeah, because Iran and the economy and October Surprise had nothing to do with that.

Anything bad that happens, it's always because leftists exist, in spite of what most of the Democratic establishment would like.

[tomm2thumbs]

86. Didn't Carter suffer from not dealing with hostage takers?

Uh oh - something familiar about that...

[1VaDem]

35. It is true that we are only Liberal in pockets.

Pockets of Liberals will never convince the rest of this nation that "doing the right thing" means giving to people who "don't work for it". As long as the Conservatives keep God, Guns, antiGays and "the working man" in their corner, the rest of our struggle will remain a moot point of debate on blogs and nothing more. It is sad what we are reduced to, but the truth will out.

[Recursion]

39. Though the same could be said for conservatives

I'd say we're ideological only in pockets; the great squishy "center" isn't really "between" the parties but rather doesn't care how things get done as long as they get done and

A) Their economic situation gets better or at least doesn't get worse, and
B) The social conditions of the country don't change too rapidly.

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. Obama is NOT left of center

Sheesh. Why do we need to keep having that conversation?

[Recursion]

38. Because you guys still pretend he's a conservative (nt)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

56. No pretending here

If he talks like a conservative and acts like a conservative, he's a conservative.

You must be young, because you're repeating all the DLC talking points verbatim and with great conviction. If you truly believe that Obama is "liberal," then you must not remember what it was like to have a really liberal president or candidates.

[HughBeaumont]

108. I don't really think many people on this board, or this country, for that matter . . .

. . . have ever truly experienced an honest-to-goodness liberal president. I don't even think Carter fit that label, in hindsight.

[proud2BlibKansan]

82. Yes that's exactly what we do

:sarcasm:

[HughBeaumont]

107. Yes, most people on the left that I know give the rich everything they want.

[mikekohr]

40. Pragmatic Progressive Post, BRAVO!

"One doesn't have to be smart to succeed in politics but you do need to be able to count." -Robert F. Kennedy-

Independents remain critical to the Democrat Party, denying reality dooms us to failure.

Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group Compared with 2008, more Americans "conservative" in general, and on issues

by Lydia Saad PRINCETON, NJ -- Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.
read full article:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/123854/Conservatives-Maintai

[JackRiddler]

41. Why don't you show us the one from the 1856 election?

Because, you know, NOTHING EVER CHANGES and 1984 was, like, last year, right?

In fact, everyone alive at the time is still alive today and no one has been born since! Nothing ever changes.

I mean, why did this Mondale run against Reagan at all? Reagan is what Americans want, by nature, forever.

This is also why FDR, to the left of Mondale, lost those four elections back whenever.

In the interest of unity and efficiency, we too should therefore also shut up and join with the Spirit of Reagan.

SPIRIT OF REAGAN - 2012 AND FOREVER!

[PSPS]

43. Silly comparison

The two campaigns were completely different, the economy was a lot better in 1984 than it is today (middle class wages much better than today, interest rates falling, lower unemployment,) the RW media Wurlitzer was already in full swing, etc. Apparently, your exercise is meant to scuttle any thought of "Sanders for President." I've not heard of any "Sanders for President" push anywhere, and I've heard him say he's not interested in running anyway.

[Marr]

53. The '84 election was not about 'corporate power vs. populism', and it's

a bit silly to claim it was. There were a lot of factors at play in that election, but ideas like 'social justice' weren't amongst them. It was about personality, a weird triumphalism after the Grenada invasion, a president putting everything on credit cards, etc.

I also think it's a bit strange to insist that the country hasn't changed since then. It most certainly has changed-- the policies began by Reagan have come home to roost. We're paying his credit card bills nowadays, so to speak, and the average person is much worse off for it.

Now, I don't think a challenger from the left would have much of a chance against Obama, but that's less about the political sentiment of the country's population than it is about entrenched party machines and the media.

[Recursion]

55. I said it has changed

I also think it's a bit strange to insist that the country hasn't changed since then

Ummm... I said it has changed; the electorate as a whole is more skeptical of government involvement in the economy than it was then (even to the point of completely and stubbornly ignoring the fact that government programs they like are in fact run by the government). But that attitude isn't as bad as it was even 5 years ago.

[Marr]

68. Perhaps I should have said, 'hasn't changed in a way that would make

populist arguments any more marketable'.

You honestly think the population has become more averse to government involvement over the last five years? I'll have to disagree. I think a candidate could get himself into rock throwing distance of the White House with nothing more than promises to stick it to big bankers.

