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This button comes from Phil Gramm’s presidential bid in 1996. Gramm, who had served as a Congressman and Senator since 1979, decided to run for the Republican party nomination. However, his campaign ended shortly after he lost the Louisiana caucus to Pat Buchanan, after which Gramm focused on being elected to the Senate again. Gramm later founded a lobbying firm named Gramm Partners and worked as an economist in John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008.  

Phil Gramm. (n.d.). Retrieved December 18, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm.

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This button was issued for the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, U.S. Senator from Arizona, and William E. Miller, who served New York's 40th district in the House of Representatives. Running on a conservative platform, Goldwater, a Republican, faced incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. In his acceptance speech, Goldwater paraphrased the Roman orator Cicero by saying "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue," a phrase for which Goldwater is remembered.

On September 7, 1964, Johnson's campaign broadcast the "Daisy ad," which portrayed a little girl picking petals from a daisy, counting to 10 until a nuclear bomb exploded. It intended to suggest that as president, Goldwater would put the country at risk of nuclear war. Goldwater and Miller lost the election to Johnson and Hubert H. Humphrey. Johnson received 486 electoral votes, while Goldwater won only 52 and just six states. Goldwater represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate from 1953-1965 and 1969-1987.

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This button was for the 1936 re-election campaign of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt ran against Governor Alf Landon, a Republican from Kansas. Landon's running mate was Frank Knox, who later served as FDR's secretary of the navy. Though the Great Depression still gripped the country, Roosevelt's New Deal programs such as unemployment benefits, Social Security and works programs were popular. Landon spoke against FDR's New Deal as hostile to business, but he made comparatively few campaign appearances. Roosevelt and Vice President John Nance Garner carried 46 of the 48 available states and won 523 votes to 8, the most lopsided election in U.S. history.

Roosevelt won a third term (with Henry Wallace as VP) in 1940 and a fourth (with Harry S Truman as VP) in 1944, presiding over the United States for most of World War II. Truman succeeded to the presidency after Roosevelt's death in April 1945.

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This button was for the campaign of Wendell Willkie, a Republican who opposed incumbent president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. With the two-term limit tradition rather than law, Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term with Henry Wallace as his running mate. Willkie, a businessman from New York, campaigned against Roosevelt's New Deal programs as wasteful and ineffective in ending the Great Depression. He also portrayed FDR as too eager to have America join World War II, and instead advocated military aid, but not necessarily troops, to the Allies. Yet Willkie was hurt by being a symbol of big business, which many felt helped cause the economic crisis in the first place. Roosevelt won with 54.7% of the vote to Willkie's 44.8%, 449 electoral votes to 82.

Willkie had changed his party registration to Republican in 1939. He did not run in the 1940 primaries, but was seen as an alternative to isolationist Thomas Dewey. After the 1940 election, Willkie served as President Roosevelt's informal envoy to Great Britain and supported the Lend-Lease program, which supplied fool, oil, and war materiel such as planes, ships, and weapons to Allied nations during World War II. Willkie died in 1944.

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Wendell Willkie was the Republican Presidential candidate in 1940 running against Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had already served two Presidential terms. Willkie was a lawyer, industrialist, and a registered democrat until 1939. He did not run in the Presidential primary, but had young supporters campaign for him and appealed to a deadlocked convention. He beat Dewey for the Republican nomination because the increased German aggression in early 1940 made Dewey's isolationism less appealing to many Americans. He supported aid to Britain and increased military preparations, but not entry into WWII. He also opposed New Deal programs during the election. Willkie got 44.8% of the popular vote, more than any defeated candidate had before him, but lost the electoral vote by a landslide. After losing the election Willkie gave his support to Roosevelt, and the New Deal and even served as an unofficial emissary in Britain, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East, but he never held a political office. 

Willkie's running mate, Charles McNary, had much more political experience. McNary was a lawyer and a long serving Republican Senator from Oregon who, as the Senate minority leader, had supported early New Deal Programs.

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This button comes from one of Horace Hildreth’s Senatorial campaigns in the 1940s. Originally a lawyer from Maine, in 1940 Hildreth was elected to the House of Representatives and was elected to the Maine State Senate in 1942. Afterwards Hildreth served two terms as Governor of Maine from 1944 to 1949, though his political career ended when he lost the Senatorial election to Margaret Chase Smith in 1948. Hildreth then founded Community Broadcasting Service in Maine, which continues to provide television and radio today, and from 1953 to 1957 served as the ambassador to Pakistan under Dwight D. Eisenhower. After his tenure as ambassador, Hildreth focused his attentions on his broadcasting service until his death in 1988.

Horace Hildreth. (n.d.). Retrieved December 7, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Hildreth.

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Robert W. Edgar was a Democrat from Pennsylvania who served in the House of Representatives from 1975-1986. During his time in Congress, Edgar sought to improve public transportation, authored the community Right to Know provisions of Super Fund legislation, and co-authored the G.I. Bill for all volunteer service. He also served as a member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated political assassinations like those of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Edgar ran for the Senate in 1986, but lost the general election to Arlen Specter.

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Robert W. Edgar was a Democrat from Pennsylvania who served in the House of Representatives from 1975-1986. During his time in Congress, Edgar sought to improve public transportation, authored the community Right to Know provisions of Super Fund legislation, and co-authored the G.I. Bill for all volunteer service. He also served as a member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated political assassinations like those of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Edgar ran for the Senate in 1986, but lost the general election to Arlen Specter.

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In 1991 Danny Davis ran against Richard M. Daley to be Mayor of Chicago. Davis had previously represented the 29^th Ward of Chicago before running against Daley, who had been mayor since 1989. Davis lost the election, while Daley continued to be mayor until 2005, making him the longest-serving mayor in Chicago’s history. Afterwards in 1997, Davis was elected to sit in the House of Representatives for Illinois’s 7^th district, a position that he continues to hold today.

Danny K. Davis. (n.d.). Retrieved December 18, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_K._Davis.