Election+of+1980

=**The United States Presidential Election of 1980**=

The Presidential Election of 1980 saw a competition between Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter who was currently in office and Republican nominee Ronald Reagan, a former actor and current Governor of California. In addition to the two main nominees, Republican John B. Anderson ran for presidency as a independent because he held disagreements with the Republican platform. The election took place on November 4th with an overwhelming majority of the vote going to Ronald Reagan.

|| Republican || Jimmy Carter Democrat || John Anderson Independent ||
 * [[image:reagan]] || [[image:carter]] || [[image:anderson]]
 * Ronald Reagan

History
On September 17, 1978, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed peace accords at Camp David. Carter mediated this event, and it was a great success. Egypt would respect Israel's territories as long as Israel withdrew from territory gained in the 1967 war.

President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated into the White House on January 20, 1977, and he became the thirty-ninth President of the United States. In the next four years of his term, there were many national and foreign difficulties that Carter was forced to deal with. In the early days of his presidency, Carter was popular with the people but events took a turn for the worse due to the double digit inflation that occurred during his term. Trying to help the failing economy, Carter got Congress to pass and $18 billion tax cut in 1978, but this did little and the economy continued to worsen and inflation continued to rise. Economic growth slowed and believing the problem to be America's dependence on foreign oil, Carter called on legislation to improve energy conservation, but got little public support for this idea. In addition, Iran became very opposed to Western customs and refused to sell oil, causing the OPEC to raise oil prices and leading to an energy crisis, causing inflation to go into the double digits. By 1979, inflation was at a rate of 13%. During the crisis, the economic growth that had taken place in the previous two years of Carter's presidency had slowed to a halt. President Carter appeared to be incompetent in controlling the failing economy or in handling foreign affairs. He also refused to get rid of hampering regulatory controls from major industries, such as airlines.

The main cause for the 1979 Energy Crisis were the troubles that the U.S. was having with the Iranian government in that year. The former dictator, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, had ruled the nation since 1953 but was being overthrown by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini. On November 4, 1979, a group on anti-American Muslim militants broke into the U.D embassy in Tehran and took hostages, and would not release them without America returning the exiled Shah who went to the U.S two weeks earlier for cancer treatments. During this crisis, known as the Iran Hostage Crisis, the hostages had to live in cruel captivity while the news showed disturbing images of Iranian mobs burning the American flag and spitting on effigies of Uncle Sam. Carter's original plan to capture the hostages failed because of two military planes crashing into each other, and caused huge humiliation for American and was a leading cause of Carter's huge unpopularity. The hostages would later be released on January 20, 1981-the inauguration day of Ronald Reagan.

In 1979, President Carter signed the SALT II agreement with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, but the U.S senate did not want to sign because of the hatred of the USSR because of the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR and the threat this posed to oil supplies in America. This influenced president Carter to boycott the Olympic Games in Moscow. He also proposed the "Rapid Deployment Force" that would assemble a force quickly in response to a crisis.

The Presidential Candidates and Party Conventions
Because of Jimmy Carter's unpopularity, in 1979, Edward "Ted" Kennedy declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the election of 1980. However, to the party's discontent, Edward Kennedy lost his popularity when the incident where he was driving a young female and drove off a bridge, leading to her death in 1969 arose to the media. The Democrats were worried that Carter would be stuck as their presidential candidate and began the Anybody But Carter or "ABC" Movement.

Democratic Presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter

An "ABC" Movement bumper sticker.

Republicans, realizing that the average American was older and more mature that during the stormy sixties and more likely to favor a more right-wing candidate, chose Ronald Reagan, a conservative and former actor, to be the Republican presidential candidate, signaling the return of conservatism. Republican John Anderson had disagreements with the Republican platform and chose to run against Reagan as an Independent.

Republican Presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan

Major Issues for the Campaign and Candidates
Ronald Reagan and the Republicans backed a political philosophy that condemned federal intervention in local affairs, favoritism for minorities, and the elitism of arrogant bureaucrats. He drew on the ideas of the "neoconservatives"-free-market capitalism, questioning liberal welfare programs and affirmative-action policies, and calling for reassertion of traditional values of individualism and the centrality of family. Reagan believed “The government did not fix problems, the government was the problem”.

New groups sprang up and spearheaded the "new right" movement. These included the Moral Majority and other conservative Christian groups. The Election also brought forth the importance of cultural concerns such as abortion, pornography, homosexuality, and feminism.

Racial issues played a part in the election with the "White Flight" pitting the poorest whites and blacks against one another, often with violent results. In addition, affirmative action was becoming a burning issue and some whites used this to argue "reverse discrimination".

Perhaps the largest issue that the candidates had to deal with was the economic downturn that occurred during Jimmy Carter's term. Reagan believed that reducing federal spending and taxes would help bring the United States out of recession while Carter held the belief that the government had to play a large hand in helping the economy to recover.

To combat the more popular Reagan, Carter tried to convince the public that Reagan would push the county into nuclear war with his more combative policies. However, he ultimate failed in this and Reagan continued to hold the popularity of the public.

Election Results
The election finally took place on November 4, 1980 with Ronald Reagan receiving 51% of the popular vote, Jimmy Carter receiving 41 %, and John Anderson receiving 7%. Along with winning the popular vote, Reagan defeated Carter and Anderson in a landslide election, getting 489 electoral votes to Carter's 49 and Anderson's 0.

Reagan was inaugurated on January 20, 1981.



Significance of the Election
The election of 1980 saw the election of the most conservative president since before World War II. Reagan's election and presidency marked the beginning of the Republican Party maintaining an upper hand in American politics and as such, it established an era of conservatism, which had remained a long-term trend in United States politics.

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