[Bryce] To gain some historical perspective on 2016, let’s look back at the previous
13 presidential elections.
In 1964, less than a year after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the power of
the Democratic Party was at its peak.
President Lyndon Johnson had just signed the historic Civil Rights Act into law in July.
The result?
Johnson trounced the ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater in the most lopsided popular vote
margin in presidential election history.
1968 was the most tumultuous election year of the century.
[King] “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord!”
Both Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, and with protests raging
over the war in Vietnam, LBJ chose not to run for reelection.
[Johnson] “I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
The result was a major political realignment, as Republican Richard Nixon took advantage
of racial resentment.
But the segregationist George Wallace - an independent - was a major beneficiary, winning
most of the deep south.
[Wallace] “Why don’t you young punks get outta the auditorium.”
The backlash was strong among whites over the Democratic Party’s embrace of Civil
Rights and Johnson’s ambitious Great Society programs to fight poverty.
That realignment was on full display in 1972 as incumbent President Nixon destroyed his
opponent, George McGovern, and won 49 states.
News stories on the Watergate scandal that would force Nixon to resign from office two
years later were just beginning to break.
The ‘72 election is also notable for the attempt on the life of the Democratic frontrunner
George Wallace, who was shot five times and paralyzed from the waist down, ending his
campaign.
With the Republicans reeling from the fallout over Nixon -
[Nixon] I shall resign the Presidency.” 1976 was the only time in the 24 year-period
from ‘68-’92 that a Democrat won the presidency.
That candidate was deeply religious southerner Jimmy Carter, who was - momentarily - able
to switch the South back to Democratic control in his narrow victory over Nixon’s successor,
President Gerald Ford.
In 1980, the Republican former governor of California, Ronald Reagan offered a more optimistic
vision for an American economy weakened by high unemployment and inflation.
[Reagan] “Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?”
The Iran hostage crisis was the nail in President Carter’s political coffin, helping Reagan
win more electoral votes than any non-incumbent presidential candidate in history.
Four years later, Reagan’s Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale, only managed to win his home
state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia--which has never voted Republican.
Mondale’s uphill battle against a popular sitting president was pretty much impossible
from the start with the economy booming under Reagan.
Mondale did make some history by choosing Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, the
first woman nominated to a major-party presidential ticket.
In 1988, the Republican torch was passed to Vice President George HW Bush--who had spent
most of his adult life serving the country.
To fend off Democrat Michael Dukakis, Bush turned to the dark arts, unleashing a series
of negative attacks against his opponent, who failed to respond in kind.
[Narrator] “Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers
to have weekend passes from prison.
One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times.”
While Bush’s electoral college victory margin was convincing, his too-close-for-comfort
popular vote margin and underwhelming voter turnout foreshadowed a tough road to reelection.
And in 1992, Bush’s reelection was made much tougher when he alienated his conservative
base by breaking a campaign pledge against raising taxes.
[H.W.
Bush] “Read my lips: No.
New.
Taxes.”
Bush should’ve been flying high after leading a decisive American victory in the Persian
Gulf War...
[Frontline Narrator] “The man often derided as a political wimp had maneuvered his generals,
his country, and the most world...”
But the economy dipped into recession, opening the door for a young charismatic southern
democratic governor named Bill Clinton.
Clinton and Independent Ross Perot, who ran an incredibly strong third-party campaign,
picked Bush apart and held him to just 37.4% of the popular vote.
Clinton’s 43% was enough to give him a convincing electoral college victory.
Going into the 1996 election, Clinton was very beatable after failing to enact his main
target: health care reform.
But the economy was booming, the world was peaceful, and the Republicans nominated the
uninspiring Bob Dole, a man 23 years older than Clinton.
Ross Perot ran a second time, and his 8.4% again undercut the Republicans, cementing
Clinton’s reelection, and making him the first president since Woodrow Wilson to win
two terms without crossing the 50% threshold in the popular vote.
The November 7, 2000 election between Clinton’s Vice President Al Gore, and Texas Republican
governor George W. Bush, was the most dramatic - and controversial - since 1876.
For the first time in 112 years the eventual winner failed to win the popular vote.
