Another in the series of the elections of my lifetime.
To understand the 1980 Presidential election which saw a former actor win The White House, you first have to understand the '70s.
The first thing to understand about the '70s is that it started out with some really good music on the radio.
Music with important lyrics like:
"Jeremiah was a bullfrog"
"This cat Shaft is a bad mother"
"You've got a friend. You've got a friend. Ain't it good to know you got a friend. You got a friend"
And the decade ended with disco music.
President Richard Nixon won re-election by winning 49 states in 1972. Then, in a way that can only be described as "Richard Nixon". Nixon resigned from office in 1974 because of The Watergate Scandal which was really boring because it didn't involve porn stars or where the President put a cigar.
Unrelated to Watergate, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned from the Vice Presidency in 1973 for taking bribes when he was the governor of Maryland. In his place, Nixon selected House Minority Leader Gerald Ford. On August 9, 1974, my fifteenth birthday, Ford became President.
President Ford decided to run for election in 1976. Ronald Reagan, the former governor of California and the former host of "Death Valley Days" ran against Ford in a bruising primary battle. Ford somehow won the nomination.
The Democrats became captivated with the former one term Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. I have always been immune to Carter's charms. He always seemed sort of mealy-mouth to me. Plus, he was kind of boring. Bob Dole once said "Carter gave a fireside chat and the fire fell asleep."
In retrospect, I can understand it. Carter with only the second Democratic party nominee since 1928 to have good hair. History shows that Roosevelt, Truman, Stevenson, Johnson, Humphrey, and McGovern were basically bald headed. Carter wore Allman Brothers t-shirts. He knew Bob Dylan. He was a Born Again Christian but not like one of those pew jumpers and snake handlers. He told Norman Mailer he didn't care if someone says that really bad word rarely heard in the deacon room. Plus, and we were reminded about this daily by editorial cartoonists and comedians, he had a lot of teeth.
So the country kicked Ordinary Jerry to the curb. People really had high expectations for Carter. By people, I mean entertainment industry, the news media, and other Democrats. Happy Days were here again.
Well, things didn't quite work out. The '70s economy which was described by leading economists as "sucking" continued to suck. The President declared a "Moral Equivalent Of War" (MEOW) in regards to "The Energy Crisis". It had something to do with sweaters.
It wasn't all bad. Egypt and Israel decided to signed a peace treaty. Panama got their canal back. But something really bad happened in Iran on November 4, 1979.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis.
Early in 1979, the Shah of Iran was forced out and everybody in the faculty lounge thought this was a good thing. However, he was replaced by a theocratic government led by the Ayatollah Khomeini who was crazy as a betsy bug. Iranian students stormed the US Embassy, captured it, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis coupled with Russia's invasion of Afghanistan made Carter and the United States look weak.
Then in rode Ronald Reagan.
Yes, he was a former actor, but he was governor of California for eight years and appeared to do a fine job.
He had a sunny disposition. He was confident. He spoke clearly and told jokes.
Carter had said America was in a "malaise". Reagan said America was "a shining city on a hill".
However, he was old. His hair was slicked back with that greasy kid stuff that used to be so popular. He had these weird economic ideas about trickling down. He probably would start a nuclear war, by accident or on purpose.
He wasn't an intellectual, they said. The Doonesbury comic strip had a series titled, "In Search Of Reagan's Brain". He was dumb.
So there you had the template for the Republicans for the next forty years. Republicans are dumb, out of touch, and evil.
The race between Carter and Reagan, in retrospect, wasn't much of a race. It mainly consisted of Carter saying Reagan was evil and dumb and Reagan saying he wasn't.
They had one debate that year. Carter said he discussed "nuklur" war with his daughter. Reagan looked straight in the camera and said, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" The American people looked at each other and realized they were not.
On election day, I worked eight hours and than waited in line two and a half hours to vote. It was the first time I ever voted in a Presidential election. I voted for Reagan. I sat down to watch the election returns and Reagan was declared the winner before nine o'clock in the evening. It wasn't morning in America but it was getting there.
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