History of the Democratic Party (United States)

• For current status see United States Democratic Party

Origins

The Democratic Party evolved from the political factions that opposed Alexander Hamilton's fiscal policies in the early 1790s; these factions are known variously as the Anti-Administration “Party” or the Anti-Federalists. In the mid-1790s, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into a party and helped define its ideology in favor of yeomen farmers, strict construction of the Constitution, and a weaker federal government. They named it the "Republican Party," although today the party is called the Democratic-Republican to distinguish it from the modern-day Republican Party, with which it has no affiliation. An entirely separate grass-roots movement, the Democratic-Republican Societies, which sprang up across the country in 1793–94, were not officially affiliated with the new party, but many local Jeffersonian leaders were also leaders of the societies. The new party was especially effective in building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast its statements and editorialize in its favor.

In 1796, the Democratic-Republican Party made its first bid for the Presidency with Jefferson as its presidential candidate and Aaron Burr as its vice presidential candidate. Jefferson came in second in the electoral college and became vice president. He was a consistent and strong opponent of the policies of the Adams administration. Jefferson and Madison, through the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, announced the “Principles of 1798,” which became the hallmark of the party. The most important of the principles were states' rights, opposition to a strong national government, hostility toward federal courts, and opposition to a Navy and a National Bank. The party saw itself as the true champion of republicanism, and its opponents as favoring aristocracy rather than rule by the people.

In 1824, a particularly bitter election was thrown to the House of Representatives, and John Quincy Adams was elected after being supported by Henry Clay. Adams appointed Clay Secretary of State. They called their faction "National Republicans," indicating their continuity with the Republicans, but the name did not catch on.

Creating a Jacksonian Party: 1824-1832

Meanwhile Jackson, having won a plurality of the popular and electoral votes in 1824, denounced the election as a "corrupt bargain." He launched a crusade to put himself in the White House, and handily defeated Adams in 1828. That year Jackson did not refer to himself as a Democrat or as a member of any party; he did not have a ticket with candidates for state office, and he issued no platform. In a word, he did not operate a political party. Working closely with state leaders, especially Martin Van Buren of New York, Thomas Ritchie of Virginia, and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, he forged an ad-hoc coalition. The Jacksonians emerged as the winners in the late 1820s. Led by brilliant organizer Martin Van Buren they built a new party with both a national base, led by Jackson and Van Buren, and powerful local bases in the states, comprising local political leaders who called themselves "Jackson Men." Martin Van Buren is credited by historians as the organizational genius orchestrating Jackson's victory in 1828; he won over Adams by 178-83 in the electoral colleges, and a popular total of 647,000 to 508,000. The Democrats did resemble the previous Republican party especially in terms of a Jeffersonian anti-elite rhetoric of opposition to "aristocracy," distrust of banks (and paper money), and faith in "the people". Robert Remini gives special credit as well to organizational work by James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, Caleb Atwater of Ohio, Francis P. Blair and Amos Kendall of Kentucky, Isaac Hill of New Hampshire, Edward Livingston of Louisiana, John H. Eaton and William B. Lewis of Tennessee. [Remini, Van Buren 193] Using federal patronage judiciously, by 1832 Van Buren had turned his informal network of Jackson men into a new party, which held its first national convention that year and nominated Van Buren. The term "Democrat" was first used in the 1830s, about the time the opposition Whig party was formed by Henry Clay, who had been a devoted Jeffersonian. In the realignment of 1828-32, some of Jackson's 1828 supporters, especially businessmen and bankers, switched to the opposition Whig Party as Jackson crusaded against the Second Bank of the United States. .

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Andrew Jackson, the first Democratic President (1829-1837).

1832-1860

In the days of Jacksonian democracy the new Democratic Party was a coalition of farmers throughout the country, workers in cities, Irish Catholics, and local or state political leaders. It was weakest in New England (the old Federalist stronghold), but dominant in most of the rest of the country. The key issues it promoted were opposition to elites and aristocrats, popular democracy (in terms of voting rights and access to government patronage jobs) and opposition to the Bank of the United States. Banking and tariffs were the central domestic policy issues from 1828 to 1848. The Democrats favored the war with Mexico (Whigs opposed), and opposed anti-immigrant nativism. Both the Democrats and Whigs were divided on the issue of slavery. In the 1830s the Loco-Focos in New York City were radically democratic, anti-monopoly, and proponents of laissez-faire. Their chief spokesman was William Leggett.

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1837 cartoon shows Democratic party as donkey

The Democrats lost the presidency in 1840 to William Henry Harrison, only to gain it back in 1844 with James Polk. In state after state the Democrats gained small but permanent advantages over the Whigs, until by 1852 the Whig party was fatally weakened and soon vanished. However the slavery issue also split the Democrats in two in 1848 and again in 1860. It was unable to match the united Republican Party, which controlled nearly all northern states by 1860, bringing a solid majority in the electoral college. The Republicans had many issues, but perhaps the most effective was the allegation that the northern Democrats, including Doughfaces like Pierce and Buchanan, and advocates of popular sovereignty like Douglas and Lewis Cass, were accomplices to the Slave Power. The Republicans meant by Slave Power the conspiracy of slaveholders to seize control of the federal government and block the progress of liberty.

Civil War, Reconstruction, Gilded Age: 1860-1896

See also American election campaigns in the 19th Century and Third Party System

In 1860 the Democrats were unable to stop the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, even as they feared his election would lead to the Civil War. The party split in two. The southern wing nominated Vice President John C. Breckenridge, and the northern wing nominated Douglas. Douglas campaigned across the country and came in second in the popular vote, but carried only Missouri. Breckenridge carried 11 slave states.

