Talk:1984 United States presidential election/Archive 1

Billy Davis
Lyndon LaRouche's running mate is listed as Billy Davis. Billy Davis the producer of "I'd like to teach the world to sing", "Things go better with Coke," etc.? Because that's who it presently links to! Even Google doesn't seem to know anything to speak of about the LaRouche Davis (articles that include them both are Googlebait produced by forks of Wikipedia to get attention, and are based only on the fact that "Billy Davis" in this very article presently links to that Billy Davis. Samaritan 03:48, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, that Billy Davis was elected Vice President - er, or promoted to Senior Vice-President and Music Director at the McCann-Erickson advertising agency. But it's obvious from it's not the same one. Off to disambiguate... Samaritan 03:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Now for anybody who can add something to edit Billy Davis (politician)... Samaritan 04:10, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * The Larouche-Davis part of the article is gone and I don't know if any of the other third-party or independent vote-getters were included in a past version. Is there any policy on including them or not? Schizombie 18:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The rule of thumb for the results table is that one either has to have received any electoral votes or at least 0.1% of the popular vote. LaRouche received 0.09% of the popular vote (although there was a debate about the precise threshold, and it may now be lower).  However, there is nothing that says that a candidate can't be listed in the main article, but they do have to be somehow noteworthy.  For example, in 1872, Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass certainly didn't get enough votes to be listed in the results table, but they are described in the Wikipedia article on 1872 because Woodhull was the first woman presidential candidate and Douglass was the first (albeit unwilling) black vice presidential candidate.  As far as LaRouche and Davis go, I doubt that their candidacies were particularly noteworthy.  This was just one of many runs for LaRouche, and neither the first nor the last.  Davis' Wikipedia article is still a stub, and it doesn't appear that he did anything particularly noteworthy in this election, either.  — DLJessup (talk) 04:37, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Should there be a (detail) page for all presidential elections to cover third party and independent candidates receiving less than 0.1% of the vote, as there is for at least the 2000 and 2004 elections? That would seem to me to be reasonably encyclopedic.  Otherwise, to know what other minor candidates there were and how many votes they received, you'd have to either stumble across the WP pages for those individuals or parties (if they have any), or else go to another site. Schizombie 21:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You can certainly try. It may be a little difficult:  the 2000 and 2004 elections depended on the FEC website for their information, and, so far as I can tell, the FEC is not maintaining pages for previous elections.  You might want to try the Clerk of the House of Representatives, who has official vote counts going back to 1920, which are public domain as a government publication. — DLJessup (talk) 02:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. FEC does seem to have 1996 though http://www.fec.gov/96fed/geresult.htm Schizombie 02:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Is the party’s candidate charismatic or a national hero?
Is the party’s candidate charismatic or a national hero?

Ronald Reagan was a highly respected and well liked individual even before he became president. He was an actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild and a former governor of California. After his recent death he was regarded as a national hero and is remembered by many as one of the most popular presidents in United States history.

What was the yearly mean per capita rate of growth in real GNP equal to or greater than 1% and equal to or greater than the previous eight years’ growth rate?

Economic growth increased from a 2.8 percent annual rate in the Carter administration, but this is misleading because the growth of the working-age population was much slower in the Reagan years. Reagan’s economic policy, “Reaganomics”, was thought as a positive infulenece in the US economy while he was president, but later on in the decade the effects of his policies were exposed. Reagan left three difficult economic barriers to overcome at the end of his second term. First, the privately held federal debt increased from 22.3 percent of GDP to 38.1 percent and the federal deficit in Reagan's last budget was still 2.9 percent of GDP. Second, the failure to address the savings and loan problem early led to an additional debt of about $125 billion. Third, the administration added more trade barriers than any administration since Hoover. The share of U.S. imports subject to some form of trade restraint increased from 12 percent in 1980 to 23 percent in 1988.

Was there a serious contest for the nomination of the incumbent party?

No, Reagan was coming off his first term which was considered successful on many levels. There was no interference with his re-election.

Was there a major third-party campaign?

