Democratic Party vice presidential candidate selection, 1976

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Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale was chosen as the Democratic nominee for vice president in 1976. Vice President Mondale 1977 closeup.jpg
Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale was chosen as the Democratic nominee for vice president in 1976.

This article lists those who were potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 1976 election. Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter won the 1976 Democratic nomination for President of the United States, and chose Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale as his running mate. According to Joel Goldstein, a legal professor and the author of several works on the vice presidency, 1976 marked the beginning of the modern vice presidential selection process, with candidates undergoing extensive vetting. [1] Carter thought that the vice president could be an important asset for a president, and Mondale became a major part of Carter's campaign. [2] The choice of Mondale helped Carter, a Southern "outsider" with little experience in Washington, rally the Democratic base to his candidacy. [3] The Carter-Mondale ticket defeated the Ford-Dole ticket in the 1976 election.

Democratic Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.

Vice President of the United States Second highest executive office in United States

The Vice President of the United States is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the President of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The Vice President is also an officer in the legislative branch, as President of the Senate. In this capacity, the Vice President presides over Senate deliberations, but may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote. The Vice President also presides over joint sessions of Congress.

Contents

Potential running mates

Finalists

Walter Mondale 42nd Vice President of the United States

Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A United States senator from Minnesota (1964–1976), he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the United States presidential election of 1984, but lost to Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and District of Columbia. He became the oldest-living former U.S. vice president after the death of George H. W. Bush in 2018.

Edmund Muskie senator of the USA

Edmund Sixtus Muskie was an American politician who served as the 58th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter, a United States Senator from Maine from 1959 to 1980, the 64th Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, a member of the Maine House of Representatives from 1946 to 1951, and the Democratic Party's candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1968 election.

John Glenn American astronaut and politician

Colonel John Herschel Glenn Jr. was a United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a Democratic United States Senator from Ohio.

Others

Frank Church American politician

Frank Forrester Church III was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981. He is known for heading the Church Committee, which investigated abuses within the United States Intelligence Community.

Adlai Stevenson III Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1981

Adlai Ewing Stevenson III is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He represented the state of Illinois in the United States Senate from 1970 until 1981.

Henry M. Jackson American politician (1912–1983)

Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson was an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative (1941–1953) and U.S. Senator (1953–1983) from the state of Washington. A Cold War liberal and anti-Communist Democrat, Jackson supported higher military spending and a hard line against the Soviet Union, while also supporting social welfare programs, civil rights, and labor unions.

See also

1976 Democratic National Convention Political convention

The 1976 Democratic National Convention met at Madison Square Garden in New York City, from July 12 to July 15, 1976. The assembled United States Democratic Party delegates at the convention nominated former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia for President and Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota for Vice President. John Glenn and Barbara Jordan gave the keynote addresses. Jordan's keynote address made her the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. It was listed as #5 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century. The convention was the first in New York City since the 103-ballot 1924 convention.

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1984 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate selection

This article lists those who were potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 1984 election. Former Vice President Walter Mondale won the 1984 Democratic nomination for President of the United States, and chose New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. Ferraro was the first woman to be a part of a national ticket for a major party. Mondale chose Ferraro in hopes of energizing the base and winning the votes of women, but also because he viewed her as a solid legislator who had won the approval of Speaker Tip O'Neill. John R. Reilly, an attorney and a senior adviser to Mondale, managed the search for a running mate. Mondale seriously considered his major rival for the 1984 presidential nomination, Senator Gary Hart, but Mondale refused to consider a second rival, Jesse Jackson, on the grounds that the differences between their policies were too great. The Mondale-Ferraro ticket ultimately lost to the Reagan-Bush ticket.

1972 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate selection

This article lists those who were potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 1972 election. Coming into the 1972 Democratic National Convention, South Dakota Senator George McGovern had the delegate lead, but did not have the presidential nomination locked up. After winning the Democratic nomination for president on July 13, McGovern looked for a running mate. McGovern's first choice for vice president was Ted Kennedy, but Kennedy refused to join the ticket; Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, and Connecticut Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff also declined. McGovern offered the position to Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton, who appealed to labor groups and Catholics, two groups that McGovern had alienated during the primary campaign. The ticket of McGovern and Eagleton was nominated by the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Following the convention, it was revealed that Eagleton had received treatment for depression. Though McGovern considered keeping Eagleton on the ticket, he ultimately chose to replace Eagleton with former Ambassador Sargent Shriver. The McGovern-Shriver ticket lost the presidential election to the Nixon-Agnew ticket. After the controversy surrounding Eagleton, future campaigns spent much more time vetting vice presidential candidates.

1980 Republican Party vice presidential candidate selection

This article lists those who were potential candidates for the Republican nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 1980 election. Former California Governor Ronald Reagan won the 1980 Republican nomination for President of the United States, and chose former Texas Representative George H. W. Bush as his running mate. Reagan had considered naming former president Gerald Ford as his running mate, but after Ford and Reagan were unable to agree to be on the same ticket, Reagan turned to Bush, his primary rival for the 1980 Republican nomination. Though Bush had criticized Reagan's policies, Reagan chose Bush to help unify the party, and Bush agreed to be on the ticket and to support Reagan's platform. The Reagan-Bush ticket defeated the incumbent Democratic Carter-Mondale ticket, and in 1984 won re-election defeating the Mondale-Ferraro ticket. Bush was later elected president in his own right in 1988.

1976 United States presidential election in Arkansas

The 1976 United States presidential election in Arkansas took place on November 2, 1976, as part of the wider United States presidential election of 1976. Voters chose six electors to represent them in the Electoral College.

The 1984 presidential campaign of Walter Mondale, a former Minnesota senator and Vice President of the United States, began on February 21, 1983, when Mondale announced that he was running for president in a speech at the Minnesota State Capitol. Mondale won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination after convincing Frank Lautenberg, a previously unpledged party delegate, to support him. Lautenberg's vote gave Mondale the 1,967 delegate votes needed to become the Democratic Party's nominee. Mondale lost the general election, held on November 6, 1984, to incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan in a landslide.

References

  1. ↑ Brucker, Lauren (2 May 2012). "Five Questions with Joel Goldstein, J.D." Saint Louis University. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  2. ↑ Goldstein, Joel (24 August 2014). "President Carter's vice-presidential legacy". The Hill. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  3. ↑ "Biography: Walter F. Mondale". PBS. PBS. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  4. 1 2 Goldstein, Joel (26 July 2012). "Yogi Berra and Veepstakes". University of Virginia Center for Politics. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Baumgartner, Jody (1 January 2006). The American Vice Presidency Reconsidered. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 66. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
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