The race came down to Florida, where Bush led Gore by less than 1,000 votes, out of
more than 5.8 million cast.
After more than a month of recounts and court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court (in a 5-4
decision) awarded Florida’s 25 electoral votes, and the presidency, to Bush.
Bush’s 2004 reelection was defined by two things: the war on terrorism.
[W. Bush] “The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
And the war in Iraq, which Bush launched under the false assertion that Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein possessed nuclear and biological weapons.
Senator John Kerry - the current U.S. Secretary of State - was the Democratic nominee.
Kerry’s critiques of Bush were undermined by his vote authorizing the Iraq War, and
a smear campaign to cast doubt on his record as a Vietnam war hero.
Bush’s margin of victory was the smallest ever recorded for an incumbent president and,
just like his 2000 victory, was not without controversy, as the results from Ohio were
highly questionable after numerous voting irregularities came to light.
Going into the 2008 election, the stage was set for a Democratic wave.
Bush and his Iraq War were deeply unpopular with an American people yearning for change,
opening the door for two historic candidacies.
Barack Obama - a young, freshman senator from the state of Illinois - burst onto the scene
to challenge the junior senator from New York, former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton,
for the Democratic nomination.
The two superstars battled for an entire year, debating more than 20 times.
Fueled by the energetic support of young Americans, commanding oratory, and a brilliant grassroots-driven
campaign, Obama came from behind to narrowly secure the nomination.
The Republicans chose Senator John McCain as their nominee, a political moderate and
former war hero.
Recognizing the power of Obama’s movement-oriented campaign, McCain made a desperate play, tapping
a little known Alaskan governor as his running mate.
But Sarah Palin quickly proved to be unqualified in the eyes of most American voters, eroding
McCain’s credibility.
[Couric] “Can you name a few?”
[Palin] “I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too.
Alaska isn’t a foreign country.”
[TV News Reporter #1] “The stock market is now down 21%”
[Reporter #2] “We’re now down 43%” [Reporter #3] “I have never, live, looked
at the DOW Jones Industrial board and seen a 600 point loss.”
[Reporter #4] “Who knows where this is going to end up.
I mean this is volatility we haven’t seen, of course, since way before you and I were
born, even before our grandparents.
You know, 1929.”
[Reporter #5] “So almost everything there completely wiped out.
And the NASDAQ everything and more has been completely wiped out.”
[Bryce] With the economy collapsing on Bush’s watch,
and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars flowing into Wall Street banks to keep them
solvent, Obama and his democratic party surged to victory.
The election of the first African American president turned a higher percentage of his
fellow citizens out to vote than in any election since the tumultuous 1968 campaign.
[Charles Gibson] “Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States.”
[Crowd cheering loudly] [President-elect Obama] “It’s been a long
time coming.
But because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change
has come to America.”
2012 was defined by three things.
President Obama’s all-hands-on-deck approach to rescuing the economy; the Republican Party’s
efforts to block Obama at all costs; and Obama’s signature achievement, the Affordable Care
Act that dramatically reduced the number of Americans without health insurance.
With the economy recovering slowly, Obama seemed beatable.
But on May 2, 2011, the President announced the death of Osama bin Laden, the alleged
mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, hunted by the US Government for 10 years.
[President Obama] “The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin
Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.”
The moment - celebrated as a victory in the War on Terror - helped cement Obama’s image
as a formidable Commander-In-Chief.
[Crowd singing national anthem] “Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still
there.”
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney captured the Republican nomination.
[Mitt Romney] “Too many Americans are struggling to find work in today’s economy.”
He was a capable opponent, but after making hundreds of millions of dollars as a capital
investor, he was labeled as a representative of the increasingly vilified 1%.
[Protesters chanting] “Whose streets?
Our streets!”
The Occupy Movement, led by protesters who encamped at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan’s
financial district, had focused the world’s attention on social and economic inequality.
In the end, Obama was carried by his best-in-history political organization - still fully intact
after his ‘08 campaign - and secured a larger-than-expected reelection victory.
2016 is set to be another historic, first of it’s kind election for the United States.
But will it be the first time we elect someone who has never served their country before?
Or the first time America chooses a woman as it’s leader?
Until next time, thanks for watching, and subscribe for more original videos like this.