There was no major third party influence during the 1984 election. Ronald Reagan won every state except for Minnesota (where Democratic candidate Walter Mondale served as a senator) and in the District of Columbia. He won with 538 electoral votes, the most in United States history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.109.0.69 (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * - Reagan won in 1984, when 538 electoral votes were cast. However, Reagan did not receive all 538 electoral votes. The winner of every election from 1964 to 2004 was elected with 538 electoral votes being cast (the most in United States history). Chronicler3 20:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * If there were a Wikipedia equivalent of a killfile, the original poster would certainly deserve it. I have no idea of what he was trying to get at, and there certainly doesn't appear to be anything actionable in the post.
 * One addendum to Chronicler3's response: Reagan did receive the most electoral votes (525) in United States history, but only as an absolute number.  This is somewhat less impressive than it might appear at first glance:  there weren't 525 electoral votes total until the United States presidential election of 1912.  As a percentage of the total electoral vote, Reagan got 97.6% of the electoral vote, amazing, but still only 5th in American history (behind both of Washington's elections, Monroe's second run, and FDR's second run).  This isn't to take anything away from one of the towering figures in United States history, but to be accurate, we need to be comparing apples to apples.
 * — DLJessup (talk) 04:57, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Minor parties
I am not sure of the source of the information on Bergland's vote totals, but I believe they are too low. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/ContainerHistory.html?ContainerID=2382 provides the following votes for third party candidates: Chronicler3 12:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * David P. Bergland (Lbt) 228,314
 * Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. (I) 78,807
 * Sonia Johnson (Cit) 72,200
 * Bob Richards (Pop) 66,336
 * Dennis L. Serrette (I All) 46,852
 * Gus Hall (Cm) 36,386
 * Melvin T. Mason (SW) 24,706
 * Larry Holmes (WW) 15,329
 * Delmar Dennis (Am) 13,161
 * Edward Winn (WkLg) 10,801
 * Earl F. Dodge (P) 4,242
 * and 5 others including scattering


 * The source of the information is given right below the results table:
 * Source (Popular Vote):
 * Leip is used as the source for the popular vote for almost all of the United States presidential election articles after 1820.
 * — DLJessup (talk) 14:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

war "instigated" by democratic administrations
I removed this: "Although the charge was indeed historically accurate, some observers found it inappropriate." From the end of the following paragraph:

"At a speech to the Republican National Convention, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona repeated Robert Dole's 1976 charge that every war of the twentieth century that the United States got involved in was instigated by Democratic administrations."

It may be true that every war in which the US was involved militarily between 1976 and 1900 started during a Democratic administration (not sure of this myself), but this is far from saying that the administrations "instigated" the wars. Instigated basically means that they started the wars, which does not seem, to me, to be historically accurate in, for example, the case of World War II. If the US did become involved in each of these wars during a Democratic Administration, perhaps the statement should be, "Although it was, at the time, historically accurate to say that the all wars in the 20th century in which the United States became active militarily were wars entered during Democratic administrations, some observers found the statement inappropriate, perhaps because of the implications of the word "instigate"."

Also, it would be seemingly advantageous to get an exact quote on what Goldwater said. Cesoid 21:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Voter turnout
Shouldn't it be said somewhere in this article (as well as quite a few other articles about U.S. presidential elections, a quick lookthru revealed) what the actual voter turnout was in percentage points of the voting age population? This is in my opinion as crucial a statistic as the others already stated. --80.221.36.88 01:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

primaries
The discussion of the Democratic primaries is pretty awful - there's no dates, and very little detail of any kind. Surely we can do better. Our coverage of the details of presidential elections before Wikipedia's birth ought to be as detailed as our coverage of more recent elections. john k (talk) 17:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Walter Mondale Image
The current image of Mondale is of recent years. We need a image of Mondale during the '84 campaign. GoodDay (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Furthermore, the old-age Mondale image (which again is inaccurate), sorta kills the Reagan one-liner of age being a campaign issue. GoodDay (talk) 15:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The OP did a great job of giving us a heads up on that. Truly a case of fail, when we put an aged picture of Mondale next to a younger picture of Reagan. Rock8591 (talk) 05:24, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Rightward-shift myth
I'm alarmed that this article suggests a "conservative shift" in the American public took place in the '80s to help Reagan win. Certainly, I could understand that someone with a poor understanding of politics would come to this conclusion, but I believe most political scientists would argue otherwise. Although there was a lot of "crossover" (ex: "Reagan Democrats"), this was hardly evidence of the American public going more conservative. Instead, a dissatisfaction with the Democratic candidates seems to have driven many Democratic voters to abstain or to temporarily latch on to Reagan's seemingly strong character.