To vote for Douglas in Virginia, a man had to deposit the ticket in the official ballot box.

The Republican party was beginning a 40-year era of dominance (1858-1896) that marked the Third Party System. During the war, Northern Democrats divided into two factions, War Democrats, who supported the military policies of President Lincoln, and Copperheads, who strongly opposed them. Historian Kenneth Stampp has captured the Copperhead spirit in his depiction of Congressman Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana:

There was an earthy quality in Voorhees, "the tall sycamore of the Wabash." On the stump his hot temper, passionate partisanship, and stirring eloquence made an irresistible appeal to the western Democracy. His bitter cries against protective tariffs and national banks, his intense race prejudice, his suspicion of the eastern Yankee, his devotion to personal liberty, his defense of the Constitution and state rights faithfully reflected the views of his constituents. Like other Jacksonian agrarians he resented the political and economic revolution then in progress. Voorhees idealized a way of life which he thought was being destroyed by the current rulers of his country. His bold protests against these dangerous trends made him the idol of the Democracy of the Wabash Valley. [Stampp, p. 211]

The Democrats lost consecutive presidential elections from 1860 through 1872, with 1876 in dispute, and 1884 their next victory. The Democrats were shattered by the war but nevertheless benefited from white Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. Once the Redeemers gave the Democrats control of every Southern state (by the Compromise of 1877), the disenfranchisement of blacks began. From 1880 to 1960 the "Solid South" voted Democratic in presidential elections (except 1928). After 1900 the southern states used primaries and victory in the Democratic primary was "tantamount to election" because the GOP was so weak.

Though Republicans continued to control the White House until 1884, the Democrats remained competitive, especially in the mid-Atlantic and lower Midwest, and controlled the House of Representatives for most of that period. In the election of 1884, Grover Cleveland, the reforming Democratic Governor of New York, won the Presidency, a feat he repeated in 1892, having lost in the election of 1888.

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Typewriters were new in 1893 and this Gillam cartoon from Puck shows that Cleveland can't get the Democratic "machine" to work as the keys (key politicians) won't respond to his efforts.

Cleveland was the leader of the Bourbon Democrats. They represented business interests, supported banking and railroad goals, promoted laissez-faire capitalism, opposed imperialism and U.S. overseas expansion, opposed the annexation of Hawaii, fought for the gold standard, and opposed Bimetallism. They strongly supported reform movements such as Civil Service Reform and opposed corruption of city bosses, leading the fight against the Tweed Ring. The leading Bourbons included Samuel J. Tilden, David Bennett Hill and William C. Whitney of New York, Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, William L. Wilson of West Virginia, John Griffin Carlisle of Kentucky, William F. Vilas of Wisconsin, J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, John M. Palmer of Illinois, Horace Boies of Iowa, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar of Mississippi, and railroad builder James J. Hill of Minnesota. A prominent intellectual was Woodrow Wilson. The Bourbons were in power when the The Panic of 1893 hit, and they took the blame. A fierce struggle inside the party ensued, with catastrophic losses for both the Bourbon and agrarian factions in 1894, leading to the showdown in 1896.

1896 and start of Fourth Party System

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1896 Davenport cartoon of Mark Hanna as slave driver, from William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal

Cleveland led the conservative, pro-business faction but as the depression deepened his enemies multiplied. At the 1896 convention the silverite-agrarian faction repudiated the president, and nominated the crusading orator William Jennings Bryan on a platform of free coinage of silver. The idea was that minting silver coins would flood the economy with cash and end the depression. Cleveland supporters formed a third party, the Gold Democrats, which attracted politicians and intellectuals (including Woodrow Wilson and Frederick Jackson Turner) who refused to vote Republican.

Bryan, an overnight sensation because of his "Cross of Gold" speech, waged a new style crusade against the gold bugs. Crisscrossing the Midwest and East by special train--he was the first candidate ever to go on the road--he gave over 500 speeches to audiences in the millions. In St. Louis he gave 36 speeches to workingmen's audiences all over the city, all in one day. Most Democratic newspapers were hostile (except the New York Journal) but Bryan seized control of the media by making the news every day, as he hurled thunderbolts against Eastern monied interests. The rural folk in South and Midwest were ecstatic, showing an enthusiasm never before seen. Ethnic Democrats, especially Germans and Irish, however, were alarmed and frightened by Bryan. The middle classes, businessmen, newspaper editors, factory workers, railroad workers, and prosperous farmers generally rejected Bryan's crusade. Bryan was overwhelmed by William McKinley in the most exciting race in national history. (Historians have discovered there was little coercion involved.) McKinley promised a return to prosperity based on the gold standard, support for industry, railroads and banks, and pluralism that would enable every group to move ahead. Bryan did however, win the hearts and minds of a majority of Democrats. The election of 1896 has been widely regarded as a political realignment. The victory of the Republican party marked the start of the Fourth Party System, or "Progressive Era," from 1896 to 1932, in which the GOP usually was dominant.

Bryan, Wilson, Progressivism: 1896-1932

The 1896 election marked a realignment whereby the Republicans controlled the presidency for 28 of the following 36 years. The GOP dominated most of the Northeast and Midwest, and half the West. Bryan, with a base in the South and Plains states, was strong enough to get the nomination in 1900 (losing to McKinley) and 1908 (losing to Taft). Theodore Roosevelt dominated the first decade of the century--and to the annoyance of Democrats "stole" the trust issue by crusading against trusts.

