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Robert Mulcahy was the Democratic candidate for alderman of Chicago’s 45^th ward in 1975. He was the chief operations analyst for the city Bureau of Streets and served for three years as president of the Edgebrook Community Association. The Chicago Tribune officially endorsed Mulcahy as their pick for 45^th ward alderman. He lost the election, but ran again in 1979. He only received 20% of the vote and lost to Democrat Richard Clewis.

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The political candidate pictured on this button is Benjamin Adamowski of Chicago. He served in the Illinois State Legislature from 1931 – 1941 and later served as State’s Attorney of Cook County. In 1963, he unsuccessfully ran as the Republican candidate for Mayor of Chicago against the incumbent Richard J. Daley. This button is most likely from his mayoral campaign. 

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This button was for the 1940 U.S. presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie, the Republican challenger to incumbent president Franklin D. Roosevelt. A businessman from New York, Willkie characterized Roosevelt's New Deal programs as wasteful and ineffective in ending the Great Depression and promoted better economic times if he were elected. 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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In 1980, John Anderson campaigned for the presidency as an Independent. Anderson, a Republican from Illinois, had served in the House of Representatives for 10 consecutive terms throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and decided to run for the presidency in 1980. Originally campaigning for the Republican party’s nomination against Ronald Reagan, Anderson ultimately was not backed by the Republicans and decided to run independently. Anderson’s campaign platform included a reduction in Social Security taxes and supported stricter gun control, and he earned the respect of voters by sticking to his principles, though he ultimately lost the election to Reagan. Afterwards, Anderson became heavily involved in FairVote, an organization dedicated to political reform, and continues to be involved in politics today.

John B. Anderson. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Anderson.

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This button is for the 1928 presidential campaign of Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtis. Incumbent president Calvin Coolidge chose not to run in 1928, and the Republican convention nominated Hoover and Curtis, though they had previously opposed each other for the presidential nomination. They faced Democrats Al Smith and Joseph Robinson in the general election. Both Hoover and Smith were isolationist, pro-business candidates. Hoover tentatively supported Prohibition, which had been in effect since 1920, but Smith favored its repeal. Many were also concerned that Smith, a Catholic, would be unduly influenced by the Pope. Hoover and Curtis won the election in a landslide, 444 electoral votes to 87.  

Hoover had previously served as Secretary of Commerce under presidents Warren G. Harding and Coolidge, while Curtis had been a U.S. Senator from Kansas and was Senate Majority Leader from 1925-1929. A member of the Kaw Nation, Curtis had also served Kansas in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Every 20 years, Illinois voters decide on whether to hold the Illinois Constitutional Convention, where the Illinois Constitution is assessed and amended. Lawrence N. Hansen ran for delegate of the convention in 1969. His run brought some controversy: he ran as a Kane County delegate although it was reported that he actually owned a residence in Cook County. Hansen stated that he owned the residence merely to be closer to his place of work and considered his parents' house in Elgin (Kane County) his true home. 

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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.