Presidential Elections of 1984 and 2000

Introduction - The Birth of the Two Party System

Prior to the election of 1840, America did not have a two-party political system. Federalists and Democratic-Republicans contested elections in the early republic, but they were more representations of class and regional power than political parties. From 1812 to 1824, during the "era of good feelings,"

there was only one political party, and Presidents James Madison and James Monroe ran virtually unopposed (Shulman, M1).

After a 4-year interregnum in which Andrew Jackson - the man who won the most electoral votes in the election of 1824 - was denied his victory in the House of Representatives in favor of John Quincy Adams, Jacksonian Democracy - a further development of the political tendencies of the "era of good feelings" - took hold in 1828 and ran full throated to 1840. In 1840, the Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, narrowly defeated President Martin Van Buren, and all that had gone before changed. For the first time in United States history, political power had changed hands decisively. It was the birth of the two-party system we know today. The "Hard Cider and Log Cabin Campaign" allowed the Whigs to gain mass support and compete seriously in the North and the South, in the old East and the new West (Shulman, M1).

Comparing the Elections of 1984 and 2000 - Some Considerations

Comparing the U.S. Presidential elections of 1984 and 2000 is

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The 1984 presidential election was won on image and not on issues, plain and simple. In a 1985 survey by the Los Angeles Times, it was noted that the American public differed in opinion with President Reagan on ten of thirteen major issues (Robinson, 44). Coverage of the "horse race" itself was actually favorable to Reagan and Bush. Reagan received 5,540 seconds of "good" and only 1,200 seconds of "bad" horse race coverage compared to Mondale's 2,450 seconds of "good" and 5,880 seconds of "bad" horse race coverage. Bush on the other hand received 520 seconds of "good" coverage and 220 seconds of "bad" coverage while Ferraro received 610 seconds of "good" but 1,860 seconds of "bad" horse race coverage (Neuman, 164). Reagan earned the nickname the "Teflon Candidate" for his ability to have bad press seemingly "slide" right off of him. Throughout the entire campaign it seemed as though the media was not able to make any amount of bad press coverage "stick" to Reagan. For the most part, policy concerns were a dead issue in this election. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans campaigned heavily about the issues and the media was only too willing to oblige them (Robinson, 45). In the 2000 election, the press tried to drum up
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Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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