Ronald Reagan's Electoral Victories - just the statistical facts

[FrenchieCat]

Reagan's policy were terrible and destructive, but the man figured out how to get elected by landslides, and got his policies passed despite having the opposing party majority in the house of congress, during both of his terms.

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Reagan won the 1980 election, carrying 44 states with 489 electoral votes to 49 electoral votes for Carter (representing six states and Washington, D.C.). Reagan won 50.7% of the popular vote while Carter took 41%, and Independent John B. Anderson (a liberal Republican) received 6.7%.<60> Republicans captured the Senate for the first time since 1952, and gained 34 House seats, but the Democrats retained a majority.

In the 1984 presidential election, Reagan was re-elected, winning 49 of 50 states.<108> The president's landslide victory saw Mondale carry only his home state of Minnesota (by 3800 votes) and the District of Columbia. Reagan won a record 525 electoral votes total (of 538 possible), and received 58.8% of the popular vote to Mondale's 40.6%.<108>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

Reagan Democrat is an American political term used by political analysts to denote traditionally Democratic voters, especially white working-class Northerners, who defected from their party to support Republican President Ronald Reagan in both the 1980 and 1984 elections.

The term Reagan Democrat also refers to the vast sway that Reagan held over the House of Representatives during his presidency, even though the house had a Democratic majority during both of his terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_Democrat

[Tulkas]

1. Nice Post

I hope at least some of the people on this board are able to understand it.


We don't need to approve of Reagan or his politics to learn from his political tactics, if only to defend ourselves against someone else using them.

[FrenchieCat]

2. It is not a difficult concept.....

but being in agreement is not in the best interest of some DUers. For them, divisive politics is all that they know. These folks figure that if they scream "Reagan" loud enough and long enough, others will also react negatively to something that is perfectly OK to agree on.

It's something Freepers do all of the time; disagree for the sake of not wanting to agree without really wanting to know what they are disagreeing about. They twist the facts to be what they want the facts to be in order to feel justify in their disagreement.

[jackson_dem]

3. Reagan did it by doing the opposite of the Obama approach

Reagan got a lot of things passed because he stood on principle and didn't negotiate. Reagan didn't compromise. He didn't give a flip about unity. He would say what he wanted, fight for it, go directly to the American people if necessary and get much of his agenda accomplished. He wasn't a cypher who negotiated the store away.

[cali]

12. How the heck do you know what Obama will do if he's elected?

Reagan got the majority of the American people to back his vision. That's what Obama's doing. Let me again suggest you study history- particularly Reagan's win in 1980.

[Azathoth]

16. Really? Cause Dubya is trying that too...

and it doesn't seem to be working.

In actuality, Reagan wasn't some political lone wolf blazing his own path as you seem to think. He routinely cut deals with the Dems in Congress, and his ability to "communicate" his ideas to the American people, and thus unite public opinion behind his agenda, put pressure on the Dems to cooperate.

[Perky]

34. He absolutely negotiated

read some aboput the amorphous issue- centric coalition he and minoirty leadership built. to pull in bluedogs

[jackson_dem]

4. Hitler won elections too. Does that mean we should study his tactics?

[cali]

11. LOL!

Hitler didn't win elections in the plural. Study a little history before you spout off. And this really is the type of post that screams out for the invocation of Godwin's law.

[jackson_dem]

13. Splitting hairs

His party won elections (pluralities) with him as the head. He was scum. Reagan is not anywhere near as bad but Reagan sucked too. What other American president would lay a wreath at a SS cemetery? We should be studying the likes of FDR who won and were good, not scumbags just because they won.

[Thothmes]

31. Wasnt an "SS" cemetary

It was German military cemetary in which some of those buried had served in the SS.

[Mythsaje]

5. He did it by being the personification of an illusion. n/t

[avrdream]

6. Hey Frenchie!

Let's start hiding all these threads too.

You know that I'm a Clinton supporter but this Reagan thing is completely out of control. I hated the guy but I'm not seeing proof that Obama loved him so I'm now hiding all these threads. Join me?

