Side-by-side portraits of George McGovern and Thomas Eagleton encircled by white text over red and blue border over white background. 

In 1972, George McGovern and Thomas Eagleton ran for US President and Vice President, respectively, for the Democratic Party. At the time, both candidates were US Senators: McGovern for South Dakota and Eagleton for Missouri. Their campaign rested on the withdrawal of US military from Vietnam, amnestry for draft dodgers, women's reproductive rights, a small redistribution of wealth, and the legalization of marijuana. Their campaign positions led to labor unions and Southern Democrats starting an "Anybody but McGovern" campaign.  

At the 1972 Democratic Convention, a series of party process missteps resulted in McGovern giving his speech at 3 a.m., which reduced the television audience to only 15 million. To make the campaign even more difficult, it was uncovered that Eagleton suffered from bi-polar disorder and had ungone electroshock treatment during the 1960s. Although the polls suggested that Eagleton's health was not a factor for the vast majority of the population, the press viewed it as an important issue. Eagleton withdrew his candidancy and Robert Shriver, Jr. took his place on the ballot.

The campaign was so disastrous that McGovern's Republican opponent, Richard Nixon (1913-1994), commenced a Democrats for Nixon campaign to win over undecided democrats. Nixon resoundedly defeated McGovern, who only received 17 electoral votes—Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

Grumpy, personified light bulb under black and red text over grey background. 

Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969. While he began his presidency with widespread approval, support for Johnson declined as the public became further upset with both the war and the growing violence at home. Johnson infamously escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War, which stimulated a large, angry antiwar movement. Johnson faced further troubles when summer riots broke out in most major cities after 1965, and crime rates soared. The Democratic Party split into multiple feuding factions, and after Johnson did poorly in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, he ended his bid for reelection.

A black and white photograph of Lee A. Iacocca below white text on a black background. 

In 1983 and 1984, a small contingent of Americans supported a presidential bid from Republican Lee A. Iacocca. Iacocca was the CEO, Chairman, and President of the Chrysler Corporations, an automobile company, at the time. Supporters believed Iacocca's ability to bring Chrysler back from the brink of bankruptcy with the assistance of guaranteed government loans would help the sluggish American economy. Automobile dealers from across America contributed finances for a campaign, however at the urging of his mother and friends, Iacocca decided against running. President Ronald Reagan was reelected in the 1984 election and Reagan offered a cabinet position to Iacocca. He refused the appointment but accepted Reagan's offer as chairperson of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.  

Iacocca was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania.  He received his undergraduate degree from Lehigh University, and attended graduate school at Princeton University.  

Blue illustration of two hands shaking between red text over white background. 

Uncle Sam is a common personification of the American government that, according to legend, came into use during the War of 1812 and was supposedly named for Samuel Wilson. The first use of Uncle Sam in literature was in the 1816 allegorical book "The Adventures of Uncle Sam in Search After His Lost Honor" by Frederick Augustus Fidfaddy, Esq. An Uncle Sam is mentioned as early as 1775, in the original "Yankee Doodle" lyrics of the Revolutionary War. The image of Uncle Sam was shown publicly for the first time, according to some, in a picture by Flagg on the cover of the magazine Leslie's Weekly, on July 6, 1916, with the caption "What Are You Doing for Preparedness?" More than four million copies of this image were printed between 1917 and 1918.

Grey scale portrait of John W. Davis sandwiched between white text over grey background. 

John William Davis (1873-1955) was the Democratic Party's nominee for the 1924 US Presidential election. His running mate, Charles W. Bryan (1867-1945), was the younger brother of the famous anti-evolutionist William Jennings Bryan. Politically, Davis opposed anti-lynching, child-labor, and women's suffrage laws. Davis served one term as US Representative for West Virginia (1911-1913) but gained most of his political experience by becoming the US Solicitor General (1913-1918) and US Ambassador to the UK (1918-1921). Davis lost the presidential election to incumbent (John) Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) by a margin of 246 (out of 531) Electoral College votes.