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TR steals the anti-trust issue, 1904

Anti-Bryan conservatives controlled the convention in 1904, but they faced a Theodore Roosevelt landslide. Bryan dropped his free silver and anti-imperialism rhetoric and supported mainstream progressive issues, such as the income tax, anti-trust, and direct election of Senators. He backed Woodrow Wilson in 1912, was rewarded with the State Department, then resigned in protest against Wilson's non-pacifistic policies in 1916. Northern Democrats were progressive on most issues, but generally opposed prohibition, were luke-warm regarding woman's suffrage, and were reluctant to undercut the "boss system" in the big cities.

Taking advantage of a deep split in the GOP, the Democrats took control of the House in 1910, and elected the intellectual reformer Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916. Wilson successfully led Congress to a series of Progressive laws, including a reduced tariff, stronger antitrust laws, the Federal Reserve System, hours-and-pay benefits for railroad workers, and outlawing of child labor (which was reversed by the Supreme Court). Furthermore, constitutional amendments for prohibition and woman suffrage were passed in his second term. In effect, Wilson laid to rest the issues of tariffs, money and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years. Wilson led the U.S. to victory in the First World War, and helped write the Versailles Treaty, which included the League of Nations. But in 1919 Wilson's political skills faltered, and suddenly everything turned sour. The Senate rejected Versailles and the League, a nationwide wave of strikes and violence caused unrest, and Wilson's health collapsed.

In 1924 at the Democratic National Convention, a resolution denouncing the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan was introduced by the Al Smith and Oscar W. Underwood forces in order to embarrass the front-runner, William McAdoo . After much debate, the resolution failed by just a single vote. The KKK faded away soon after, but the deep split in the party over cultural issues, especially Prohibition, facilitated Republican landslides in 1920, 1924 and 1928. However Al Smith did build a strong Catholic base in the big cities in 1928, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's election as Governor of New York that year brought a new leader to center stage.

The New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression set the stage for a more progressive government and Franklin D. Roosevelt won a landslide victory in the election of 1932, campaigning on a platform of "Relief, Recovery, and Reform". This came to be termed "The New Deal" after a phrase in his acceptance speech. The Democrats also swept to large majorities in both houses of Congress, and among state Governors. Roosevelt altered the nature of the Party, away from laissez-faire capitalism, and towards an ideology of economic regulation and insurance against hardship. Conservative Democrats were outraged; led by Al Smith they formed the American Liberty League in 1934 and counterattacked. They failed and either retired from politics or joined the GOP. A few of them, such as Dean Acheson found their way back to the Democratic party.

After making gains in Congress in 1934 Roosevelt embarked on an ambitious legislative program that came to be called "The Second New Deal." It was characterized by building up labor unions, nationalizing welfare by the WPA, setting up Social Security and raising taxes on business profits. Roosevelt's New Deal programs focused on job creation through public works projects as well as on social welfare programs such as Social Security. It also included sweeping reforms to the banking system, work regulation, transportation, communications, stock markets and attempts to regulate prices. His policies soon paid off by uniting a diverse coalition of Democratic voters called the New Deal Coalition, which included labor unions, minorities (most significantly, Catholics and Jews), and liberals. This united voter base allowed Democrats to be elected to Congress and the presidency for much of the next 30 years.

After a triumphant reelection in 1936, he announced plans to enlarge the Supreme Court by five new members. A firestorm of opposition erupted, led by his own vice president John Nance Garner. Roosevelt was defeated by an alliance of Republicans and conservative Democrats, who formed a Conservative coalition that managed to block nearly all liberal legislation. (Only a minimum wage law got through.) Annoyed by the conservative wing of his own party, Roosevelt made an attempt to rid himself of it; in 1938, he actively campaigned against five incumbent conservative Democratic senators; all five senators won re-election.

Under FDR, the Democratic Party became identified more closely with modern liberalism, which included the promotion of social welfare, civil rights, and regulation of the economy.

Truman to Kennedy, 1945-1963

Harry Truman took over unexpectedly in 1945, and the rifts inside the party that Roosevelt had papered over began to emerge. Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace denounced Truman as a war-monger for his anti-Soviet programs, the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and NATO. By cooperating with internationalist Republicans, Truman succeeded in defeating isolationists on the right and pro-Soviets on the left to establish a Cold War program that lasted until the fall of Communism in 1991. Wallace supporters and fellow travelers of the far left were pushed out of the party and the CIO in 1946-48 by young anti-Communists like Hubert H. Humphrey, Walter Reuther, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.. Hollywood emerged in the 1940s as an importance new base in the party, led by movie-star politicians such as Ronald Reagan, who strongly supported Roosevelt and Truman at this time.

On the right the Republicans blasted Truman’s domestic policies. “Had Enough?” was the winning slogan as Republicans recaptured Congress in 1946. Many party leaders were ready to dump Truman, but they lacked an alternative. Truman counterattacked, pushing J. Strom Thurmond and his Dixiecrats out, and taking advantage of the splits inside the GOP. He was reelected in a stunning surprise. However all of Truman’s Fair Deal proposals, such as universal health care were defeated by the Conservative Coalition in Congress. His seizure of the steel industry was reversed by the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Europe was safe but troubles mounted in Asia. China fell to the Communists in 1949. Truman entered the Korean War without formal Congressional approval--the last time a president did that. When the war turned to a stalemate and he fired General Douglas MacArthur in 1951, Republicans blasted his policies in Asia. A series of petty scandals among friends and buddies of Truman further tarnished his image, allowing the Republicans in 1952 to crusade against “Korea, Communism and Corruption.” Truman dropped out of the presidential race early in 1952, leaving no obvious successor. The convention nominated Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956, only to see him overwhelmed by two Eisenhower landslides.

