The Former Confederacy & Modern American Politics, Part Sixteen

In 1983-84, the economy gradually began to recover from the severe recession, and with far less inflation. The Federal Reserve continued to lower interest rates. The tax cuts and increased military spending boosted the economy, in what was a classic tale of "Keynsian economics," something conservatives, including Reagan, had railed AGAINST. The budget deficit soared. In the meantime, Soviet leaders had an outbreak of "colds," the reason given by Soviet spokesmen to answer for their leaders not being seen in public. The thing was, the leaders then died: Leonid Brezhnev died November 1982, Yuri Andropov died February1984, Konstantin Chernenko died in March 1985. 

As the election of 1984 approached, Reagan's position had strengthened considerably, and he faced no real challenge within the Republican Party for his reelection bid. On the Democratic side, Senator Ted Kennedy's decision not to run for president left the party scrambling for a high profile nominee to face Reagan, with former Vice President and former Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale being the most prominent. Ohio Senator, and former astronaut, John Glenn,* Colorado Senator Gary Hart and civil rights and populist activist Jesse Jackson (born in South Carolina, but living in Illinois), all were seen as other high profile candidates, with Jackson being especially noteworthy in the South and border states, where the vast majority of black Americans lived. With Jackson being only the second  black American to pursue a nationwide campaign for president (Shirley Chisholm was first), and with his civil rights activism, black Americans were a natural constituency for him. John Glenn's candidacy never really materialized, as he did not win even one primary, and he left the race in March. Hart battled later into the primaries, while Jackson had a self inflicted wound by referring to New York City as "Hymietown," an offensive remark to start with, but compounded by the fact that Jackson was so closely identified with civil rights and fairness. In the former Confederate states, Jackson won in Louisiana, and garnered about a quarter of the Democratic vote in Tennessee and North Carolina, while also winning the vote in border area Washington DC, then taking a quarter of the vote in border state Maryland.** In the end, Mondale won the nomination and he selected New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as the first female major party nominee for vice president. On the Republican side, Reagan faced no major opponents from within the GOP and he and George H.W. Bush were easily renominated.

A couple of important political events in former Confederate states: Democratic Congressman Phil Gramm of Texas changed to become a Republican, and shortly thereafter ran for a U.S. Senate seat in that state. In Florida, Mayor of Tampa, Bob Martinez also changed to the Republican Party, he later was elected governor of Florida. In the 1970s, former Democratic governor of Texas and former Secretary of the Treasury under Richard Nixon, John Connally, switched to the Republican Party.

During the 1984 presidential campaign, there were 2 presidential debates scheduled, the first in Louisville, Kentucky, and the second in Kansas City, Missouri, as well as one vice presidential debate, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reagan's age of 73 was an issue in the campaign and it was highly evident in the first debate, as Reagan, who, ten years later, told the public he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, had a debate performance that magnified the President's age, as the President seemed hesitant, uncertain and even confused. There are videos of the debate available on YouTube, as seeing and hearing the debate are far better than reading a transcript, which cannot convey Reagan's uneasiness that night. In the second debate, Reagan was much more stable, including the lighthearted quips he had come to be known for, including about his age: "I will not exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." It was line that Reagan obviously had practiced and was waiting to deliver, as it really did not directly answer the panel member's question, but even Mondale laughed.

The overall verdict came on election day, as Reagan romped to a landslide win, carrying all but Mondale's home state of Minnesota, which was very close, and Washington DC. Reagan won 525 electoral votes to just 13 for Mondale, and won the popular vote by about 59% to 40 1/2%. Reagan carried all of the former Confederate states by substantial margins, generally by getting 60% to 65% of the vote in all of those states. Across the country, and especially in the former Confederacy, Reagan garnered many Democratic votes from what were termed, "Reagan Democrats."

In the Senate, in spite of Reagan's landslide victory, Republicans lost two seats, including one in Tennessee, where future vice president, Al Gore, won by a big margin. In Texas, Phil Gramm, who had recently switched to the Republican Party, won the Senate race to keep the seat in Republican hands. In the House of Representatives, Republicans made overall gains, and the delegations from the former Confederate states were: Alabama, unchanged, 5 Democrats and 2 Republicans; Arkansas saw Democrats gain one seat, making the delegation 3 Democrats and 1 Republican; Florida, 12 Democrats and 7 Republicans; Georgia saw a gain of one seat for Republicans to 8 Democrats and 2 Republicans; Louisiana remained 6 Democrats and 2 Republicans; Mississippi remained 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans; North Carolina saw Republicans gain three seats, making the delegation 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans; South Carolina remained 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans; Tennessee remained the same with 6 Democrats and 3 Republicans; in Texas Republicans gained, making the delegation 17 Democrats and 10 Republicans; Virginia remained 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats. In change of controlling party in governors, Republicans won the governorship in North Carolina.      

* John Glenn was the first American astronaut to orbit Earth.

** It should be noted, not all states had primaries, and not all primaries were truly about delegates, but simply contests, often dubbed "beauty contests," that did not directly award delegates to candidates based upon their percentage of the vote. I say "directly," because, at least in theory, a good percentage of the popular vote in a state could sway state convention delegates to perhaps vote for that candidate, as some states held (some still do) conventions to apportion delegates for the national political party conventions. 

WORD HISTORY:
Pore-English has two words of this spelling, but this is the noun for "hole or opening, usually in the skin, and occurring naturally." This word, distantly related to "port" (a borrowing by English, meaning "gate, entrance"), and to "fare" (a native English word from its Germanic roots), goes back to Indo European "per," which had the notion of "pass to, pass over;" thus also, "lead to." This gave transliterated Greek "poros," meaning, "an opening for passage, a passageway, a way to proceed;" thus, a secondary meaning, "opening through the skin." This was borrowed by Latin as, "porus," with the "opening or hole in the skin" meaning. This was passed to Old French as "pore," with the same meaning and English borrowed the word, likely with reinforcement from Latin in the latter part of the 1300s, although the it may have been the other way around, with French being the reinforcing element to a borrowing from Latin.