What’s the main difference between Democrats of the 1980s and the Obama, Hillary Democrats of today?
The voting electorate doesn’t seem that different from the 1980s, so were Mondale and Dukakis simply phenomenally bad campaigners while Obama is good at it?
Mondale, at least, was running against a popular incumbent, something Obama never had to do.
Compared to Mondale and Dukakis, Obama was/is much more charismatic and upbeat, and has a better smile.
I was only a kid in the 80s, but I remember both Mondale and Dukakis were characterized in the media as boring wimps, especially compared to the charismatic and massively popular Ronald Reagan. The memory of Jimmy Carter didn’t help.
Reagan successfully built a coalition which included white, blue-collar former Democrats from the Northeast who were attracted to his social conservatism and hawkish foreign policy (“Reagan Democrats”). Bill Clinton was able to get some of those voters back in 1992 and 1996.
Dukakis didn’t have the legacy of a failed GW Bush adniminstration to run against, or in the case of Hillary, 8 years of Tea Party fed Republican obstructionism.
Reagan was enormously popular, and his coattails were enough to help Bush I.
Mondale was additionally saddled with association with the wildly unpopular ex-President Carter.
I’m almost surprised that he managed to win Minnesota. (Of course, DC would have prevented Reagan from a unanimous win in any case.)
Both of them ran horrible campaigns. Mondale had the reputation of being bought by labor unions and special interests. His selection of Geraldine Ferraro was seen as blatant tokenism, chosen only for her gender and not her qualifications. No one was beating Reagan in 84, but perhaps Gary Hart could have made it closer, but only would have likely picked up the states Dukakis won in 88.
Dukakis also ran a lousy campaign. Jesse Jackson led him around by the nose, and Dukakis was forced to give the third night of the convention to Jackson. Jackson’s very public outrage about not being picked for vice president made Dukakis look like a wimp who couldn’t tell Jesse to take a hike. Dukakis blew it just about every day of the general election campaign and allowed himself to be defined by Bush and Atwater as a wimpy liberal. The Pledge of Allegiance, opposition to the death penalty, and of course, Willie Horton, were the issues of the 1988 campaign and Bush won easily.
I think the significant difference was in the Republicans not the Democrats. The Republicans had Ronald Reagan in the eighties.
The American electorate is rather different-not only do we have far more Hispanic and Asian voters but black voter turnout has gone up. That said, it also helps that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also have managed to defy liberal stereotypes to a certain extent-both in a positive (bombing the Serbs, droning Al-Qaeda etc.) and in a bad (economic Third Wayism) way.
What always perplexed me was why on Earth Democratic voters chose Mondale in '84. He and Jimmy left with their tails between their legs only 4 years prior. Did they consider it an “aw, fuck it” year, or did they really think he could have won?
No more Cold War cudgel to bash Dems with. To the extent they’ve tried to use the terror war cudgel it’s mostly failed, from a combination of the electorate not buying it (though they arguably did in 2004) to Hillary and Obama being rather blood thirsty.
I don’t know that it was Democratic voters as much as it was the Democratic party, but Mondale had the institutional support and the money.
LBJ, Carter, Kennedy were all elected during the Cold War. The Democrats had dominant control of Congress for much of the Cold War. It doesn’t seem much of a electoral hindrance to them.
One thing that changed was the Cold War ended. Cold War politics made foreign policy a big issue in elections, and that created problems for Democrats getting into the White House from the end of the Vietnam War until the end of the Cold War. It’s not an accident that Democrats controlled the White House for only 4 out of 24 years during that period.
If you just want to know about electability, that was pretty much the whole story. Vietnam.
I remember Mark Russell talking about Mondale’s “Norwegian charisma”, which he defined as “halfway between a Presbyterian minister and a tree”.
His was not a personality geared to endear himself to the electorate.
Meh. Republicans won zero elections on their merits. Nixon won by sabotaging LBJ’s peace talks with Hanoi. Reagan won by sabotaging Carter’s efforts to free the Iranian hostages.
Back to Mondale, as much as I admired him he was not inspirational. Best description was that he could be speaking at a banquet. He’d say one line and the teachers would stand and applaud, another and the unions would stand and applaud, and another and the blacks would stand and applaud. But he could never say anything to get the whole room to stand and applaud.
Dukakis was quite simply the worst Democratic candidate in history. I still voted for him.
Mondale was screwed no matter what. But Dukakis lost a winnable race, and he lost it mainly on being successfully portrayed as a wimp. HHH and McGovern were also exactly the wrong candidates to run in that environment, but the base at the time demanded no less. A hawk Democrat was simply not going to be elected. If the Cold War had never ended I think we’d still see Republican dominance of the White House. The war on terror, since it doesn’t involve an existential threat, voters are more willing to consider dovish candidates. Although not too dovish.
How does that square with the fact that the Vietnam War was lost on Ford’s watch and 9/11 happened due to Bush’s indifference?
So you think it was just weak candidates, charisma-wise, that killed Democrats during that period? The huge split down the middle of the party caused by Vietnam had nothing to do with it? WHy did the Democrats finally get their act together right as the Cold War ended and Vietnam Syndrome died with the Gulf War?
Repeated use of a fallacy doesn’t make it any truer.
“You better see this intelligence report, Mr. President. Al Qaeda is about to strike and the threat involves airplanes.”
“You’ve covered your ass. Now leave. Where’d I put that whiskey?”