[Recursion]

71. No, I said we're less averse than we were 5 years ago

But more averse than 25 years ago. Let alone 40.

[Marr]

74. Ah-- I'm having reading comprehension troubles this morning, pardon me.

So, less averse than five years ago, but more than 25 years ago. That may be so, it's difficult to say.

Regardless, it isn't a question that's been put to the public in an election since well before 1984. The closest the sentiment might be said to have been voted on was, oddly, Obama's own election. I know he never claimed to be a liberal, and he most certainly isn't one, but a lot of people thought he was, and voted for Change©. I'm sure "change" meant many different things to many different people, but if my own experience is at all representative, government involvement in the economy was a common interpretation.

[Recursion]

77. Hey, it's Monday

I know he never claimed to be a liberal, and he most certainly isn't one, but a lot of people thought he was, and voted for Change©. I'm sure "change" meant many different things to many different people, but if my own experience is at all representative, government involvement in the economy was a common interpretation.

And, there's the problem, isn't it? Everybody wanted change but no two people agreed on what that change should be (cf. the Beatles' Revolution).

With the caveat that this is simply my anecdotal experience from campaign work in eastern Ohio in 2008 and so should be taken with 8 or 10 grains of salt, where I saw the "change" idea connecting with people was that Obama was perceived to be willing to tone down the combativeness and zero-sum mentality, and would consider proposals from Republicans just like he would from Democrats. And that he wouldn't do back room deals (oops...)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Yes, the Establishment press is definitely lined up for Establishment candidates

As early as 2007, the MSM were acting as if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were the only two candidates, when in reality, there were four others.

By the way, I heartily suggest working on a campaign as a method of learning on a gut level that most of what they teach you in ninth grade civics class is nonsense.

[Recursion]

65. Ain't that the truth

I heartily suggest working on a campaign as a method of learning on a gut level that most of what they teach you in ninth grade civics class is nonsense.

That and being (very junior) Committee staff on the Hill were huge eye-openers for me, at least. I'd love to see schoolhouse rock do "I'm just an omnibus continuing resolution, sitting here on capitol hill..." And both of them teach you that there are a whole lot of absolutely batshit crazy people out there.

[Ken Burch]

57. Your analysis of 1984 is bullshit.

Mondale was NEVER a populist. He never challenged Reagan's agenda with any passion. When he spoke, he sounded like he was suicidally depressed.

And he doomed himself NOT by doing anything "liberal", but because he tied his vow to raise taxes NOT to any agenda for helping working people in the depressed industrial states or helping the poor get out of poverty, but to the meaningless and unachievable goal of "fighting the deficit".

Mondale ran as a bland establishment toady. He supported most of Reagan's Central American policy and wouldn't let the party approve an anti-nuclear foreign policy plank.

Jesse Jackson was the populist in that race. He was slandered out of contention because he committed truth about the injustices Israel visited on Palestinians, but had Jesse's agenda been adopted by a candidate who was seen as more personally credible, that candidate COULD have made a strong run against Reagan. Mondale, the bland establishment candidate, refused to even try that, and refused to do anything to boost Rainbow or labor voter registration. That's why he lost.

And there were never ANY polls in 1984 that suggested a Democrat that distanced himself from traditional liberalism would have done any better.

[WinkyDink]

64. I am proud to say I voted for Rev. Jackson in the Primary, and met him in my town.

[Ken Burch]

67. I was one of only a handful of white Jackson supporters in the Alaska precinct caucuses that year

With the looks I got, you'd have thought I was wearing a Hitler button.

[Recursion]

73. I met him that year in MS

During Mississippi's primary fiasco (that's still painful to think about).

[WinkyDink]

61. Mondale may have lost, but history anathematizes Reagan.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

63. If your prinicples demand that you vote for centrists do so. Mine don't.

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." John Quincy Adams

[Bluenorthwest]

72. Mondale a populist? That is hilarious!

He ran as a basic, off the rack middle of the road Democrat. In the Primary, Jesse Jackson was the candidate of the people. Mondale was just mainstream all the dull way.
So pretty silly premise! If silly was the goal, you made that goal!

[bushisanidiot]

85. The electorate is only SLIGHTLY left of center. When the left tries to pull the

president to the left, he is leaving the middle open for the republicans to move in and take it from us.

IT'S THAT SIMPLE!