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Stevenson warns against Hoover policies, 1952 campaign poster

In Congress the powerful duo of House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson held the party together, often by compromising with Eisenhower. In 1958 the party made dramatic gains in the off-year election and seemed to have a permanent lock on Congress. Indeed, Democrats had majorities in the House every election from 1930 to 1992 (except 1946 and 1952). Most southern Congressmen were conservative Democrats, however, and they usually worked with conservative Republicans. The result was a Conservative Coalition that blocked practically all liberal domestic legislation from 1937 to the 1970s, except for a brief spell 1964-65, when Lyndon Johnson neutralized its power. The election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 re-energized the party. His youth, vigor and intelligence caught the popular imagination. New programs like the Peace Corps harnessed idealism. In terms of legislation, Kennedy was stalemated by the Conservative Coalition, and anyway his proposals were all cautious and incremental. In three years he was unable to pass any significant new legislation. His election did mark the coming of age of the Catholic component of the New Deal Coalition. After 1964 middle class Catholics started voting Republicans in the same proportion as their Protestant neighbors. Except for the Chicago of Richard J. Daley, the last of the Democratic machines faded away. His involvement in Vietnam proved momentous, for his successor Lyndon Johnson decided to stay, and double the investment, and double the bet again and again until over 500,000 American soldiers were fighting in that small country.

Civil Rights Movement

Lyndon Johnson foresaw the end of the Solid South when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The New Deal Coalition began to fracture as more Democratic leaders voiced support for civil rights, upsetting the party's traditional base of conservative Southern Democrats. After Harry Truman's platform showed support for civil rights and anti-segregation laws during the 1948 Democratic National Convention, many Southern Democratic delegates decided to split from the Party and formed the "Dixiecrats", led by South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond (who, as a Senator, would later join the Republican Party). Over the next few years, many conservative Democrats in the "Solid South" drifted away from the party. On the other hand, African Americans, who had traditionally given strong support to the Republican Party since its inception as the "anti-slavery party", shifted to the Democratic Party due to its New Deal economic opportunities and support for civil rights.

The party's dramatic reversal on civil rights issues culminated when Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Meanwhile, the Republicans were beginning their infamous Southern strategy, which aimed to solidify the Republican Party's electoral hold over conservative white Southerners. Southern Democrats took notice of the fact that 1964 Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act, and in the presidential election of 1964, Goldwater's only electoral victories outside his home state of Arizona were in the states of the Deep South.

The degree to which the Southern Democrats had abandoned the party became evident in the 1968 Presidential election when every former Confederate state except Texas voted for either Republican Richard Nixon or independent George Wallace, the latter a former Southern Democrat. Defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey's electoral votes came mainly from the Northern states, marking a dramatic shift from the 1948 election 20 years earlier, when the losing Republican candidate's electoral votes were mainly concentrated in the Northern states.

1972 to 1999

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President Jimmy Carter

In 1972, the Democrats nominated South Dakota Senator George McGovern as the Party's presidential candidate on a platform which advocated, among other things, U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. McGovern's forces at the national convention ousted Mayor Richard J. Daley and the entire Chicago delegation, replacing them with insurgents led by Jesse Jackson. After it became know that McGovern's vice presidential running mate,Thomas Eagleton, had received electric shock therapy, McGovern said he supported Eagleton "1000%" but he was soon forced to drop him and find a new running mate. With his campaign stalled for several weeks McGovern finally selected Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy-in-law who was close to Mayor Daley. On July 14, 1972, McGovern appointed his campaign manager, Jean Westwood as the first woman chair of the Democratic National Comittee. McGovern was defeated in a landslide by incumbent Richard Nixon, winning only Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. The Watergate scandal of 1973-74 made corruption a central issue, especially after Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon in September 1974. The Democrats made major gains in the 1974 off-year elections.

In the 1976, mistrust of the administration, complicated by a combination of economic recession and inflation, sometimes called "stagflation," led to Ford's defeat in 1976 by Jimmy Carter, a former Governor of Georgia.

Carter represented the total outsider, who promised honesty in government. He had served as a naval officer, a farmer, a state senator, and a one-term governor. His only experience with federal politics was when he chaired the Democratic National Committee's congressional and gubernatorial elections in 1974. Some of Carter's major accomplishments consisted of the creation of a national energy policy and the consolidation of governmental agencies, resulting in two new cabinet departments, the United States Department of Energy and the United States Department of Education. Carter also successfully deregulated the trucking, airline, rail, finance, communications, and oil industries, bolstered the social security system, and appointed record numbers of women and minorities to significant government and judicial posts. He also enacted strong legislation on environmental protection, through the expansion of the National Park Service in Alaska, creating 103 million new acres of land. In foreign affairs, Carter's accomplishments consisted of the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the creation of full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and the negotiation of the SALT II Treaty. In addition, he championed human rights throughout the world and used human rights as the center of his administration's foreign policy.

