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Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro were the Democratic Party's nominations in the 1984 election for United States President and Vice-President. Mondale was a United States Senator representing the state of Minnesota from 1964 to 1976, and served as the 42nd Vice-President of the United States under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. Ferraro was a schoolteacher, and then the head of a new Special Victims Bureau, a division of the Queens County District Attorney's office in New York, before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1978. 

The Mondale-Ferraro ticket was historic, with Ferraro becoming both the first woman and first Italian-American nominated by a major political party. This meant large-scale media attention,and Ferrraro faced tough questions about her lack of experience with foreign policy and the finances of her husband, businessman John Zaccaro, as well as criticism from the Catholic Church for her pro-choice stance. The Mondale-Ferraro campaign was liberal in nature, supporting the Equal Rights Amendment and nuclear disarmament, and gained the endorsement of several major unions, including the United Automobile Workers' union (UAW), whose flag is featured on this button. 

Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan on Election Day, receiving only 13 electoral college votes from Mondale's home state of Minnesota. 

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Michael J. Bakalis’ ran for governor of Illinois in 1978. He and his running mate, Dick Durbin, faced stiff opposition from Republican incumbent James R. “Big Jim” Thompson. Thompson handily won and his victory margin of 596,550 votes set the record for an incumbent in an Illinois gubernatorial contest.

Bakalis went on to serve as Deputy Undersecretary of Education for the United States from 1980-1982, serving under presidents Carter and Reagan. Bakalis again made a brief attempt to run for governor in 2002, but failed to secure enough funding to compete.

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Eugene McCarthy was an American politician who ran for President in 1968. McCarthy unsuccessfully ran for President five times but served as Senator of Minnesota from 1959 to 1971 and in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959. 

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John Glenn is a former astronaut and United States Senator. Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard the Friendship 7, on February 20, 1962. NASA psychologists determined that Glenn was the astronaut best suited to a political career, and Robert F. Kennedy suggested to Glenn that he challenge incumbent Ohio Senator Stephen Young. Glenn announced that he was resigning from the space program to run for office in 1964, but he had to withdraw from the race after sustaining a concussion from a fall. Glenn remained close to Kennedy, and was with him when he was assassinated in 1968. 

Glenn ran for Senate in Ohio unsuccessfully again in 1970, but was finally elected in his 1974 bid, serving until 1999. As a sitting Senator, he became the oldest person to fly in space on a Discovery mission in 1998, at age 77. Glenn was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. 

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Illinois Citizens for Reagan was a committee formed in 1976 by former Congressman Phil Crane to assist Ronald Reagan in becoming elected President by providing support to delegates loyal to Reagan in the Republican primary. 

Ronald Reagan was the 40^th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Reagan himself lived in various towns in northern Illinois and graduated from Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois in 1932. 

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Hubert the Lion is a marketing character that was created for Harris Bank by the Leo Burnett advertising agency in 1958. Like a lion, Hubert was meant to represent what the bank wanted to be known for; per bank VP Mary Ullrich, “dignity, importance, strength, everything that we wanted to stand for except warmth and friendliness.” Hubert was originally a stuffed animal given out as a premium for attracting customers and became one of the more popular bank premiums in history. 

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Thomas E. Dewey was an attorney who became famous after his 1935 appointment as a special prosecutor to look into corruption in New York City. Dewey targeted organized criminal enterprises, prosecuting Mafia members and corrupt bankers. Dewey was elected as governor of New York in 1942, and was regarded as honest and efficient. He was the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 1944, and is still the youngest Republican nominee at age 42, but lost the election to incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. The party nominated Dewey for President again in 1948, and he was strongly favored in the general election, leading to the infamously erroneous headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" printed by the Chicago Daily Tribune, before returns showed that the winner was incumbent president Harry S. Truman. 

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After the untimely death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, Harry S. Truman became the 33rd President of the United States. During his time in office, he made tremendous steps in aiding the economic growth of Western Europe with the launch of the Marshall Plan, sought the U.S. through the Korean War to regulate communism, and authorized the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski to end World War II. These accomplishments are what sparked his reelection to presidency in 1948 when he defeated former New York State Governor Thomas Dewey.

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Thomas Francis "Tom" Eagleton, a Missouri native, was a U.S. Senator from 1968 to 1987. While in office, Eagleton was actively involved in foreign relations, education, health care, and environmental matters. He was integral to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act being passed and sponsored the bill that would end American involvement in the Vietnam War.

When George McGovern became the Democratic nominee for President in 1972, Eagleton was his chosen vice-president. Shortly after the announcement, word got out that Eagleton had been hospitalized and received electric shock therapy for his depression. McGovern did defend Eagleton in the beginning, but party pressure led to Eagleton being dropped from the campaign after only 18 days. Eagleton went on to practice law and had a major role in bringing the Rams to St. Louis.