Through examining public opinion data, Navarro (1985) found that although voters re-elected Reagan by huge margins, MOST of them actually DID continue to support liberal social programs that he intended to cut. Instead, as Hibbs (1982) noted about the 1980 election, dissatisfaction with Democrats and Carter was the major driving force to vote for Republicans. Later, Kiewiet and Rivers (1985) also reaffirmed that the 1984 election was won by economic factors, not ideological factors. A strong article on the subject is "The Myth of the Conservative Shift in American Politics: A Research Note" by Larry M. Schwab of John Carroll University. It was in Western Political Quarterly: Vol 41, No 4, p. 822 where he says: "...election data indicate no liberal-to-conservative voting trend developed from the mid-to-late 1970's to the 1980's."

If there was a major rightward ideological shift as this article suggests, that would translate into similar ideological changes for Congress - this was not the case. Therefore, I'm removing the article's hint that a rightward shift propelled Reagan's Presidency. If you all need some sources, check below:

Hibbs, Douglas A., Jr. 1982. "President Reagan's Mandate from the 1980 Elections: A Shift to the Right?" American Politics Quarterly 10 (October): 387-420.

Kiewiet, Roderick D., and Douglas Rivers. 1985. "The Economic Basis of Reagan's Appeal." In John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson, eds., The New Direction in American Politics. Washington, D.C: Brookings.

Navarro, Vicente. 1985. "The 1984 Election and the New Deal: An Alternative Interpretation." Social Policy 15 (Spring): 3-10.

Rob Shepard (talk) 20:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm OK with your removal of the line in question because it was not sourced, but if there WERE a source, it would be a very different story. Croctotheface (talk) 22:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

no body cares!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.175.51.169 (talk) 13:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Map Colors
Can someone point me to the discussion where it was resolved to change the map/party colors on all the US election pages away from the traditional Red=Democrat/Blue=Republican? I very much object to this change, and am hoping to discuss the matter with the contributors that decided upon this policy of quasi-revisionist history. It is simply unconscionable to me to see FDR is now represented by Blue, that Lake Reagan has disappeared, or that Lincoln now emblazons the Northern states in Red. Particularly since the official source for these maps - the US Government - continues to use the traditional colors. --patton1138 (talk) 17:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I, too, object to the map colors. I distinctly recall seeing a blue US map with Minnesota in red while watching the returns in 1984.  At the very least, the colors should reflect the map at the time.  Also, there should be discussion as to the changing of the colors given the emotional connotations associated with each (ie, blue = calming; red = anger, irritation), which would seem to indicate media bias.  Why was the change made after being that way for so long and who decided upon the change?  --Philsheo (talk) 20:09, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The use of red for Republican states apparently began in 1984 with ABC News. According to David Brinkley, who was an ABC commentator on election night, that was because R = Reagan = red.  http://youtube/7IS7W9XSoq8  Wikipedia does not allow posting of links to You Tube videos, so you will have to put a dot in between you and tube in order for the above citation to work.John Paul Parks (talk) 15:30, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Why does this article embed two maps of election results by county? ( File:1984 United States presidential election results map by county.svg and File:1984prescountymap2.PNG ) The only difference I can see between them is the shading gradient. --2.204.226.53 (talk) 05:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Other parties
There are a number of other parties and independents missing. Should there be a page like List of candidates in the United States presidential election, 2008, or should they all be listed in the Other parties section? Socialist Workers Party (United States) and the Socialist Equality Party (United States) are among the missing. Шизомби (talk) 15:39, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Electoral Votes
How many electoral votes did Mondale win, 10 (as the map shows) or 13 (as the infobox shows)?--kelapstick (talk) 21:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * 13, 10 in MN plus 3 in DC which are kinda hard to see on the map Sexyparty (talk) 08:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Ben Fernandez.jpg
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"Assured of nomination?
I came across this today, which I thought was interesting, especially in light of Obama's current circumstamnces. At least in late 1982 and early 1983, Reagan wasn't "assured" of the nomination.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/13/reagan_hagiography_week

