Talk:United States presidential election, 1976/Archive 1

discussion of primaries
your revision lengthy discussion of why the primaries were so important and why Carter was the only Dem politician in '76 to realize their importance, then briefly mentions the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries - and then summarizes the rest of the primaries and Democratic Convention in a single sentence! IMO, the section should include information about the primaries themselves, not just a lot of irrelevant background info and a one-sentence summary of the entire primary campaign - "Carter won". It seems to me that the important thing in these articles is to provide relevant information, not to see how short each section can be. Also, if the sections on the nomination races aren't even going to mention the main candidates other than the person who won the nomination, why does there even need to be a photo gallery of all the candidates for the nomination - why not just show a photo of the winning candidate and be done with it? If Wikipedia is going to start editing and trimming the sections for presidential campaigns, they need to be rewrites and much better-done than what has happened here, IMO. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.145.229.162 (talk) 04:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Since there already are articles on the primaries it is accepted practice on Wikipedia to briefly summarize the primary process in the general election article. Anyone seeking to find additional info on the primaries can look at either Rep./Dem. primary articles. Highground79 (talk) 14:54, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

That isn't my point. If there is a separate article on the primary/nomination battles for each presidential election that's fine, and if the detailed information contained in the general election articles are to be deleted and moved to the new articles then it's OK. However, since the presidential election articles still have a section on the primary/nomination process for each party, those sections need to be rewritten to adequately summarize the primaries and conventions, otherwise the section makes little sense and doesn't provide adequate information. My initial complaint was that, after the wording in those sections were deleted and moved to a separate article, what was left was a jumbled, incoherent mess that would not adequately explain to a general reader why Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination, or why Ford beat Reagan for the GOP nomination. They were not "brief summaries", but just a few random sentences left over when everything else was moved to the new, separate article. However, the primaries/nomination sections for both parties have since been rewritten to include an informative and coherent summary of the primaries/nomination process, thus they are now much improved.

Vietnam War Pardon?
Someone has rewritten the "Fall Campaign" section dealing with Jimmy Carter's promise to pardon Vietnam War draft dodgers; in their rewrite they have made some sweeping generalizations that are dubious at best. Among them is the claim that "Americans viewed the pardon as the only true way to end the hated Vietnam War". The poster cites no evidence to prove this, and most books on the 1976 campaign state just the opposite, that Carter's decision was highly controversial and caused him to slip in the polls, not gain. I would recommend that the passage be reverted to its original claim, which is more accurate.

Why no McCarthy running mate?
Why didn't Eugene McCarthy have a running mate? Neither his page nor here explains it.

And does anyone feel we should make mention of the election in fiction somewhere (maybe not on this page itself), such as the All Night Party's candidate? Timrollpickering 22:43, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Comment. McCarthy favored the abolition of the office of Vice President, so he did not have an official nominee. Since several states required someone to appear on the ballot in the slot, each state committee chose a stand-in. In Ohio, it was Dennis M. Anderson. "Ohio Elects the President" (Mansfield OH: Bookmasters, Inc., 2000), p. 149. Chronicler3 21:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC) Chronicler3

Richard Nixon
Recently, SNIyer1 added the following sentence to the introduction:


 * Nixon didn't run because he was disqualified by the 22nd Amendment, since he had been elected twice.

This bugged me because it implies that Nixon might have been a candidate for election had he not been term-limited. The fact of the matter is that Richard Nixon was politically radioactive after the Watergate scandal, so it's unimportant that Nixon was term-limited. If that's not true, then what's keeping us from adding "Nixon couldn't run because he was disqualified..." in the introduction to each election from 1980 to 1992? It's not as if Nixon was the incumbent; that was Gerald Ford.

In any case, I have placed a band-aid on the above sentence, when what I want to do is eliminate it entirely from the introduction. I'm hoping that a better solution will come along. In the meantime, if anybody has any ideas of how to rewrite this so that Nixon's term-limitation is actually relevant to this election, please do so. Thanks, &mdash; DLJessup 00:29, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm going to go ahead and eliminate my band-aid solution. &mdash; DLJessup 00:35, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nixon was disqualified from running in 1976 and in subsequent elections because he had been elected twice. -- SNIyer12 22:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No it's the length of service not the number of elections that is limited. Constitutionally there was nothing stopping Nixon from running as if he won a four year term he would at the end of it have served a total of less than ten years. (The intention is that if a Veep takes over in the second half of a term they can run for two full terms.) Obviously politically this was unrealistic. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Electoral picture peculiarity
Why is the graphic depiction of electoral votes skewed? Rarely nowadays does one see democratic votes colored red and and republican votes blue. --maru (talk) Contribs 20:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * This post has been copied to Wikipedia talk:Style for U.S. presidential election, yyyy. Please direct your responses there.


