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1984 Democratic National Convention

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1984 Democratic National Convention
1984 presidential election
Nominees
Mondale and Ferraro
Convention
DatesJuly 16–19, 1984
CitySan Francisco, California
VenueMoscone Center
Mario Cuomo
Candidates
Presidential nominee
Walter Mondale of
Minnesota
Vice-presidential nominee
Geraldine Ferraro of
New York
Voting
Total delegates
3,884
Votes needed for nomination
1,967
Results (president)
Walter Mondale (Minnesota): 2,191 (56.41%)
Gary Hart (Colorado): 1,201 (30.92%)
Jesse Jackson (Illinois): 466 (12.00%)
Others: 27 (0.67%)
Ballots1
‹ 1980 · 1988 ›
The Moscone Center was the site of the 1984 Democratic National Convention

The 1984 Democratic National Convention was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California from July 16 to July 19, 1984, to select candidates for the 1984 United States presidential election. Former Vice President Walter Mondale was nominated for president and Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York was nominated for vice president. Ferraro became the first woman to be nominated by either major party for the presidency or vice presidency. In another first, the 1984 Democratic Convention was chaired by the governor of Kentucky, Martha Layne Collins.[1] The Democratic National Committee Chairman at the time, Charles T. Manatt, led the convention.

Site selection

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Finalist bid cities
CityVenuePrevious major party conventions hosted by city
Chicago, IllinoisMcCormick Place[2]Democratic: 1864, 1884, 1892, 1896, 1932, 1940, 1944, 1952, 1956, 1968
Republican: 1860, 1868, 1880, 1884, 1888, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1932, 1944, 1952, 1960
Detroit, MichiganJoe Louis Arena and Cobo Hall[3]Republican: 1980
New York City, New YorkMadison Square Garden[4]Democratic: 1868, 1924, 1976, 1980
San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone Center[5]Democratic: 1920
Republican: 1956,** 1964**
Washington, D.C.Washington Convention Center[5]N/a
**Conventions held in Daly City, California, a municipality adjacent to San Francisco
Preliminary bid cities (non-finalist)[6]
CityVenuePrevious major party conventions hosted by city
Houston, TexasAstrodomeDemocratic: 1928
Kansas City, MissouriDemocratic: 1900
Republican: 1928, 1976
Miami Beach, FloridaDemocratic: 1972
Republican: 1968, 1972
New Orleans, LouisianaLouisiana SuperdomeN/a
Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaDemocratic: 1936, 1948
Republican: 1856, 1872, 1900, 1940, 1948
Whig: 1848
Seattle, WashingtonKingdomeN/a

Logistics

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The convention was the first to utilize the rule changes recommended by the Hunt Commission in response to the protracted 1980 Democratic Party presidential primaries between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy, including the use of superdelegates.[7]

The San Francisco Hilton served as the convention's headquarters hotel.[8] It had previously been the headquarters hotel of the 1964 Republican National Convention.[5]

Nancy Pelosi served as chair of the convention's host committee.[9]

The convention cost in excess of $20 million to stage. $9 million was provided by the City of San Francisco's government itself.[9]

Events of the Convention

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Convention hall during Ferraro's vice presidential nomination acceptance speech

Walter Mondale was nominated for president and Geraldine Ferraro was nominated for vice president.

New York Governor Mario Cuomo gave a well-received keynote speech. Mondale's major rivals for the presidential nomination, Senator Gary Hart and Rev. Jesse Jackson, also gave speeches.

Jackson's speech referred to the nation as a "quilt" with places for "[t]he white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the business person, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled".[10] It was the first time anyone mentioned lesbians and gays in a national convention address.[11] Jackson also attempted to move the party's platform farther to the left at the convention, but without much success. He did succeed in one instance, concerning affirmative action.[12]

"AIDS poster boy" Bobbi Campbell gave a speech at the National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights, dying of AIDS complications a month later.[13]

Voting

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The following candidates had their names placed in nomination

President

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Before the convention had convened, Mondale was widely regarded as having secured the prerequisite delegate support to clinch the nomination.[14] However, he only attained this amount of delegate support with the inclusion of superdelegates that supported his candidacy. His number of pledged delegates (those bound to him and awarded through primaries) alone did not give him enough of a lead to win the nomination without superdelegate support.[14] His number of pledged delegates heading into the convention was 40 shy of the 1,967 needed to win the nomination.[15][16]