Even with all of these successes, Carter failed to implement a national health plan or to reform the tax system, as he had promised in his campaign. Inflation was also on the rise. Abroad, the Iranians held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, and Carter's diplomatic and military rescue attempts failed. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year weaken the perception Americans had of Carter. Even though he had already been defeated for re-election, Carter fortunately was able to negotiate the release of every American hostage. They were lifted out of Iran minutes after Reagan was inaugurated and Carter served as Reagan's emissary to greet them when they arrived in Germany. In 1980, Carter defeated Edward Kennedy to gain renomination, but lost to Ronald Reagan in November. The Democrats lost 12 Senate seats, and for the first time since 1954, the Republicans controlled the Senate. The House, however, remained in Democratic hands.

Strength of Parties 1977

How the Two Parties Stood after the 1976 Election

	GOP	DEM	INDEP
	22%	47%	31%	Party Identification (Gallup)
	181	354		Members of Congress:
House	143	292
Senate	38	62
	42%	56%	2%	Proportion of the House of Representatives, popular vote nationally:
in the East	41%	57%	2%
in the South	37%	62%	2%
in the Midwest	47%	52%	1%
in the West	43%	55%	2%
	12	37	1	Governors
	2,370	5,128	55	State Legislators
	31%	68%	1%
USA	18	80	1 *	State legislature control:
in the East	5	13	0
in the South	0	32	0
in the Midwest	5	17	1 *
in the West	8	18	0
	1	29	0	States one party control of legislature and governorship
				____________________
				* The unicameral Nebraska legislature, in fact controlled by the Republicans, is technically nonpartisan.
				Source: Everett Carll Ladd Jr. Where Have All the Voters Gone? The Fracturing of America's Political Parties 1978. P6

1980s: Battling Reaganism

Instrumental in the election of Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1980, were Democrats who supported many conservative policies. The "Reagan Democrats" were Democrats before the Reagan years, and afterward, but they voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 (and for George H. W. Bush in 1988), producing their landslide victories. They were mostly white ethnics in the Northeast who were attracted to Reagan's social conservatism on issues such as abortion, and to his strong foreign policy. They did not continue to vote Republican in 1992 or 1996, so the term fell into disuse except as a reference to the 1980s. The term is not used to describe southern whites who became permanent Republicans in presidential elections. Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster analyzed white ethnic voters, largely unionized auto workers, in suburban Macomb County, Michigan, just north of Detroit. The county voted 63 percent for Kennedy in 1960 and 66 percent for Reagan in 1984. He concluded that Reagan Democrats no longer saw Democrats as champions of their middle class aspirations, but instead saw it as being a party working primarily for the benefit of others, especially African Americans and the very poor. Bill Clinton targeted the Reagan Democrats with considerable success in 1992 and 1996.

The failure to hold the Reagan Democrats and the white South led to the final collapse of the New Deal coalition. Reagan carried 49 states against former Vice President and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, a New Deal stalwart, in 1984. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, running not as a New Dealer but as an efficiency expert in public administration, lost by a landslide in 1988 to Vice President George H. W. Bush.

In response to these landslide defeats, the Democratic Leadership Council was created. It worked to move the Party rightwards to the ideological center. With the Party retaining left-of-center supporters as well as supporters holding moderate or conservative views on some issues, the Democrats became generally a catch all party with widespread appeal to most opponents of the Republicans.

South Becomes Republican

In the century after Reconstruction, the white South identified with Democratic Party. The Democrats' lock on power was so strong, the region was called the Solid South. The Republicans only controlled parts of the Appalachian mountains, but they sometimes did compete for statewide office in the border states. Before 1964, the southern Democrats saw their party as the defender of the southern way of life, which included a respect for states' rights and an appreciation for traditional southern values. They repeatedly warned against the aggressive designs of Northern liberals and Republicans, as well as civil rights activists whom they denounced as "outside agitators."

However, between 1964 and 2004, the Democratic Party's lock on the South was broken. The long-term cause had to do with the South becoming more like the rest of the nation. It could not long stand apart in terms of racial segregation. Modernization had brought factories, national businesses, and larger, more cosmopolitan cities to the South, as well as millions of migrants from the North and more opportunities for higher education. Meanwhile, the cotton and tobacco economy of the traditional rural South faded away, as former farmers commuted to factory jobs.

The major reason for the Democrats' loss of the South, however, had to do with civil rights. Upon signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson famously said, "We have lost the South for a generation."

Integration and the civil rights movement caused enormous controversy in the white South, with many attacking it as a violation of states' rights. When segregation was outlawed by court order and by the Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1965, a die-hard element resisted integration, led by Democratic governors Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Lester Maddox of Georgia, and, especially George Wallace of Alabama. These populist governors appealed to a less-educated, blue-collar electorate that on economic grounds favored the Democratic party, but opposed desegregation. After 1965 most Southerners accepted integration (with the exception of public schools). Believing themselves betrayed by the Democratic Party, traditional white southerners joined the new middle-class and the Northern transplants in moving toward the Republican party. Meanwhile, newly enfranchised Black voters began supporting Democrat candidates at the 80-90-percent levels, producing Democratic leaders such as Julian Bond and John Lewis of Georgia, and Barbara Jordan of Texas. Just as Martin Luther King had promised, integration had brought about a new day in Southern politics.