 * — DLJessup (talk) 21:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe because this is about an election from 1976, and until 1980, the Democrats were represented by red and the Republicans were represented by blue. The colors should match what they were then, not now. 142.177.154.189 (talk) 01:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Third Candidate
I'm surprised there's no mention of the fact that this is one of the few elections in history where more than 2 candidates received electoral votes. (Even if Reagan only got 1) How many other times in history has this ever happened? Lurlock 04:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It's really mostly a footnote than a relevance because Reagan got his vote from a faithless elector, who cast his vote as a protest that he knew would not affect the election's outcome. Reagan did not win any popular votes outside of write-ins -- indeed, he didn't appear on the general election ballot in any states -- and did not campaign in the general election. --Jfruh (talk) 05:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Red and Blue states
I think that the electoral maps on wikipedia should have some consistancy in their colors. On this article's map Jimmy Carter is denoted by the color red, but in the 1980 election article he is denoted by the color blue. If the colors are going to be different between articles, then they might as well be green and yellow.(Lucas(CA) 08:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC))

Map colors wrong
The election map colors are incorrect (they were not yet standardized in 1976). To avoid confusion and maintain consistency, Democratic states should be Blue, Republican states should be Red. Anyone object to fixing this?Mobrienil (talk) 22:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I, for one, object. These are historical records, and the history of such changes should be recorded, not forgotten or ignored. --patton1138 (talk) 17:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I also object. It is a matter of historical record that Red used to denote the Democrats and Blue used to denote the Republicans.  These maps should not be sent to Minitrue. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 21:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:MiltonShapp.gif
Image:MiltonShapp.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 17:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

can we just make it the MODERN color scheme?
even tho yea, the old scheme was red dem blue reps, could the maps of all elections with the old scheme just be changed? it is too confusing for people —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tallicfan20 (talk • contribs) 02:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

A possible mistake
The article sais: "The 1976 Republican National Convention was the last time a presidential convention opened without the nominee having already been decided in the primaries". Maybe I am misunderstanding, but this sentence reffers to a convention of either party, correct? If so, this is untrue. The 1980 democratic convention was also undecided between president Carter and senator Kennedy when it opened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.138.229.106 (talk) 07:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * 1980 was a bit of a mess - see 1980 Democratic National Convention. Basically Carter went into the convention having won sufficient pledged delegates in the primaries but Kennedy refused to drop out and tried for a motion that would release pledged delegates to vote as they wished, in the belief that enough would switch to him and he could secure the nomination or at the very least secure concessions about the platform from the Carter campaign. The motion failed but Kennedy did get some of the concessions that he was seeking. However this is different from the brokered convention the Republicans had in 1976 and which the Democrats nearly had this year. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually the 1980 Democratic Convention was decided when it opened, as Carter had more than enough delegate votes to win the nomination. Kennedy, however, had refused to concede defeat even though he had been mathematically eliminated. On the other hand, Ford did not yet have enough delegates to claim a majority when the 1976 Republican Convention opened, and as such it remains the last presidential convention to open without a candidate having obtained enough delegates to claim a majority, and the nomination. User: Populism


 * Yes but Kennedy's strategy was to try to "uneliminate" himself, hence attention on the convention floor. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

You are correct, my comment was aimed not at you but with the top poster who claimed that the 1976 GOP Convention was not the last presidential convention to be undecided when it opened. Although Kennedy had not conceded, barring the unlikely event that he could "uneliminate" himself the nomination was decided, as Carter already had a clear majority. Ford did not. Again, I agree with your note. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.199.225.90 (talk) 21:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

A Narrow Victory?
The article summary at the beginning says that Carter won a "narrow victory". While the popular vote was somewhat close, the electoral vote was not very close; 297 to 240. Is there something I'm missing or could this line be removed?Alex (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 18:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC).

Actually an electoral vote of 297 to 240 is extremely close by historical standards. Typically a winning candidate will receive well over 300 electoral votes, such as Bill Clinton in 92 and 96 or Reagan and George H.W. Bush in 80, 84, and 88 (or Obama in 2008). The electoral vote in 1976 was the closest in any presidential election since 1916. Not until 2000 and 2004 was there a closer electoral vote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.199.225.90 (talk) 17:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Bellwether busts
The 1976 election was an interesting one in another way - three states then-considered to be bellwethers - Connecticut, Illinois, and New Mexico - all went for Ford. It was the first "miss" in about a century for Connecticut and Illinois; New Mexico went to the runner-up for the first time in its history. 147.70.242.54 (talk) 23:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Stevenson on the Democratic Primaries map
The map of the Democratic primaries and caucuses shows a "Stevenson" winning Illinois - however, this article on the election does not specify who this is (Adlai Stevenson III), although this article on the primaries does. I propose editing the article on the election to specify who Stevenson is. Penthamontar (talk) 23:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"Carter is one of six Democrats to gain a majority of the popular vote since the Civil War, with the others being Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Samuel Tilden, Al Gore, and Barack Obama."

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Gore won a plurality of the popular vote? He got 48.4%:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.0.214.74 (talk) 01:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Ellen McCormack
I think she deserves a mention - she qualified for matching funds and secret service protection, and ended up with more votes than Shapp or Bayh. john k (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Given that a WP bio of her exists and that she is apparently notable, she certainly warrants inclusion in the Democratic candidates listing.--JayJasper (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2012 (UTC)