Black and white photographs of two men in suits on top of red and white stripes with red text above and blue text below and blue with white stars on the sides all on a white background.

In 1988, the Democratic Party nominated Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis and Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen as their chosen pick for the presidential election.  Dukakis and Bentsen sought to win the election for the Democratic party against Republican candidates George H. Bush and Dan Quayle.   Bush and Quayle campaigned against Dukakis and Bentsen on key issues such as the economy and international relations but Dukakis and Bentsen failed to fight back Bush and Quayle's attacks. Dukakis and Bentsen lost by a landslide, no other lose has surpassed the amount of electoral votes or popular votes that Bush received.

Dukakis campaigned using the term the "Massachusetts Miracle" referring to his time as Governor when the state achieved high volumes of economic growth.  Dukakis's key policies centered around immigration issues and a new prison furlough program.

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Dan Quayle was the 44th US Vice President, serving alongside George H. Bush from 1989-1993.  Quayle attempted to obtain the Presedential nomination in 1996 but he decided to step down out of the race after a nonmalignant tumor was found on his appendix after an emergency appendectomy in 1995.  This button makes a direct reference concerning "draft Quayle" and is in response to allegations that Quayle had family pull strings in order to get him in the National Guard instead of being drafted into the Vietnam conflict.

Black and white photograph of a man in a suit and glasses holding up a newspaper with red text on it.

This button was made after the 1992 U.S. presidential election in which Bill Clinton defeated incumbent president George H.W. Bush. It was also made with a "Bush Defeats Clinton" headline. The "Clinton Defeats Clinton" headline on the newspaper held up by Harry S Truman on this button harkens back to the 1948 election, when the Chicago Daily Tribune mistakenly printed the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman," which didn't actually happen.

In that contest, Republican Thomas Dewey led several polls and was widely expected to beat incumbent president Truman. An early deadline meant that the first post-election Tribune had to go to press before many election results were in. It printed roughly 150,000 papers with the Dewey Defeats Truman headline, yet the late election returns came in for Truman, giving him the win.

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This button promoted a slate of candidates in the United Steelworkers union's contested election in 1965. I.W. Abel ran for president, Walter J. Burke for secretary-treasurer, and Joseph P. Molony for vice president, all as challengers to the incumbent officeholders. Abel, the union's secretary-treasurer at the time, characterized union president David McDonald as distant from the rank and file. Abel advocated for workers to have a greater voice in bargaining goals and was critical of the Humal Relations Committee labor/management group set up in in 1960 to avoid future strikes. Abel, Burke, and Molony were all elected. Abel engineered several union mergers while president, increasing USW membership by more than 500,000. He retired in 1977.

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Mort Sahl was a  comedian in the 1950s-80s who satirized presidents and presidential candidates. He revolutionized comedy because his comedy routines jumped around sporadically even when he was telling a story. During the 1960 presidential election he said "Vote No for President - let's keep the White House empty for another four years" as an attack on President Eisenhower and his perceived ineffectiveness.

Blue and red illustration of man with a thumbs-down gesture and red text over a white background

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This button was issued 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.

Roosevelt became the second of only three U.S. presidents to win re-election with a lower percentage of both the electoral vote and the popular vote than in the previous election (James Madison in 1812 and Barack Obama in 2012 were the other two). The U.S. did join the war effort after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Roosevelt then won a fourth term in 1944, and upon his death in April 1945 was succeeded by Vice President Harry S Truman. After suffering numerous heart attacks, Willkie died in October 1944.

White lithograph of a building's dome on blue background at the center, surrounded by a red circular border with white text

This button was for the 1932 election campaign of Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Garner. They ran against incumbent U.S. President Herbert Hoover and Vice President Charles Curtis. The country was still gripped by the Great Depression, and many blamed Hoover and his policies for not doing more to help the country out of it. Self-built shanty towns that housed the homeless were even named "Hoovervilles" after the president. Backed by the campaign song "Happy Days Are Here Again," Roosevelt won by a tally of 472 electoral votes to 59 for Curtis, getting 57.4% of the popular vote to Curtis' 39.7%. It was the first election since 1852 in which a Democrat won a majority of both the popular vote and the Electoral College.

Roosevelt began to enact his New Deal policies after the victory and won a second term with Garner in 1936, 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. Hailing from Texas, Garner had served in the U.S. House of Representatives as minority leader and speaker of the house. He is one of only two vice presidents (Schuyler Colfax under Ulysses S. Grant was the other) to have previously been speaker of the house.

Illustration of the head and shoulders of a man wearing a suit on a red, brown, yellow and green striped background with black text

This is a button supporting Rickey R. Hendon’s successful 1991 campaign for Alderman of the 27th Ward of Chicago, IL. Chicago’s 27th Ward encompasses portions of downtown, the West Loop and west side of the city. Prior to running for Alderman, Hendon was appointed as the Secretary/Treasurer of the Cook County Forest Preserve by former Cook County Board President George Dunn. Hendon served one year as Alderman, and then launched a successful campaign for State Senator of Illinois’ 5th District. Hendon served in the Illinois State Senate from 1992 to 2011.

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George McGovern was an American politician who was the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 United States Presidential election against incumbent Republican nominee, Richard Nixon.  McGovern drew support from anti-war activitists and those who supported liberal reform.  He supported withdrawing from the Vietnam War.  McGovern was defeated by Nixon by a 24% margin.