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.    

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Fifteen

"Conservatism Consolidates Power-Reagan Runs Again"

As the economy gradually improved, foreign policy challenges remained for the U.S. and the world, including in the ever volatile Middle East. Lebanon was in a state of civil war, and the U.S. sent military personnel, mainly Marines, as part of an international force to guarantee the withdrawal of opposing forces there, including Israeli military units, and to provide security for Lebanon to stabilize.* Not long thereafter, there was a suicide bombing of the American embassy in Beirut which killed more than 60 Americans. This was followed a few months later by another suicide attack on a barracks in Beirut housing American military personnel, primarily Marines, which resulted in the death of nearly 250 Americans, most of them U.S. Marines. A few months later, Reagan authorized the withdrawal of American forces from Lebanon. Also shortly after the barracks bombing came an attack on the U.S. embassy in Kuwait and about a year later came another attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut, which had been moved to another part of the city after the first bombing.

In a period of about two and one half years, the Soviet Union had FOUR different leaders. Always secretive and insecure, the Soviets were terrified of telling the truth to their people, and when their leaders did not appear in public for a lengthy period, Soviet propaganda, ah, I mean "news," would announce that the particular leader "has a cold." It fooled few in free nations (in fact it became something of a joke), and probably few Soviet citizens, as three leaders died during that time span, finally bringing Mikhail Gorbachev to power. In the midst of these changes in Soviet leaders came news that a Korean passenger plane had been shot down by Soviet aircraft, after straying into Soviet airspace, resulting in more than 200 deaths (most of them South Koreans, but Americans and other nationalities were also killed). Reagan stopped Soviet flights to the U.S. and halted some negotiations with the Soviets in retaliation. The Soviets "claimed" the plane was spying on the Soviet Union,** a story that didn't play well in the international community. The incident only served to play to one of Reagan's strengths, his anti-communism and his ability to lambaste the Soviets, which became increasingly popular in the U.S. and other democratic nations.

By 1984 Reagan was up for reelection, although he was 73 years old. The age issue remained with him, as it had when he ran in 1980. As noted in an earlier segment, Reagan loved to joke, including about himself, and he even could laugh at jokes by others about him. Just prior to his inauguration, impressionist and comedian Rich Little had perfected Reagan's voice and mannerisms. With Reagan in the audience, Little told a joke, the gist of which, I have never forgotten. The basic joke was that a reporter (imitated by Little) asked Reagan at a news conference what he planned to do about the energy crisis. In response, (imitating Reagan) he said something like, "We are going to go to the sun to tap the energy there. Now I know you may think this is strange, because we'll get burned up before we get there, but we won't, because we're going to go at night." Cameras showed Reagan laughing as hard as the audience. This was one of Reagan's strengths, the ability to laugh, even at his own expense. I can't emphasize enough, Americans generally liked this, and being liked as president is critical in tough times, and it undoubtedly, in my opinion, allowed Reagan to remain in office, even though the public did not necessarily agree with many of his policies. This earned him the title of the "Teflon president," by some; that is, political problems didn't stick to him.

In the first debate in 1984 against Democratic opponent, former Vice President Walter Mondale, Reagan was not in top shape, and this brought renewed concern about his age. More on his toes in the second debate, Reagan cracked that he was not going to exploit Mondale's "youth and inexperience" (he was 17 years younger than Reagan) against him in the campaign. Even Mondale laughed, and the issue of Reagan's age died down. On election day, Reagan won a resounding victory, carrying all but Mondale's home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia, as well as nearly 59% of the popular vote (Mondale received less than 41%).*** Like him, not like him, agree with him, or not agree with him, Americans took a strong liking to Reagan and felt he was "in charge;" thus they entrusted him with another four years.

* The situation in Lebanon was highly complex and far beyond the boundaries of this article, but it involved religious elements in Lebanon, where there was a mixture of Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims, plus elements of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (also known as the "PLO"), and substantial influence by Syria and by Iran, which was a theocracy (a system of rule by those believed to be divinely guided). Israel intervened in Lebanon with military forces about a year before U.S. military involvement.

** This is another complicated story beyond the boundaries of this article, but there have been theories that the plane may have had the additional mission of gathering information (spying) on the Soviets. Since the Soviets withheld much evidence for so long, including items recovered from the aircraft, their credibility for supporting evidence was highly suspect. 

*** The 1984 election saw Walter Mondale choose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate. This was the first time a major party had a woman on the ticket, but it didn't help much, as women voted heavily for Reagan, although less so than men.

WORD HISTORY:
Stair(s)-Often used in the plural, this word goes back to Indo European "steygh," which had the notion of "step, stride (which also produced the sense 'march'), and ascend." This gave Old Germanic the noun "staigriz," which placed more emphasis on the "ascend" meaning, as it meant "elevated platform;" thus several "elevated platforms" became "stairs, staircase, stairway." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "staeger," with the meaning "staircase" or just one "step" of such a staircase. This later became "stayer," "steir," or "steyer" (all such forms were used), as the "g" sound transitioned to a "y" or "i" sound, which then produced the modern version. Common in the other Germanic languages: German uses three forms: "Stiege" (pronounced as if "steeg-eh), "staircase," "Steig" (pronounced as if "styke"), "path on a hill or mountain," and "Steige" (pronounced as if "sty-geh"), "steps, stairs;" Low German Saxon has "Stieg" meaning "path;" Dutch has "steiger," "landing platform, pier;" Danish and Norwegian have "sti," meaning "path, trail;" and Swedish has "stig," meaning "path." I did not find forms in modern Frisian or Icelandic, although West Frisian has the verb form "stige," meaning "to climb, to ascend."