However, some critics allege that the old racism has not really died in the South, and that the Republican Party exploits it as part of its southern strategy. In addition to its white middle-class base, Republicans attracted strong majorities among evangelical Christians, who prior to the 1980s were largely apolitical. Exit polls in the 2004 presidential election showed that Bush led Kerry by 70-30% among Southern whites, who comprised 71% of the voters. Kerry had a 90-9 lead among the 18% of Southern voters who were black. One third of the Southern voters said they were white evangelicals; they voted for Bush by 80-20. [1]

1990s

During Bill Clinton's presidency the Democratic Party moved ideologically toward the center.

In the 1990s the Democratic Party revived itself, in part by moving to the right on economic and social policy. President Bill Clinton, who defeated the incumbent George H. W. Bush in U.S. presidential election, 1992, implemented a balanced federal budget and welfare reform, traditionally conservative causes. Labor unions, which had been steadily losing membership since the 1960s, found they had also lost political clout inside the Democratic Party: Clinton enacted the NAFTA free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico over the strong objection of these labor unions, much to the disappointment of those on the left of the Party.

When the DLC attempted to move the Democratic agenda in favor of more centrist positions, prominent Democrats from both the centrist and conservative factions (such as Terry McAuliffe) assumed leadership of the party and its direction. Some liberals and progressives felt alienated by the Democratic Party, which they felt had become unconcerned with the interests of the common people and left-wing issues in general. Some Democrats challenged the validity of such critiques, citing the Democratic role in pushing for progressive reforms.

21st century

Election of 2000

Main article: U.S. presidential election, 2000

During the 2000 Presidential election, the Democrats chose Vice President Al Gore to be the Party's candidate for the presidency. Although Gore and George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, clearly disagreed on issues such as abortion, gun control, environmentalism, foreign policy, public education, alternative fuel research, global warming, and judicial appointments, some critics -- Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in particular -- asserted that Bush and Gore were too similar because they both supported what Nader thought was the wrong side of two issues, free trade and reductions in government-funded social welfare.

On election day, Gore won the popular vote by just over 500,000 votes, but lost in the electoral college by four votes. Controversy plagued the election, and Gore largely dropped from politics for years; by 2005 however he was making speeches critical of Bush's foreign policy.

Democrats in the Senate lost their majority in 2000 but regained it when Republican Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched to make Sen. Tom Daschle the Majority Leader. In 2002 the GOP regained the Senate, and strengthened their grip in 2004.

2001-2003

In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the nation's focus was changed to issues of national security. All but one Democrat voted with their Republican counterparts to authorize President Bush's 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Daschle pushed for his party to approve what are arguably two of the most controversial and inflammatory measures the Senate has ever approved: the USA PATRIOT Act and the invasion of Iraq. The Democrats were split over the 2003 invasion of Iraq and increasingly expressed concerns about both the justification and progress of the War on Terrorism and the domestic effects including threats to civil liberties and privacy from the USA PATRIOT Act.

In the wake of the financial fraud scandal of Enron and other corporations, Congressional Democrats pushed for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act a legal overhaul of business accounting. With job losses and increasing in 2001 and 2002, the Democrats campaigned on the issue of economic recovery. That did not work for in 2002 the Democrats lost a few seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. They lost three seats in the Senate (Georgia as Max Cleland was unseated, Minnesota as Paul Wellstone died and his succeeding Democratic candidate lost the election, and Missouri as Jean Carnahan was unseated) in the Senate. While Democrats gained governorships in New Mexico (where Bill Richardson was elected), Arizona (Janet Napolitano) and Wyoming (Dave Freudenthal), other Democrats lost governorships in South Carolina (Jim Hodges), Alabama (Don Siegelman) and, for the first time in more than a century, Georgia (Roy Barnes). In considering that most Americans had become more concerned about corporate crime and other economic issues, the election was preceded with widespread debate over how and why the Democrats lost. [ref3] The party's miseries mounted in 2003, when a voter recall unseated their unpopular governor of California, Gray Davis, and replaced him which a charismatic Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. By the end of 2003 the four largest states had Republican governors: California, Texas, New York and Florida.

Election of 2004

Main article: U.S. presidential election, 2004

The Democrats began fielding Presidential candidates as early as December 2002, when Gore announced he would not run again in 2004. Ex-Governor Howard Dean of Vermont, an opponent of the war and a critic of the Democratic establishment, was the front runner leading into the Democratic primaries. Dean had immense grassroots support, especially from the left wing of the Party. John Kerry received the nomination because he was widely seen as more "electable" than Dean.

In the time from 2003 to 2004, layoffs of American workers occurring in various industries due to outsourcing, some Democrats (including John Kerry, ex-Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont and Senatorial candidate Erskine Bowles of North Carolina) began to refine their positions on free trade and some even questioned their past support for it. By 2004, the failure of George W. Bush's administration to find weapons of mass destruction, mounting combat casualties and fatalities in Iraq, and the lack of any end point for the War on Terror were frequent issues in the elections. That year, Democrats generally campaigned on surmounting the jobless recovery, exiting Iraq, and their own proposals for policies on counter-terrorism.

Senator John Kerry was the Democratic Party's 2004 candidate for President. Kerry lost to the then-incumbent President George W. Bush.