"Of course, if you're not intent on pushing a narrative of the 1980s that casts Reagan as a magical being, then the ups and downs described above make perfect sense. Unemployment was soaring in 1982, so he and his party were blamed -- and his personality counted for nothing. It fell dramatically in 1983 and 1984, so Reagan was reelected decisively"

"After the '82 vote, Reagan faced calls from his fellow Republicans not to seek reelection in 1984. Some outspoken conservatives even demanded -- publicly -- that he be challenged in the '84 primaries if he went ahead and ran. (Jack Kemp, William Armstrong and Jesse Helms were all touted as would-be challengers.) Liberal Republicans (they still existed, sort of) were equally discontent; a pre-scandal Bob Packwood made a late '82 trip to New Hampshire, teasing a possible bid of his own. And Capitol Hill Republicans began charting a course independent of the Reagan White House.

All of this stopped only when the economy -- and, as a result, Reagan's poll numbers -- began showing life in '83. There's just no need to bend over backwards trying to invent reasons for Reagan's post-'82 strength when we already have a perfectly good one." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.220.169.222 (talk) 00:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Good reference for 1984 campaign
written by Reagan's campaign Manager. --Javaweb (talk) 14:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)Javaweb

Economic Recovery & "Revival of National Confidence and Prestige"
The economic recovery from the severe recession that in the 1980s is generally accepted by economists; certainly GDP growth improved by the mid-80s compared to where it had been in the late 70s and early 80s. However a source really should be provided to back up the specific claim of economic recovery mentioned in multiple places. With regard to the 'revival of national confidence and prestige', the source cited for that claim (a NY Times article) supports the notion that it was largely a matter of perception created by the Reagan campaign: "The Reagan campaign relied on a series of artfully made television commercials and elaborate patriotic rallies, all designed to promote the theme that America is back under Mr. Reagan's leadership." Not sure how one can argue that this 'revival' was a proven fact rather than a perception promoted by Reagan's own campaign, unless one is trying to push a one-sided POV as fact. It was this perception that Reagan touted, and including the word "perceived" in that line is not in any way unreasonable in making that clear. Inqvisitor (talk) 13:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Reagan's campaign capitalized on the "perceived revival", which is a tautology, as any measure of national confidence and prestige is a perception by definition. The campaign did not and could not have created it. http://www.scribd.com/doc/105813184/How-close-is-this-race-really-AEI-Political-Report-September-2012 - 1984 measures on every question were extremely high pre-election. The word "perceived" is nothing more than a non-value-add weasel word.165.123.87.4 (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * "Perceived" makes clear that is a matter of perception promoted by Reagan's own campaign, not a measurable fact like the economic recovery. Attempting to imply it was a fact is a 'weasel' action that pushes a one-sided view that only weakens the integrity of the statement. Some acknowledgement that it was a matter of perception adds clarity and neutrality. It was the perception that Reagan touted and 'capitalized' on; there is nothing wrong or unreasonable about wording it clearly in that way. Inqvisitor (talk) 23:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * National confidence and prestige is ALWAYS a matter of perception. It's by definition a perception. Eliminating this redundant descriptor does not cheapen its integrity or neutrality. It's an acknowledgment of basic English, and if anything makes the statement more clear and less hedged.68.180.28.138 (talk) 00:44, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * That said, I'm not going to continue this edit war. The current compromise, if not ideal and if one that I think needlessly embellishes a simple statement, will have to do.68.180.28.138 (talk) 00:46, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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General Election
I suggest some rewriting or resourcing of this sentence.

"The Reagan campaign briefly used "Born in the U.S.A.", a song criticizing the treatment of Vietnam War veterans (which they mistakenly thought was devoid of anti-war content and a very jingoistic patriotic rock song), as a campaign song, without permission, until Springsteen, a lifelong Democrat, insisted that they stop.[67]" (bold mine).

