A green button with white text and a light green American flag

This is a political button in support of the Green Party ticket of Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke. The Nader-LaDuke ticket served as the Green party's bid for the Presidency in both 1996 and 2000. Nader, a life-long political activist, Army veteran, and Harvard graduate, founded the non-profit group Public Citizen and has received numerous public service awards. Nader has been a prominent voice against nuclear weapons and for airline deregulation and automobile safety as well as environmental issues.

LaDuke is the executive director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and of Honor the Earth. She has spent a life-time fighting for Native American rights and is the winner of numerous awards including the Reebok Human Rights Award (1998), and the Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year (1997). In 2007, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. 

Blue donkey below three blue stars between red text over white background. 

This button represents the United States Democratic Party and their use of the donkey as their official political party symbol. The first use of the donkey was in Andrew Jackson's 1828 presidential campaign. Jackson's opponents referred to him as a "jackass" due to his slogan, "Let the people rule!" Jackson embraced the donkey and later used it to describe himself as someone strong-willed and used it on his campaign posters. In 1870, political illustrator, Thomas Nast used the Democratic donkey in Harper's Weekly and is credited with making the donkey the Democratic party national symbol.  Nast used the donkey to illustrate an anti Civil War movement and the Democratic controlled newspapers in the South. By the 1880's the public incorporated the donkey as the unofficial party symbol.

White text over green background. 

This pinback button was made for Jimmy Carter's 1976 Presidential campaign, where he defeated the incumbent President Gerald Ford in a relatively close election. The slogan “Viva Carter” suggested a strong support for Carter and aligned him with the Latin American revolutionaries, embraced by the counterculture in the 60s and 70s, as Carter often fashioned himself as a Populist candidate.

Jimmy Carter, born in 1924, served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. He was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for work to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, and his efforts in advancement of human rights and social developments. His major human rights contribution included the negotiation of David Camp Accord and the returning of the Panama Canal. 

White text with three white lines on a blue background.

John H. Stroger, Jr. was an American politician who served from 1994 until 2006 as the first African-American president of the Cook County, Illinois Board of Commissioners. As board president, Stroger balanced the county's $2.9 billion budget, instituted a Juvenile Drug Court, appointed a Commission on Women's Issues, and opened a new AIDS treatment and research facility. However, Stroger came under increased fire in the later years of his presidency for what his critics called a scandal-ridden administration.

Three yellowed stars over blue horizontal stripe above blue text above red vertical stripes over yellowed background. 

This button is from Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1882-1945) 1941 US Presidential reelection campaign. Roosevelt took office in 1933 and served until 1945. He is the longest serving president in US history. When he took office, the US was nearly four years into the Great Depression. With the help of federal programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, New Deal, and Works Progress Administration, Roosevelt managed to enliven America's collective morale and move towards a stable national economy in his first and second terms. By his third term, the US was in a two-front war with Germany and Japan. Roosevelt died about four months before the end of the war with Japan and less than a month before the end of the war with Germany.

Blue and red text over white background. 

Rod Blagojevich was the US Representative for Illinois's Fifth Congressional District. He won the race with sixty-four percent of the votes and served the district from 1997 until 2003, when he became Governor of Illinois until he was impeached in 2009. Blagojevich is best known for his attempt to sell former US Senator Barack Obama's seat upon his election to the presidency  and the subsequent impeachment, trial, and conviction that followed. In 2011, Blagojevich was sentenced to fourteen years in federal prison. He appealed his case in 2013 and in 2015, the court threw out five of the 18 counts again him. 

Colorful illustration of Ronald Reagan surrounded by patriotic imagery topped by a bald eagle. 

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American actor and politician. He was the 40th President of the United States and served as the 33rd Governor of California prior to his presidency. Reagan moved to Hollywood in 1937, where he began a career as an actor, first in films and later in television. Reagan served as President of the Screen Actors Guild and later as a spokesman for General Electric. Originally, he was a member of the Democratic Party, but due to the parties' shifting platforms during the 1950s, he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later at the age of 93. A conservative icon, he ranks highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents and is credited for generating an ideological renaissance on the American political right.

White text over blue background. 

This button is most likely from the 1984 US Senate race in Illinois. The bowtie in the button was a trademark of candidate Paul Simon. Simon was elected, and served as a US Senator for Illinois until 1997. He was born in Eugene, Oregon but moved to Illinois in 1948. Simon served in the US Army during the Korean War from 1950-1953, and entered politics in 1955. He was in the Illinois State Congress until 1968 and became Illinois's Lieutenant Governor in 1969. He moved to federal politics in 1975 and served as an US Representative until 1985, when he took his seat in the Senate.

After Simon left office in 1997, he served as the director of The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale until his death in 2003.

Black text with photograph of Pat Nixon's headshot on pink background.

Vice President Richard Nixon's 1960 race for the presidency drew upon his wife Pat Nixon's public recognition. An entire ad campaign was built around the slogan of "Pat For First Lady," and the message—carried on buttons, bumper stickers and antenna—was marketed to housewives, a group that was courted by the Republican Party during the 1950's. The press even attempted to create a "race" for First Lady between Pat Nixon and Jacqueline Kennedy, who was the Democratic candidate and eventual winner, John F. Kenndy's, wife. 

Black and white photograph of Oliver North between blue and red text over American flag background. 

Oliver Laurence "Ollie" North (1943-) is a former lieutenant colonel of the United States Marine Corps. Currently he is a political commentator, military historian, television host, and best-selling author. At the time of this button's manufacture, 1987, North's reputation was severely under fire for his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal. The incident involved the use of proceeds of a sale of arms to Iran to fund the initiatives of counter-revolutionaries against the Sandinistas in Central America. North was dismissed from the U.S. military by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and convicted of 3 felony counts in 1989 but had his convictions vacated in 1990. He began his career as a television and print personality in 1991.