Kerry proved a very weak campaigner, allowing the opposition to define him as wishy-washy on issues like Iraq. Bush gained 8 million votes over 2000, while Kerry gained 4 million. Republicans gained four seats in the Senate and three seats in the House of Representatives. Also, for the first time since 1952, the Democratic leader of the Senate, Daschle, lost re-election. In the end there were 3,660 Democratic state legislators across the nation to the Republicans' 3,557, and Democrats had gained governorships in Louisiana, New Hampshire and Montana. However, the Democrats lost the governorship of Missouri and a legislative majority in Georgia - which had once been a Democratic stronghold since the 1870s.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) asserted that Kerry lost because he did not do enough to reach out to rural citizens, plus he was too liberal. [ref6] Many Democrats believed that the Republicans ran in opposition to gay rights and used state ballot initiatives against same-sex marriage to attract more so-called "values voters" to the polls. [ref8]

After two unexpected defeats many Democrats have voiced serious concern about the future of their party. Prominent Democrats began to rethink the party's direction, and a variety of strategies for moving forward were voiced. Some have suggested moving towards the center to regain seats in the House and Senate and possibly win the presidency in 2008. One topic of discussion is the party's policies surrounding reproductive rights. Rethinking the party's position on gun control became a matter of discussion, brought up by Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Brian Schweitzer and other Democrats who had won governorships in states where Second Amendment rights were important to many voters. [ref9] In What's the Matter with Kansas?, commentator Thomas Frank wrote the Democrats needed to return to campaigning on economic populism.

2005 - present

These debates were reflected in the 2005 campaign for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, which Howard Dean won over the objections of many party insiders. Dean sought to move the Democratic strategy away from the establishment, and bolster support for the party's state and local chapters.

When the 109th Congress convened, Democratic Senators chose Harry Reid of Nevada as their Minority Leader and Richard Durbin of Illinois to replace Reid as their Assistant Minority Leader. Reid convinced the Democratic Senators to vote more as a bloc on important issues, something which forced the Republican majority to abandon its push for privatization of Social Security and instatement of the "nuclear option" to end judicial filibuster. The Senate did not vote on either proposal. [ref5]

Symbols

"A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast

On January 19, 1870, a political cartoon by Thomas Nast appearing in Harper's Weekly titled "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" revived the donkey as a symbol for the Democratic Party; it had been used in the 1830s also--see cartoon above. Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats, and the elephant to represent the GOP. The DNC's official logo, pictured above, depicts a stylized kicking donkey. In the media, Democrats (and states which consistently vote Democratic) have relatively recently been depicted as blue, while Republicans, and the states in which they dominate, as red.

In the early 20th century, the traditional symbol of the Democratic Party in Midwestern states such as Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Ohio was the rooster, as opposed to the Republican eagle. This symbol still appears on Kentucky and Indiana ballots. For the majority of the 20th Century, Missouri Democrats used the Statue of Liberty as their ballot emblem. This meant that when Libertarian candidates received ballot access in Missouri in 1976, they could not use the Statue of Liberty, their national symbol, as the ballot emblem. Missouri Libertarians instead used the Liberty Bell until 1995, when the mule became Missouri's state animal. From 1995 to 2004, there was some confusion among voters, as the Democratic ticket was marked with the Statue of Liberty, and it seemed that the Libertarians were using a donkey.

See also

• American election campaigns in the 19th Century
• History of United States Republican Party

References

• online books and pamphlets includes some proceedings of Democratic National Convention and state conventions (1850-1900), and newspapers for main events of 1850s

Scholarly Secondary Sources

• American National Biography (20 volumes, 1999) covers all politicians no longer alive; online and paper copies at many academic libraries. Older Dictionary of American Biography is also good.
• Shafer, Byron E. and Anthony J. Badger, eds. Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775-2000 (2001), most recent collection of new essays by specialists on each time period:
  • includes: "State Development in the Early Republic: 1775–1840" by Ronald P. Formisano; "The Nationalization and Racialization of American Politics: 1790–1840" by David Waldstreicher; "'To One or Another of These Parties Every Man Belongs;": 1820–1865 by Joel H. Silbey; "Change and Continuity in the Party Period: 1835–1885" by Michael F. Holt; "The Transformation of American Politics: 1865–1910" by Peter H. Argersinger; "Democracy, Republicanism, and Efficiency: 1885–1930" by Richard Jensen; "The Limits of Federal Power and Social Policy: 1910–1955" by Anthony J. Badger; "The Rise of Rights and Rights Consciousness: 1930–1980" by James T. Patterson, Brown University; and "Economic Growth, Issue Evolution, and Divided Government: 1955–2000" by Byron E. Shafer