[FrenchieCat]

15. I'll check tomorrow to see if there is turmoil abound.....

it is sad that we cannot simply conversate without everything becoming giant controversies.

As I have said in other threads in reference to Reagan....and the only message that Obama was giving in reference to him is that Reagan was able to galvanize the middle class and was able to swing the pendulum to the conservative side...which is how the center became the left.

Clinton was a centrist who governed by appeasing the right more than the left.

The time is here now to swing the pendulum back towards liberalism...but we are not going to be able to accomplish that by fighting them or by appeasing them. Instead, we have to offer them a new vision that is more beneficial to their personal interest. That is what OBama is talking about doing.

Peace to you.

[jackson_dem]

17. Obama said Clinton's policies were progressive in his book

:shrug:

[FrenchieCat]

20. Well, I have the book.

And I'm talking about what Clinton ended up accomplishing.

Clinton was a Centrist who governed by appeasing the Right more than the Left (DLC phenomenon).

NAFTA, Welfare Reform, Bankrupcy reform, and the 1996 Telecommunications Act were not the goals that Clinton ran on. His intent to pass healh care reform, although noble, was a failure. The things that he got right were his Supreme court appointments and balancing the budget. period.

May I suggest that you re-read Obama's book and maybe after the primaries, we can have a thorough discussion on what Obama was saying and what it all meant.

:hi:

[WCGreen]

7. All that proves is that RR was a ruthless politician who was prepared

to do anything, including scaring the shit out of American's when he knew the Soviet Union was crumbling from within...

Resorting to veiled racism with his imaginary "welfare Queen" riding around in Chicago in a Caddy...

Opening his campaign in the town where three civil rights activists were killed which sent a veiled message to the south that RR was not going to bitch about Civil Rights or stand in the way of States Rigths...

Teasing the people into supporting deep tax cuts for the wealthy by convincing a population reeling from three years of of high interest rates and high unemployment that Supply Side economics was the answer...

All this while the country was in the worst Recession since the great depression...

And don't forget the Iranian deal, the Rumsfled photo with Saddam, the rise of Japan as an economic threat to the US and a whole lot of other shit that changed this country for ever...

And not in a good way...

I lived through those years as an adult and let me tell you, I don't think the man was great president...

I don't even think he was a good president...

I think he was an archaic man who lusted after power and would do whatever his handlers told him to do in order to grab that brass ring; the presidency...

We are still living in the shadow of one of the worst presidencies of all time...

And I'm not talking Jr...

And that democratic majority in the south...

Those were dem's who still believed in Jim Crow, who still resisted segregation of any kind, who would do anything RR wanted them to do in order to keep their military base or military contractor up and running in their districts and fought hard against any labor, environmental laws and women's rights legistlation...

They were all dems until 1994 when they showed their true color by bolting the party to follow Newt...

[sandnsea]

8. "living in the shadow"

YES YES YES YES

That is Obama's entire point. We are living in the shadow of Reagan and it will take a transformational President to break out of all those old fights and constructs. He specifically says he doesn't agree with Reagan on hardly anything. It isn't the policies he's praising. He's talking about how Reagan emitted optimism and got the American people to support his vision and agenda. We need a President who can emit optimism and get the American peopleto support a Democratic vision and agenda, completely transformed, something Clinton didn't do or we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today.

If you want to stop living in the shadow of Reagan, you need a transformational President, whoever you decide that to be.

[girl_interrupted]

Top 5 Presidential Landslides

Top 5 Presidential Landslides

F.D.R . really stomped his second-term opponent. He won 60.8% of the popular vote to Alfred Landon's 36.5%. Here are the Presidents who rode into the White House on the biggest waves of popular support:

1. Lyndon B. Johnson (D, 1964) 61.1%

2. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D, 1936) 60.8%

3. Richard M. Nixon (R, 1972) 60.7%

4. Warren G. Harding (R, 1920) 60.3%

5. Ronald W. Reagan (R, 1984) 58.8%

Source: Vital Statistics on American Politics, 1994
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/teachers/wr/article/0,27...

[sandnsea]

10. Landslide does not necessarily equal transformational

They aren't the same thing. Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, JFK, Reagan were transformational. They changed the values we believe represent us as Americans.

