Early Primaries
“What the rise of the Progressive Party and the Vietnam War tended to obscure, was a simple truth. The Democratic Party was still a liberal entity – with limits.”
-Hamilton Jordan-
“What the rise of the Progressive Party and the Vietnam War tended to obscure, was a simple truth. The Democratic Party was still a liberal entity – with limits.”
-Hamilton Jordan-
With the popular Reagan term-limited, Democrats lined up to make the attempt to retake the White House. After eight years of continuous Republican rule, the country was in the mood for change and none of the serious GOP candidates had the same popularity and charisma of the President. A-list names such as Senator Frank Church of Idaho (of the Hoffa wing), Mayor Hugh Carey of New York, and the conservative Senator Larry McDonald of Georgia all were considered prime contenders. However, one name got a lot of press when he decided to enter for the chance to be President. Though out of the senate for the past two years, William Proxmire of Wisconsin was an icon in the Democratic Party. Circumstance had thrust him to the leadership of the non-progressive liberal wing of the party after Bobby Kennedy was appointed to the Supreme Court. It had been his work that kept many Democrats from leaving the party during the Return of the Bull Moose, and this goodwill plus his status as the lone Democrat statewide office holder in the upper Midwest gave him a massive leg up in the first primary of the cycle.
Just the opening Proxmire needed.
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While the Republican field was initially crowded thanks to the open nature of the primary – Gerald Ford bowing out early on had paved the way for many credible candidates – by the new year only three viable contenders remained. The frontrunner was believed to be Illinois Governor Donald Rumsfeld, a well-known figure from his time in the House of Representatives and at the helm of his home state. Quite popular in the Land of Lincoln, his connections and name recognition put him leaps and bounds over the competition, Florida Senator Claude Kirk (the first Republican to really break through downballot in the deep south) and New York Representative and Reaganite conservative Jack Kemp.
Still, the win in the first contest of the year gave him strong momentum going forward into New Hampshire, in which Kemp had staked up shop (Kirk ignored the Granite State in favor of more hospitable Virginia). Owning a contrarian nature toward the first primary state, Rumsfeld faced several headwinds, but was boosted by a late endorsement from popular Senator Alan Shepard.
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While the Progressive Party had ascended to the national scene as a force to be reckoned with, much of the party organization was still weak – especially at the state level. Most southern states barely had a functioning party apparatus, and therefore the party decided to forgo the nationwide series of primaries for the time being to focus party resources on candidates and ground game operations, instead scheduling the National Convention as was the case before the 1972 reforms. However, several primaries were still scheduled in order to act as a talent show for the candidates, and the field for the newly competitive party was actually quite competitive and heated.
As always, