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This button is meant as a humorous social commentary against the United States Republican party. The Republican Party, or Grand Old Party (GOP), is one of the two major political parties within the United States of America. Beginning in the Northern states, the party preserved the Union and promoted the abolishment of slavery and provided equal rights to all men. Throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries, however, the Republican Party has gradually become associated with a much more socially conservative agenda than it was originally founded upon.

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Jane Byrne served as 50^th Mayor of Chicago, the only woman to hold the position. First entering politics as a volunteer for John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Presidential campaign, Byrne became head of the consumer affairs department of Chicago in 1968. Byrne campaigned to be Mayor of Chicago in the 1979 election against Michael Bilandic. Against the odds, Byrne won the election because the city blamed Mayor Bilandic for not being an effective enough leader to mobilize the city through a blizzard. Byrne’s term as mayor was characterized by her recognition of the LGBT community, moving into a housing project to show how dangerous it was, and banning unregistered handguns in Chicago. Byrne ran for mayor again in 1983 by initiating a write-in campaign, but lost to Harold Washington. Byrne ran for mayor three more times, but lost every election. Byrne died in 2014, after which the Circle Interchange was renamed the Jane Byrne Interchange in her honor.

Jane Byrne. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Byrne.

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The Republican Party, or Grand Old Party (GOP), is one of the two major political parties within the United States of America. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected to be the first President to represent the Republican party and allowed the Republicans to regain control of Congress. Beginning in the Northern states, the party preserved the Union and promoted the abolishment of slavery and provided equal rights to all men. The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery advocates and other conservatives.  

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This button was for the 1984 U.S. presidential campaign of Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. Mondale had served as vice president under Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981. He chose Ferraro, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 9th district, as his running mate. This marked the first time a woman had been a nominee on a major party's presidential ticket. Mondale and Ferraro lost the 1984 election to President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush, who won re-election by carrying 49 of the 50 U.S. states. Mondale and Ferraro carried only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. Their 13 electoral college votes was the lowest total of any major presidential ticket since Alf Landon and Frank Knox earned 8 electoral votes in 1936 against Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Garner.

Mondale attended Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He was Minnesota Attorney General in the early 1980s and U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1990-1993. Ferraro attended Marymount Manhattan College and earned her J.D. from Fordham University in New York. She served as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights from 1993-1996 during the Clinton administration.

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Eugene McCarthy was a politician from the state of Minnesota who ran as an Independent in the 1976 United States Presidential election.  He came in third, behind Jimmy Carter and incumbent President Ford.  McCarthy had previously been connected with the Democratic Party, having run for the Democratic nomination in both the 1968 and 1972 party primaries.  The 1976 marked McCarthy's departure from the Democratic Party until 1992, when he would, for the last time, run for the Democratic nomination.

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Michael Bilandic was Mayor of Chicago in the late 1970s. Originally a lawyer, Bilandic entered politics by becoming an alderman representing the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago. After Mayor Richard J. Daley’s death in 1976 in the middle of his term, Bilandic was chosen to take the place of mayor until an election could be held. Bilandic ran in the 1977 election to hold the position of mayor for the remaining two years of what had originally been Mayor Daley’s term, where this button likely came from. Bilandic won, holding the position from 1977 to 1979. The two years that Bilandic spent as mayor were turbulent, characterized by strikes, a bombing in City Hall, riots, and a blizzard. Bilandic ran to be Mayor of Chicago again in 1979, but was beaten by Jane Byrne, after which he returned to local politics and was elected to the Illinois Supreme Court in 1990, where he served for ten years before retiring.

Michael Anthony Bilandic. (n.d.) Retrieved October 31, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Anthony_Bilandic.

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Democrat Janice “Jan” Schakowsky is the U.S. Representative for Illinois’ 9th congressional district. The 9th congressional district includes many of Chicago’s wealthy northern suburbs, as well as much of Chicago’s north side. Schakowsky has served in the position since 1999, and this button is from her first campaign. She easily won the Democratic primary in 1998, and went on to win the general election with 75% of the vote. Prior to running for Congress, Schakowsky served for eight years in the Illinois General Assembly. She holds a BA in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois. 

Schakowsky is considered one of the most progressive members in the US House of Representatives. She serves in the House’s Democratic leadership as the Chief Deputy Whip and is a Ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Schakowsky is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues.

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Carl R. Hansen served as the Cook County (Illinois) Commissioner from 1976 to 2006. Hansen’s 30 years of service make him the second-longest serving member ever of the Cook County Board. As a Republican, Hansen was often on the opposite side of the aisle than the other members of the majority-Democratic board, however he was did not always vote solely based on Republican doctrine. Prior to his death in February 2010 at age 83, Hansen cited that his greatest political accomplishment was blocking a plan that would replace 600 acres of forest preserve with a landfill. In June 2010, a woods in Cook County—close to the forest preserve Hansen worked to save—was named in in his honor. 

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Eugene McCarthy was a politician from the state of Minnesota.  His political career began in 1949, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and remained at this post till 1959.  McCarthy then continued on to serve in the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.  The 1968 U.S. Presidential election saw him run as a candidate for the Democratic nomination.  However, this attempt was unsuccessful.  He attempted again to run for the same party nomination in the 1972 U.S. Presidential election, again loosing this bid.  

1976 marked the point when he ran as an Independent in the Presidential election, coming in third.  After 20 years from his last attempt to run for the party nomination in the 1972 election, he returned to the Democratic Party and ran for the nomination for President, but was excluded from the televised debates.  1992 marked the end of his attempts to run for the Presidential nomination. 

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Edward Joseph "Ed" Derwinski was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1957 where he served one term prior to winning the election for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1958. Derwinski encountered several re-elections during his 12 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives where he served the 4th district of Illinois, a suburban region southwest of Chicago.

Derwinski was best known as the driving force in keeping relations between the United States and Poland. After his 12 terms in Congress, Derwinski became the first Cabinet-level U.S. Secretary to Veterans Affairs under George H.W. Bush until 1992.