Dominic Joseph Jacobetti was an American miner, trade unionist, and politician who served as 44th President of the United States from 1973 to 1981. Born in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Italian immigrants Nick and Josephine Jacobetti (Niccolò and Giuseppina Giacobetti in Italian), he became a miner and quickly rose up through the ranks of the local chapter of the United Steel Workers Union until he became its president. He also gained prominent positions in the Michigan branch of the Farmer-Labor Party. Eventually, after serving a period of time in the Michigan State Legislature, he was elected Governor of Michigan in 1966, and was reelected in 1968 and 1970. During his time as governor, he became known as the "people's governor".
In 1972, an increasingly desperate Farmer-Labor Party, which had lost the previous three presidential elections to their main opponent, the Freedom Party, decided to nominate Jacobetti for president as a "dark horse" candidate. The Freedomites, under incumbent president George W. Romney, doubted Jacobetti could win, with the Freedom Party advertising campaign claiming Romney as the "model image of a president", while attacking Jacobetti for not being "presidential" enough. Jacobetti's campaign used his background as a poor miner in his campaign, portraying himself as "one of the people" in contrast with the "corrupt right-wing elites in the government" that he claimed President Romney represented. Jacobetti would go on to win the election, defeating Romney in his bid for a second term.
Within the first year of his first term, Jacobetti would immediately begin facing accusations of corruption. However, this did not prevent Jacobetti from winning reelection in 1976. Over the course of his second term, the allegations would gain more traction. In 1979, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, although the Senate voted against removing him from office. Jacobetti took his Senate acquittal as a victory, and announced his intention to run for an unprecedented third term.
In the 1980 election, Jacobetti's main opponent, Donald Rumsfeld of the Freedom Party, would relentlessly attack Jacobetti for the corruption accusations and the fact Jacobetti was breaking Washington's two-term precedent, in addition to accusing Jacobetti of being a communist sympathizer due to his trade unionist background. Jacobetti touted his record of fighting for the common people in both Lansing and Washington, even attempting to recontextualize his corruption allegations as "stealing to the rich and giving to the poor", attempting to portray himself as a political Robin Hood. He also accused Rumsfeld of being an elitist who wanted to take the people's voice away. Additionally, Jacobetti accused Rumsfeld, who had been Secretary of Defense under president Romney, of being a warmonger who wanted to throw American lives away in foreign wars. In the end, Rumsfeld won, with Jacobetti retiring to his hometown of Negaunee for the rest of his life.
Rumsfeld would almost immediately begin pushing for a constitutional amendment to establish a two-term limit on the presidency, which would eventually pass in 1991. Jacobetti would die suddenly at his home in Negaunee in 1994. His legacy today is ambivalent, with many on the left praising him as a fighter for the common people, while many on the right accuse him of communist sympathies, and many on both sides criticize his corruption. Following his 1980 defeat, the Farmer-Labor Party would not hold the presidency for another sixteen years, when the Farmer-Labor Party's Mickey Leland defeated the Freedom Party's Dexter Lehtinen for the presidency in 1996.
