White text on a black background

Nobody for President was a satirical campaign that emerged during the 1976 United States Presidential election season. The purpose of the campaign was to highlight voter apathy, and to encourage people to register to vote, even if they didn’t necessarily support either major party candidate. It is believed that Wavy Gravy, a peace activist best known as the emcee of Woodstock and as the Grateful Dead’s resident “clown”, initially nominated Nobody for President at a Youth International Party (Yippie) rally which occurred outside of the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City. The Nobody for President movement offered suggestions to counter voter apathy, including providing a None of the Above option on ballots, declaring Election Day a national holiday, and tying election participation to jury duty.

Read more about the history of voting and political buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.

White background with a red outer edge and blue and white photographs of three men's heads over red and blue text

This button represents the 1965 United Steelworkers Union presidential and vice presidential elections.  In 1965 incumbent president, David McDonald was seeking his fourth term in office as president of the third largest union in America.  United Steelworkers Secretary, I.W. Abel was running against McDonald.  Howard Hague was seeking re election as Union vice president.

Blue text on white horizontal stripe between two blue half-circles

This button was for William Howard Taft's campaign for U.S. president in 1908 or 1912. Taft served as President Theodore Roosevelt's secretary of war from 1904-1908. Having pledged not to run for a third term, Roosevelt groomed Taft as his successor. Taft and his running mate, James S. Sherman, won with 321 electoral votes to 162 for William Jennings Bryan and John Kern. Taft ran for re-election in 1912, but lost to Woodrow Wilson.

Taft was born in Ohio in 1857 and attended Yale University and Cincinnati Law School. He was Solicitor General of the United States under President Benjamin Harrison, Governor-General of the Philippines under President William McKinley and Provisional Governor of Cuba under President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice of the United States, a position he held until 1930. Taft remains the only person to have held the office of both U.S. president and chief justice of the Supreme Court. On April 14, 1910, Taft became the first president to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a major league baseball game, a tradition that continues to this day.

Blue text and thin red stripes on white horizontal stripe between blue half-circles

Illustration of a rainbow over white text on a black background

In 1972 George McGovern launched his presidential campaign. The Democratic Senator from South Dakota promised voters that he would end the Vietnam War and decrease the military budget in order to fix the economy. McGovern, whose campaign assistants included future president Bill Clinton, was also in favor of equal rights for women and the LGBT community, inspiring this button. Against McGovern was Richard Nixon, whose aides were later discovered to have stolen information from McGovern's campaign during the Watergate Scandal. Nixon ended up winning the election with 60% of the votes, and Mcgovern returned to politics to advocate for those in need.

George McGovern Presidential Campaign 1972. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern_presidential_campaign,_1972.

Illustration of a brown peanut with arms and legs and hair, holding an American flag in the center of the button with red text on the top edge and blue on the bottom

This button comes from Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign for the presidency. Carter was originally a peanut farmer from Georgia, and served as the state’s senator and later as governor during the 1960s and 1970s. When he campaigned for the presidency against standing president Gerald Ford, Carter was unknown to voters, which turned out to be an asset since he was distanced from the Watergate scandal that ended Nixon’s term. Carter appealed to average voters by advertising his former job as a peanut farmer and being interviewed by popular magazines like Playboy. Carter won the election with 50.1% of the votes, and as president escalated the Cold War, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders, and signed the Camp David Accords. After his presidency, he set up the Carter Center in 1982, a human rights advocacy organization, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Jimmy Carter. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter.

Illustration of an American flag in the middle of the button with white text around the outer edges and a blue background

The button presumably supports a politician named Dean who is in favor of the legalization of medical marijuana. Marijuana (cannabis) and its unique cannabinoids, though not rigorously scientifically tested, have been shown in some studies to effectively treat chronic pain, reduce chemotherapy-induced nausea, and positively effect a host of neurological problems. As of 2015, cannabis has been legalized for medical use in 23 states in the United States and in Washington, D.C. Despite the fact that cannabinoids are technically illegal on a federal level due to the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, on December 16, 2014, the Obama Administration and Congress “quietly” decriminalized medical marijuana via an earmark in a spending bill. 

Have info on this button? Become a Button Museum fan and let us know. 

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-medical-pot-20141216-story.html

Red white and blue striped background with white text on the blue stripe and an illustration of a ford model T car on the top white and red stripes.

In 1976 President Gerald Ford launched his first and only Presidential campaign. Ford, a politician from Nebraska, had originally been Vice President under Richard Nixon, having been appointed after Spiro Agnew’s resignation in 1973. After Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Ford became President, the only President in history who was not elected to either the vice presidency or the presidency. As President, Ford pardoned Nixon for any wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal, de-escalated the Cold War by signing the Helsinki Accords, and ended the Vietnam War. In 1976 Ford ran for the presidency, but was defeated by Jimmy Carter who was supported by voters who disagreed with Ford’s pardon of Nixon. Ford was awarded numerous accolades by subsequent presidents and stayed active in politics until his death in 2006.

The rebus on the button features a Model-T car, first created by Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company. Gerald Ford and Henry Ford were not related, since Gerald Ford's birth name was Leslie King, Jr.

Gerald Ford. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford.

Blue text over a white band and white outline of the state of Wisconsin on a green background

This is a 1968 presidential campaign button for Wisconsin supporters of Harold E. Stassen, who served as Governor of Minnesota and sought the Republican nomination for U.S. president in in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1988. Stassen's most successful of those tries was in 1948—he won four primaries that year, but lost the eventual nomination to Thomas Dewey.

Stassen graduated from the University of Minnesota law school in 1929, and in 1938 became the youngest governor in Minnesota history at the age of 31. Re-elected in 1940 and 1942, Stassen joined the U.S. Navy four months into his third term and served on the staff of Admiral William F. Halsey as a lieutenant commander. He was later promoted to captain. In 1945, Stassen was a delegate to the San Francisco conference that formed the United Nations, leading the campaign to keep the veto provision out of the Security Council (it was not). He also initiated the provision that allows UN member countries to act collectively against an aggressor even when that action was vetoed. In 1948 Stassen became president of the University of Pennsylvania. The last surviving member of the U.S. signers of the United Nations charter, Stassen died in 2001.

Orange text with white outline and white text superimposed over a color photograph of a man smoking a cigarette and two running horses

This button was in opposition to U.S. Senator Bob Dole's campaign for president in 1996, after he had made controversial remarks questioning the addictive quality of cigarettes. Dole and his running mate, Jack Kemp, lost that election to incumbent president Bill Clinton and vice president Al Gore, 379 electoral votes to 159.

In fall 1941, Dole enrolled at the University of Kansas, but joined the U.S. Army in 1942. He was assigned to the 10th mountain divistion as a second lieutenant. With the injuries he suffered in combat in 1945, he lost use of most of his right arm. He was later awarded two Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star. In 1976, Dole was Gerald Ford's vice presidential running mate, but they lost the election to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. Dole also unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1980 and 1988. In 1997, President Clinton awarded Dole the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2007, Preisdent Bush appointed him co-chair of a committee to investigate problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which closed in 2011. Dole turned 92 on July 22, 2015.