Jesse Jackson had unsuccessfully called for the suspension of the party's electoral rules to give him a number of delegates closer to the 20% average share of the vote he garnered during the primaries. The system tended to punish shallow showings as yielding no delegates at all, hence Jackson's smaller delegate count than would be expected (12%).[12]

Reo Kirkland, a member of the Alabama Senate and Alabama delegation, was bound to Hart, but voted for Martha Kirkland, his mother and a probate judge in Escambia County, Florida.[17]

Keron Kerr, an uncommitted delegate from Maine and secretary of the Maine Democratic Party, voted for U.S. Senator Joe Biden. She first considered voting for him after seeing him speak at the 1983 Maine Democratic state convention and decided to support him after his speech at the DNC. Kerr later served as a state coordinator for Biden's 1988 presidential campaign.[18]

The candidates for U.S. president received the following numbers of delegates:

Democratic National Convention presidential vote, 1984[19]
Candidate Votes Percentage
Walter Mondale 2,191 56.41%
Gary Hart 1,201 30.92%
Jesse Jackson 466 12.00%
Thomas Eagleton 18 0.46%
George McGovern 4 0.10%
John Glenn 2 0.05%
Joe Biden 1 0.03%
Martha Kirkland 1 0.03%
Totals 3,884 100.00%

Vice president

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For Vice President of the United States, Mondale had a pick between Mayor Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco (future five-term United States Senator from California) and Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York; he chose Congresswoman Ferraro to be his vice presidential running mate, which established her as the first woman to be nominated for Vice President of the United States from a major American political party. Until 2024, this was the most recent time that neither a sitting nor former United States Senator was nominated for vice president by the Democratic Party.

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Ferraro, Geraldine (1986). Ferraro: My Story. New York: Bantam. ISBN 0-553-05110-5.
  2. ↑ Locin, Mitchell; Hardy, Thomas (April 15, 1983). "Local Democratic split may hurt convention hopes". Newspapers.com. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  3. ↑ "Detroit to bid for Dems' convention today". Newspapers.com. Detroit Free Press. February 16, 1983.
  4. ↑ Sawislak, Arnold (April 21, 1983). "San Francisco". Newspapers.com. Muncie Evening Press. United Press International. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 Sawislak, Arnold (April 21, 1983). "Democrats chose San Francisco today as the site of..." UPI. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  6. ↑ Smith, Jack Z. (March 19, 1982). "Houston considered for Democrats' '84 convention". Fort Worth Star-Telegram.:
  7. ↑ National Party Conventions: 1831-1996. Internet Archive. Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly. 1997. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-1-56802-280-2.
  8. ↑ "Gay activist's remark riles convention panel". Newspapers.com. San Francisco Examiner. July 11, 1984. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  9. 1 2 Michelson, Herb (August 5, 1984). "Democrats left their hearts in SF but not too much of their money". The Sacramento Bee – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ House, Ernest R. (24 July 1988). "Jesse in 1984: Whites Wept, Blacks Frowned". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  11. ↑ Reid, Joy-Ann (8 September 2015). Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide (Amazon Kindle ed.). William Morrow. p. 50. ASIN B00FJ3A98G.
  12. 1 2 "The Jackson Factor". The Economist. 1984-07-21. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
  13. ↑ GLBT Historical Society (July 15, 1984). Bobbi Campbell speech (1984). YouTube. Archived from the original on 2013-10-17. Retrieved July 19, 2015.
  14. 1 2 Niekerken, Bill Van (1 August 2016). "SF's 1984 Democratic convention: Historic, but not smooth". SFChronicle.com. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  15. ↑ Bomboy, Scott (8 June 2016). "A primer about recent convention brawls over delegates". National Constitution Center. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  16. ↑ Phil Hirschkorn, "America's Last Great Convention: Mondale, Jackson & Hart Dish To Salon About Wild 1984 DNC", Salon. (February 15, 2015)
  17. ↑ Kirkland 1984.
  18. ↑ Collins, Steve (October 26, 2020). "In 1984, a Mainer cast the first-ever vote for Joe Biden for president". Sun Journal. Archived from the original on February 17, 2024.
  19. ↑ Our Campaigns - US President - D Convention Race - Jul 16, 1984

Works cited

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Preceded by
1980
New York, New York		 Democratic National Conventions Succeeded by
1988
Atlanta, Georgia
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