Before 1932

• Allen, Oliver E. The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall (1993)
• Baker, Jean. Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (1983).
• Barnes, James A. John G. Carlisle, Financial Statesman. 1931.
• Cole, Donald B. Martin Van Buren And The American Political System (1984)
• Bass, Herbert J. "I Am a Democrat": The Political Career of David B. Hill 1961.
• Craig, Douglas B. 'After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920-1934 (1992)
• Flick, Alexander C. Samuel Jones Tilden: A Study in Political Sagacity 1939.
• Gammon, Samuel Rhea Gammon. The Presidential Campaign of 1832 (1922)
• Grossman, Lawrence. The Democratic Party and the Negro: Northern and National Politics, 1868-1892 1976.
• Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (1960), Pulitzer prize; the standard history. Pro-Bank
• Hibben, Paxton. The Peerless Leader, William Jennings Bryan (1929)
• Jensen, Richard. Grass Roots Politics: Parties, Issues, and Voters, 1854-1983 (1983)
• Keller, Morton. Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America 1977.
• Kleppner, Paul et al. The Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1983), advanced scholarly essays, 1790s to 1980s.
• Kleppner, Paul. The Third Electoral System 1853-1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures (1979) in-depth analysis of voting behavior, with emphasis on region, ethnicity, religion and class.
• McCormick, Richard P. The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era (1966)
• Merrill, Horace Samuel. Bourbon Democracy of the Middle West, 1865-1896 1953.
• Nevins, Allan. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage 1948. Pulitzer Prize
• Remini, Robert V. Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (1959)
• Rhodes, James Ford. The History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 8 vol (1932), a grand narrative
• Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917 (1999). argues the Democrats were the true progressives and GOP was mostly conservative
• Sarasohn, David. The Party of Reform: Democrats in the Progressive Era (1989), covers 1910-1930.
• Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-2000 (various multivolume editions, latest is 2001). For each election includes good scholarly history and selection of primary documents. Essays on the most important elections are reprinted in Schlesinger, The Coming to Power: Critical presidential elections in American history (1972)
• Sharp, James Roger. The Jacksonians Versus the Banks: Politics in the States after the Panic of 1837 (1970)
• Silbey, Joel H. A Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil War Era, 1860-1868 (1977)
• Silbey, Joel H. The American Political Nation, 1838-1893 (1991)
• Stampp, Kenneth M. Indiana Politics during the Civil War (1949)
• Welch, Richard E. The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland 1988.
• Whicher, George F. William Jennings Bryan and the Campaign of 1896 (1953) useful primary and secondary sources.
• Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005), highly detailed scholarly synthesis.
• Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 1951.

1932-2006

• Allswang, John M. New Deal and American Politics (1978)
• Andersen, Kristi. The Creation of a Democratic Majority, 1928-1936 (1979)
• Barone, Michael, and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac of American Politics 2006: The Senators, the Representatives and the Governors: Their Records and Election Results, Their States and Districts (2005) covers all the live politicians with amazing detail.
• Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (1956)
• Cantril, Hadley and Mildred Strunk, eds. Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (1951), massive compilation of many public opinion polls from US, UK, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere.
• Dallek, Robert. Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (2004)
• Formisano, Ronald P. The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s-1840s (1983)
• Fraser, Steve, and Gary Gerstle, eds. The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (1990), scholarly essays.
• Hamby, Alonzo. Liberalism and Its Challengers: From F.D.R. to Bush (1992).
• Jensen, Richard. Grass Roots Politics: Parties, Issues, and Voters, 1854-1983 (1983)
• Jensen, Richard. "The Last Party System, 1932-1980," in Paul Kleppner, ed. Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1981)
• Judis, John B. and Ruy Teixeira. The Emerging Democratic Majority (2004) demography is destiny
  • "Movement Interruptus: September 11 Slowed the Democratic Trend That We Predicted, but the Coalition We Foresaw Is Still Taking Shape" The American Prospect Vol 16. Issue: 1. January 2005. pp 23+
• Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (2001) well balanced scholarly synthesis.
• Kleppner, Paul et al. The Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1983), advanced scholarly essays, 1790s to 1980s.
• Ladd Jr., Everett Carll with Charles D. Hadley. Transformations of the American Party System: Political Coalitions from the New Deal to the 1970s 2nd ed. (1978).
• Lamis, Alexander P. ed. Southern Politics in the 1990s (1999)
• MacNeil, Neil. Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (1963)
• Martin, John Bartlow. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson (1976),
• Moscow, Warren. The Last of the Big-Time Bosses: The Life and Times of Carmine de Sapio and the Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall (1971)
• Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (1997) well balanced scholarly synthesis.
• Patterson, James T. Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush vs. Gore (2005) well balanced scholarly synthesis.
• Patterson, James. Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933-39 (1967)
• Plotke, David. Building a Democratic Political Order: Reshaping American Liberalism in the 1930s and 1940s (1996).
• Nicol C. Rae; Southern Democrats Oxford University Press. 1994
• Sabato, Larry J. Divided States of America: The Slash and Burn Politics of the 2004 Presidential Election (2005), analytic.
• Sabato, Larry J. and Bruce Larson. The Party's Just Begun: Shaping Political Parties for America's Future (2001) scholarly textbook.
• Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-2000 (various multivolume editions, latest is 2001). For each election includes good scholarly history and selection of primary documents. Essays on the most important elections are reprinted in Schlesinger, The Coming to Power: Critical presidential elections in American history (1972)
• Shelley II, Mack C. The Permanent Majority: The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress (1983)
• Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States (1983)

Popular Histories

• Ling, Peter J. The Democratic Party: A Photographic History (2003).
• Rutland, Robert Allen. The Democrats: From Jefferson to Clinton (1995).
• Schlisinger, Galbraith. Of the People: The 200 Year History of the Democratic Party (1992) popular essays by scholars.
• Witcover, Jules. Party of the People: A History of the Democrats (2003), 900 pages

Primary sources

The national committees of major parties published a "campaign textbook" every presidential election from about 1856 to about 1932. They were designed for speakers and are jammed with statistics, speeches, summaries of legislation, and documents, with plenty of argumentation. Only large academic libraries have them, but some are online.

• Democratic National Committee. The Campaign Text Book: Why the People Want a Change. The Republican Party Reviewed... (1876)
• Campaign Text-book of the National Democratic Party (1896) by Democratic Party (U.S.) National committee this is the Gold Democrats handbook; it strongly opposed Bryan
• The Republican Campaign Text Book for 1882 by Republican Congressional Committee
• The Republican Campaign Text Book for 1884
• The Republican Campaign Text-book for 1888
• Republican Campaign Text Book, 1894
• Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-2000 (various multivolume editions, latest is 2001). For each election includes scholarly history and selection of primary documents.