Was Raygun "Unbeatable" in '84?

[Va Lefty]

I've been looking at the math and I don't see how we could have got to 270 electoral votes. Obviously, Mondale was the wrong choice. No knock against the man, I think he would have been a very good President, but he was a poor campaigner and ran a very bad campaign. I backed Hart in '84 but I can't see him winning either. Unless Raygun pulls a Gerry Ford and "frees" Poland or falls asleep during the debates, I can't see it.
Let's say Hart gets the nomination, he carries Minn. and DC, which Mondale did (13 EV). I can't see Raygun losing CA, therefore game over. Hart may win NY-36, Wis-11, IA-8, CO-8, IL-24, MD-10, WA-10, OR-7, PA-25, MA-13, HI-4. That only adds up to 169, 101 short. Maybe if John Glenn gets nominated, he flips Ohio and Michigan but that still only adds up to 212, not counting we probably don't get Col. w/out Hart. Could Raygun have been beaten and how?

[Colobo]

1. He was solid then. It was a lost cause just like Dole's candidacy in '96.

[Hippo_Tron]

2. Probably not possible, the south had flipped GOP

But California and the Northeast hadn't become "Blue States" yet. That didn't happen until Clinton.

[Mrs. Overall]

3. Did someone say "Raygun"?

[Va Lefty]

10. Don't forget to use Borax!

[sam sarrha]

12. a UFO flew off the wing tip of his his plane for something like 20 minutes when he was Governor that

is what Star Wars Defense Shield was all about.. he expected invasion by ET's.. he initiated the development of what turned into the chemical Lazar.. now being put in a special high altitude 747 with a titanium bottom.. probably something on the Boeing website about it.. they are not shy about bragging about it. the chem Lazar could probably be put in orbit or already is.. it is a repeating lazar cannon.. i used to work for Boeing and saw a lot about it

[rasputin1952]

19. Notice there are no bullets in that revolver? Once again, Reagan

is shooting blanks....:D

[terisan]

4. Dem leadership had been pals with Reagan. House Speaker and Reagan were poker buddies. nt

[Selatius]

5. I don't think anybody short of a movie celebrity could've defeated Reagan in 1984.

They called him the "Great Communicator" for a reason. He came across as America's gentle, kind father, at a time when America was still hurting from the stagflation of the 1970s/early 1980s. He was almost an emotional crutch for an America humbled by the Viêtnam War.

People bought it up because the truth hurts a lot more than the lie.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Besides, he had Bushco running things behind the scenes. nt

[youngdem]

6. Yes. Unbeatable

The press was bought. The internet didn't exist.

The public adoration of that drooling puppet was unreal.

The commie baiting was still usable. We had just suffered through Carter and the gas crunch and the public wasn't in a mood to try another Dem.

Add to it all of the dark actions taken in the name of politics we now know about but perhaps didn't then, and you get an insurmountable obstacle.

Then, throw in MONDALE, who god bless him, makes Al Gore 2000 look like a rock star, and Ferraro, at a time when America was in NO WAY ready for a female Veep.

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. October 1983 - Mondale leads Reagan by a 50% to 44% margin in the Gallup Poll.

I would suspect that given perceptions (not reality) as they were by November 1984, it would have been unlikely for any candidate to beat Reagan at that time.

However, it is important to remember how much perceptions can change in one year. This can be a cause for both optimism and pessimism.

This from the Pew Research Center:

"October 1991 - Bush approval ratings are still in the mid-sixty range. Remember: "Who can beat him" and the "the stature gap." Trend - Bush's ratings are on one of the steepest downward slopes in polling history.

October 1987 - By a margin of 4-to-3 Times Mirror surveys found voters are inclined to cast a ballot for a Democratic candidate over a Republican. Trend - By October, Reagan's Gallup approval ratings at 50% are in a partial recovery from Iran Contra doldrums (as low as 40% in February '87).

October 1983 - Mondale leads Reagan by a 50% to 44% margin in the Gallup Poll. Trend Reagan's approval ratings up from 35% in January '83 to 45% by October. Grenada, a month later, propels Reagan over 50% mark.