Davis argued over one hundred cases before the US Supreme Court. The most famous Supreme Court case was his defense of "separate but equal" education laws in Briggs v. Elliott, which he lost in 1952.

Portrait of Jimmy Carter flanked by the Capital Building and the White House betweenred white and blue text over American flag background. 

James "Jimmy" Earl Carter ran against incumbent Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. in the 1976 US Presidential election. Carter's running mate was US Sentator from Minnesota, Walter Mondale. Ford stuck with his vice president, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller.  Carter and Mondale received 50.1% to Ford and Rockefeller's 48% of the popular vote. The electoral votes were not as close, with 297 going to Carter and Mondale, 240 for Ford and Rockefeller, and 1 vote from Washington State going to Ronald Reagan.

When Carter was elected, he became the first Democrat from the US South to be elected to the office since before the Civil War. During his single term, Carter established the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. His presidential legacy is often overshadowed by economic and international relations problems, culminating with the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan beginning in 1979 and the Iran Hostage Crisis from 1979-1981. Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election by a margin of 440 electoral votes.

Black and white photograph of Jimmy Carter kneeling down with two children, blue text around top edge and red text around bottom edge on a white background.

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter ran as the Democratic candidate for President in 1976. When Carter entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries that year, most believed he had little chance against nationally better-known politicians. His name recognition was only two percent! However, his strong political campaign led him to win the election. Carter served as President from 1977 to 1981. During his campaign, he was interviewed by Robert Scheer of Playboy and was the first, and so far only, American president to have been interviewed by the magazine.

Illustration of Jimmy Carter with green text on a white background.

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. ran for President in 1976.  He won the election a served for one term from 1977 to 1981. Carter was the first American President born in a hospital, and he was raised on his family's farm outside the small town of Plains, Georgia, in a house with no electricity or indoor plumbing. In 1953, Carter resigned from the Navy, where he had been working as an officer in the Navy's first experimental nuclear submarine, and returned to Georgia with his wife, Rosalynn, to run his family's peanut farm.

Color portrait of Jesse L. Jackson surrounded by green, black, and red text over white background.  

This button dates from Rev. Jesse L. Jackson's 1984 bid for US President. Jackson ran as a candidate of the Democrat Party and was the first African-American male to do so. He lost the nomination to former Vice President Walter F. Mondale and finished third in the tally, receiving over 18 percent of the votes and surprising pundits nationwide.  

Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns in Greenville, SC. He was adopted by his mother's husband when he was one year old and took his step-father's surname. Jackson graduated from a historically black university, North Carolina A&T, in 1964 and attended Chicago Theological Seminary. Rather than completing his degree there, he chose to work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). SCLC was the civil rights organization led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1966, King personally selected Jackson to head the organization's Chicago branch. After a falling out with SCLC administration, Jackson created People United to Save Humanity (PUSH). PUSH focused on political activism and aimed to place political pressure on elected officials regarding civil rights issues. Jackson resigned as president of PUSH in 1984 in order to focus on his presidential campaign. During the campaign, Jackson formed the National Rainbow Coalition, which merged with PUSH in 1996.

A white button with a photograph of Jesse Ventura's face with black text above and below.

This is a political button in support of Jesse Ventura's possible 2000 presidential election bid. Jesse Ventura is a former U.S Navy Seal who served in the Vietnam War. His nickname "The Body" comes from his tenure in professional wrestling throughout the 1970s and 1980s. As he transitioned out of professional wrestling, he acted in films including Predator. In 1991, Ventura's political career began when he defeated the 25 year incumbent mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. In 1998, Ventura ran as a third-party candidate (Reform Party) in the Minnesota gubernatorial race and won. Self-described as "fiscally conservative" and "socially liberal," Ventura has been a political activist and commentator since he left the governor's office in 2002.  For example, he publicly supported Ron Paul for US President.