None of the information in this sentence is in the cited source, which wouldn't be a particularly strong source even if the information were there. It could all be true, but would need some citation that verified it. Further, the parenthetical ascribes difficult-to-show inner workings to the minds at the Reagan campaign. This could be true as well, but would also require sourcing. Certainly, it's neither obvious nor necessary: one could easily imagine that cynical political campaign managers simply co-opted a critical song about the US for the sake of its patriotic sounding chorus, fully aware of the content of the verses. This doesn't seem like a particularly important point in the discussion of the 1984 election, so in the absence of any interest in legitimately sourcing it, perhaps others will agree that the sentence should be scrapped.146.115.132.3 (talk) 22:04, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Rewrite suggestion
Is it just me, or does this sentence in the lead not really make any sense?

Looks like there's a flat-out typo too, but I'm not sure what the stat is actually supposed to be or how this should be rephrased. SiliconRed (he/him) (talk) 19:49, 23 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Siliconred 178.89.172.7 (talk) 10:22, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Mondale Photograph
The photograph needs to be changed, as the photo used for the 1984 election is the Vice Presidential photo was taken in 1977, a whole 7 years before this election even happened. The photo that was used for like 11 hours before was taken in 1984 and was much more accurate to how the candidate looked in the time of the election Gelid Lagopus (talk) 18:10, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Best we use a photo of Mondale, as the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee. Unlike the 1988 election, where Bush was the incumbent veep running for president. Mondale was a former veep running for president, just like Nixon in 1968, Gore in 2000 & Biden in 2020. GoodDay (talk) 18:10, 23 September 2022 (UTC)


 * It keeps getting changed to his photo in 1977, when even in 1968 the photo used is not Nixon’s Vice Presidential portrait. A photo from 1984 would be more accurate for the election and the photo given had been used for days. It should be changed back to the photo from 1984 to be accurate to the election. Gelid Lagopus (talk) 16:59, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Photograph for Mondale
Mondale's current photograph is from 1977, seven years before the election. Even though it's an official portrait, that's still a bigger time gap than most other portraits used for presidential candidates from this era. Since there have already been attempts to change the image, I'd like to propose using a crop of this image, which is already used in the article for the Democratic primary.

Its from 1982, which while not perfect is still a lot better than 1977, and can be cropped to maintain a relative size consistency to Reagan. The angle doesn't seem worse than say, Dukakis' photo for '88, and the image even seems clearer than the current one. I think it's ultimately far more accurate to how Mondale looked in '84 (the hair is a lot greyer for instance), so I think it's a far better fit than the VP portrait. Hexcron (talk) 14:07, 17 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Usually for Presidential Elections, it is common to use to use the closest (in terms of time) office portrait of the nominee for their respective election if it is available, so in this case it would be the 1985 Portrait for Ronald Reagan and the 1977 Portrait for Walter Mondale (with Dukakis in 88 being the exception as his closest available photo was a B&W Image). To add on, the Mondale image discussion has gone on for more then 15 years now, going back as early as February 2008, and to add to this, I’m use a message from another Wikipedian on the last time this issue was brought up back in September 2022 “Best we use a photo of Mondale, as the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee. Unlike the 1988 election, where Bush was the incumbent veep running for president. Mondale was a former veep running for president, just like Nixon in 1968, Gore in 2000 & Biden in 2020.” HistorianL (talk) 18:35, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't really see how that quote supports maintaining the current portrait though. "Mondale as the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee" implies that a photo from the '84 campaign trail would be most preferable, and the closest comparison in terms of being a former, rather than sitting VP, Nixon, does not use his former VP portrait in '68. Biden obviously uses the current Presidential portrait, which replaced the VP portrait as soon as it became available, while Gore uses the portrait of himself as an incumbent, rather than former VP. Gore's is probably the best example in favour of using the current one, since the time difference is similar, but I'd argue both that Gore's 1994 portrait is more representative of him in 2000 than Mondale's 1977 portrait is of him in 1984 (hair colour, for instance, is far more consistent), and that Mondale's current portrait is of a lower quality compared to that of Gore (it's a lot grainier, and a bit lacking in contrast). Hexcron (talk) 05:45, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed, and plus, in 1968, Nixon's vice presidential portrait isn't used, so why should Mondale's? CY223 (talk) 07:24, 27 June 2023 (UTC)