[girl_interrupted]

19. Transformed into what?

Thats a question you might want to ask yourself. And I think the answer to it is not positive. I want Change, but I don't want to go from the frying pan into the fire, and that's exactly what we did during the Reagan years. Nothing but a feel good illusion. I want substance, not a big, shiny, bright facade.

[sandnsea]

22. With Reagan, nothing good in the end

But we will be stuck fighting his vision of America until we get a President who can move us out of those constructs. Reagan brought substance, the beginning of the dismantling of the social net, I'd call that substance even if you disagree with it.

What we need now is someone with that kind of power, but who believes in true Democratic values.

If you haven't looked at Obama's record in Illinois, you need to. He isn't going to fight for health care and minimum wage and civil rights and the environment and then suddenly just change when he's elected President. That doesn't even make any sense.

[girl_interrupted]

9. Top 5 Presidential Landslides Top 2..Democrats

Top 5 Presidential Landslides

F.D.R . really stomped his second-term opponent. He won 60.8% of the popular vote to Alfred Landon's 36.5%. Here are the Presidents who rode into the White House on the biggest waves of popular support:

1. Lyndon B. Johnson (D, 1964) 61.1%

2. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D, 1936) 60.8%

3. Richard M. Nixon (R, 1972) 60.7%

4. Warren G. Harding (R, 1920) 60.3%

5. Ronald W. Reagan (R, 1984) 58.8%

Source: Vital Statistics on American Politics, 1994
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/teachers/wr/article/0,27...

[jbnow]

14. Amen! (If that's politically correct) nt

[WCGreen]

25. But if that optimism was supported by cynicism, why would someone

use such a poor example while running for the democratic nomination...

Are we to surmise that Obama is using his hope and optimism mearly as a tool to gain power...

All in all, it was a poor choice on Obama's part to wave RR as a prime example of anything while considering a run for the White House as a democrat...

[sandnsea]

26. To explain how we got here

To talk about tranformational moments in time. Some of the problems that DID exist, why people were receptive to a new direction.

If you want to get out of the shadow of those policies, which Obama specifically says he disagrees with, then you've got to have another transformational President who can get America to see itself in a fundamentally new way. Otherwise all you get to do is tinker at the edges, like Clinton did which is why mot of his policies were dismantled so quickly.

[WCGreen]

27. That's why I support Edwards...

Like him or not, he lays it on the line for everyone to see...

Obama, by comparing himself to RR, who he calls a transformational president, must fancy himself a transformational president...

All that does is excuse him from specifics...

That don't look behind the curtain mentality is what has brought us to the mess we are in...

[sandnsea]

28. Obama is the one who actually has a record

Edwards is the one with the pile of shit record who is asking you to accept his new found populism on faith.

Regardless, whether it's Edwards or Obama, the point is needing someone who can bring people to look at this country in an entirely new way.

[WCGreen]

30. Present....

[Luminous Animal]

18. Reagan 's optimistic racist campaign

WooHoo! Let's emulate this optimistic strategey! Now that's how to unite a country. I'm not sure though, that Obama can pull off hatin' on the black man to win this one.


http://hnn.us/articles/44535.html

In which he divided the Democratic Party by pandering to bigots fears.

"A full account of the incident has to consider how the national GOP was trying to strengthen its southern state parties and win support from southern white Democrats. Consider a letter that Michael Retzer, the Mississippi national committeeman, wrote in December 1979 to the Republican national committee. Well before the Republicans had nominated Reagan, the national committee was polling state leaders to line up venues where the Republican nominee might speak. Retzer pointed to the Neshoba County Fair as ideal for winning what he called the “George Wallace inclined voters.”

...

On July 31st, just days before Reagan went to Neshoba County, the New York Times reported that the Ku Klux Klan had endorsed Reagan. In its newspaper, the Klan said that the Republican platform “reads as if it were written by a Klansman.” Reagan rejected the endorsement, but only after a Carter cabinet official brought it up in a campaign speech. The dubious connection did not stop Reagan from using segregationist language in Neshoba County.