[That Guy 888]

87. Yes, to the average voter Walter Mondale was as charasmatic and engaging as raygun

goppers have no shame about using any tactic to get what they want. They are never upfront about what they really are about.

Obama and Clinton won on personality, not so much on policy. Who was more charismatic, Clinton, george h. w. bush, or bob dole?

In a "personality contest", which is the best or mainstream media gives us, who did you think would win, Obama or mccain?

Unfortunately personality and appearance are a big factor in elections.

[bobbolink]

89. We all love a good hot cup of FEAR in the morning.

And our current crop of Dems is finishing off where Raygun began.

So peddle the fear somewhere else.

[Octafish]

92. October Surprise

Without GOP treason in 1980, there wouldn't have been a landslide in 1984. Oh, don't forget to thank them for their role: CIA Agents for Bush.

[BlueIris]

109. Many on this board should look to the forthcoming

December Surprise. They will be a lot less miserable with some time to prepare.

[bemildred]

93. All your government are belong to us. nt

[The Midway Rebel]

94. Dewd...two words.

Geraldine Ferraro

[progressoid]

97. And maybe because he was dull.

[Lucian]

98. Most voters in this country are idiots.

And I hate this anti-third party bullshit. It's not 1984 anymore, in case you forgot.

[Krakowiak]

100. Man, it's too bad that Reagan dude is dead now

He looks like he'd be a good candidate for the Dems to run.

Perhaps a crazy celebrity ex-governor will emerge for us to throw our hat in with. Draft Palin?

Thanks for the advice.

[asdjrocky]

101. Then I guess we need a new system.

You map only shows that our system has not been working for not just years, but decades.

"If the gods had intended people to vote, they would have given them candidates."
Just a little truth from Howard Zinn

[GreenPartyVoter]

102. Agreed

[Wednesdays]

103. Too many variables

For example, what were the demographics in 1984, compared to today? Compared to the year 2040? :shrug:

The Civil Rights Act changed the tectonic plates of America forever. Lyndon Johnson was right when he signed it: the South was lost for a generation. Actually, it was a 30-year uphill battle for Democrats after that.

But that's starting to change. The South that was "lost" was the all-white-majority South. Johnson could never have dreamed that in less than a century after signing the Act, America would be more than 50% brown people. Unless the repukes have a miraculous turnaround (or, God forbid, they turn to genocide), those brown people will be handing them defeat after defeat.

[GOTV]

104. Certainly it had nothing to do with the fact that Reagan was a professional spokesperson ....

... and gifted speaker?

[MadHound]

106. What a pathetic attempt to discourage anybody from fighting for anything ever again.

Posting an electoral map over a quarter century old proves nothing. But hey, keep up the campaign of discouragement, it's amusing to watch.

[Odin2005]

110. The economy was on the mend and Reagan took credit for it, so Mondale was screwed.

Has the oil crisis lasted longer it would have been Reagan that was creamed.

[rug]

111. Vote!

Hostage politics is taking hold.

[reformist2]

112. Democrats need to stop obsessing over Reagan.

And if they bothered to look, they'd realize that they could a lot more mileage exploiting the differences between Reagan and today's Republicans.

[CanonRay]

115. That was the year we handed our future to the right wing

and this is where it got us. That election really sucked. Thanks for the memories!

[Douglas Carpenter]

116. I contrast the "lesson" learned from 72 and 84 versus the lesson conservative learned from 64

Following the landslide defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964 - the conservative movement realized that they have to work harder and build a national movement and convince people that they are right. The accepted wisdom by the professional class of the Democratic Party in regards to 1972 and 1984 is to reject the New Deal tradition and abandon the core values of why most core Democrats are Democrats and embrace unpopular neoliberal economics.

There is no evidence that most Americans support right-wing economic policies. In fact the overwhelming evidence points to the stark opposite. There is a lot of evidence that the Republicans have been highly successful at appealing to highly emotive single-issue voters who would likely otherwise vote Democratic. With much of the mainstream of the Democratic Party establishment abandoning the New Deal and the Great Society - they leave the more socially conservative but economically populist voter no reason to vote Democratic at all.

Also as others have pointed out, we now have a generation of people who are simply too young to remember when liberals did dominate the Democratic Party establishment and others who are too untraveled to know what left and center-left actually means. Thus we have many people actually confusing the center-right policies of Clinton and Obama with the center-left. This is truly an Orwellian accomplishment.

"Everything faded into the mist. The past was erased. The erasure was forgotten. The lies became truth." - George Orwell