October 1979 - Carter leads Reagan 48% to 42%, but the President trails Kennedy by 2-to-1 for nomination among Democrats. Trend - The Iranian hostage crisis subsequently boosts Carter's ratings long enough for him to dispatch Kennedy in the early primaries.

October 1975 - Quite a muddled picture as Ford leads Humphrey, Scoop Jackson and Sargent Shriver, but trails Kennedy in the Gallup Polls of October (Gallup does not test unknown Jimmy Carter against Ford). Trend - No consistent pattern is evident, ups and downs in Ford's ratings over the course of the year. Public divided 44% approve, 44% disapprove by the end of October."

link to full article:

http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=31

.

[DaveinMD]

9. Yes

but it wasn't about the electoral college. The South wasn't as purely red as it is today. Reagan was immensely popular.

[Jim__]

11. Reagan clearly checked out in one of the debates in '84.

He clearly got confused, rambled on meaninglessly, and if I remember, the moderator had to stop him. He looked around, looked totally lost. After that, there was discussion that may be getting senile.

Yet, the public re-elected him. Sometimes I wonder about democracy ...

[Hippo_Tron]

20. He fixed it with his one liner in the next debate

"I won't make my opponent's youth and indiscretion an issue in this campaign." It's pretty sad that that's all the had to do to get the electorate to stop questioning whether he was too senile to be in office.

[sam sarrha]

13. i really feel that he didn't have Alzheimer's.. he got a lobotomy just like Casey, the head of CIA ,...

just before the Iran Contra hearings.. i am surprised L*bby still knows his name.. he was the Bag Man for the deal to sell Stinger missiles to iran for 10's of millions and he was supposed to have been te bag man for the coke money that bought the ship loads of weapons to supply the Terrorists AKA Contras. i heard the ship got caught and stopped in the panama canal .. days before the Invasion of panama ..said to be solely for the arrest of one man..

[sniffa]

14. where's the beef?

[depakid]

15. He certainly was.

But NOT by Mondale.

The telegenic Hart would have played exactly to Reagan's weaknesses (as opposed to Mondale- who was destined to lose badly, because he played to Reagan's strengths.

The Primary map for that year is VERY telling:

[cobalt1999]

16. Mondale would have lost 10 elections to Reagan

Worst candidate with worst VP choice in my life. Once the campaign really started, I saw the blood bath coming a mile away. It's like the dems gave up and decided to sacrifice someone instead of seriously contending.

[otohara]

17. I Was Standing in Line to Vote - CBS Announced He Won

in a fucking landslide and it wasn't even 6PM MST.

I was going to see Joe Jackson in Boulder and just left after the announcement. The only time I didn't vote in general election. So many people in MST & PT didn't vote because of that early call. They stopped doing it after 84.

[pstokely]

21. Could those states have changed the election?

[otohara]

22. No, But It Discouraged Many

from voting for other issues & congress seats.

[Hart2008]

18. Polls after New Hampshire and at the '84 Dem convention showed Hart beating Reagan.

Hart would have come close to beating Reagan, if he didn't win.

Remember how Reagan's lead over Mondale shrank after the first "debate" when Reagan was incoherent for part of it?

People began to fear that Reagan was out of it. Between the first and second debates, the media began to talk about Reagan's age. Mondale refused to make an issue of Reagan's creeping dementia. So at the second debate, Reagan replied to the age question with the humorous line, "I won't take advantage of my opponent's youth and inexperience." Mondale smiled and said Reagan's age wasn't an issue.

Mondale lost the election right there. With a week to prepare, Mondale took the choke. The correct reply was that the problem in the first debate wasn't Reagan's age. The problem was that Reagan was only an actor who forgot his script. (Remember that Reagan's team had stolen Carter's briefing book for the debate in '80.) Mondale pulled the punch. Hart wouldn't have.

Hart also would have chosen someone like Sam Nunn as his VP. They would have campaigned on military reform at a time when the military was paying $500 for a hammer. Hart would have gotten the votes of many blue collar white voters who thought Mondale was too "liberal".