It was clear from other episodes in that campaign that Reagan was content to let southern Republicans link him to segregationist politics in the South’s recent past. Reagan’s states rights line was prepared beforehand and reporters covering the event could not recall him using the term before the Neshoba County appearance. John Bell Williams, an arch-segregationist former governor who had crossed party lines in 1964 to endorse Barry Goldwater, joined Reagan on stage at another campaign stop in Mississippi. Reagan’s campaign chair in the state, Trent Lott, praised Strom Thurmond, the former segregationist Dixiecrat candidate in 1948, at a Reagan rally, saying that if Thurmond had been elected president “we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today.”

...

Throughout his career, Reagan benefited from subtly divisive appeals to whites who resented efforts in the 1960s and 70s to reverse historic patterns of racial discrimination. He did it in 1966 when he campaigned for the California governorship by denouncing open housing and civil rights laws. He did it in 1976 when he tried to beat out Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination by attacking welfare in subtly racist terms. And he did it in Neshoba County in 1980."

[FrenchieCat]

21. Silly rabbit.....

Tricks are for kids!

Fact: Reagan was able to swing the middle class to the right...regardless of how he did it.

Goal: We need to swing the nation back to the left.

Race and stuff ain't got a thing to do with anything. No one is talking about being Reagan or using the same issues or topics he utilized.

Think about it.

Later on, you might be able to see the forest for the trees.
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/VIDEO/80115026&oaso=news.rgj.com/breakingnews

[Luminous Animal]

23. Obama claims

that Reagan united the country tired of the excesses of the 60s and 70s (those excesses being expanded civil rights and economic justice) via his clarity and optimism. Reagan decidedly did not and his racist strategy is well-documented.

He won in a landslide by pandering to bigotry. By pandering to bigots' fears. There was nothing optimistic about Reagan's campaign unless one was a bigot. Of which, at that time, there was a lot more than there are now.

If Obama wants to emulate a man who cynically used racism to divide the Democratic party and win an election, then more power to him.

[indimuse]

24. Are you for real???

what the hell are you doing??? Your fanaticism over Barack is scary...

[Perry Logan]

29. SAT scores had been going down for years. Then Reagan got elected.

[BootinUp]

32. It has nothing to do with 2008. Obama has as much chance of

undoing the Reagan coalition in a transformational election as I have of winning a lottery.

Rhetoric without bold proposals is fluff. And will be exposed to all as such as this game proceeds along.

Reagan had bold proposals, bold and nasty.

[NashVegas]

33. You've Got To Be Joking

The far right had already chosen Reagan as their man, all he had to do was keep them quiet, ride the wave and appeal to enough moderates to win the actual vote. Reagan drew southern voters by coded language targeting white bigots.

The Republican right wing that loyally supported Reagan was very much in control of the Detroit convention—of its machinery, its rules and its platform. The Sunbelt's polyester suits and white cowboy hats and STOP ERA buttons far outnumbered the striped ties and horn-rimmed glasses of the Northeast. Recognizing that there was no way to wrest back the control that had once been theirs, the moderates simply sat back and watched the show. Massachusetts Congressman Silvio Conte, a liberal firebrand on the platform committee at five previous conventions, backed out of serving on the panel this year. Said he: "What's the use? The numbers aren't there."
...

Thus when the G.O.P. turned to him at last, Reagan cautiously avoided Goldwater's mistake of coming on too strong. Instead of extremism, Reagan seemed to be telling the faithful, It is pragmatism that is no vice. At his request, the far-right spokesmen held down their rhetoric. Anti-ERA Leader Phyllis Schlafly was very quiet, unusually so. Fundamentalist Preacher Jerry Falwell, whose Moral Majority organization has registered 2 million new voters, made no ringing speeches. Even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is anathema to the extreme right, was welcomed with applause when he appeared on the podium. This time, said Pennsylvania's Thornburgh, the Republicans have no desire to "leave the battlefield littered with the wounded from an ideological tong war."

Time: "The GOP Gets Its Act Together." The G.O.P. Gets Its Act Together
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922060-9,00.html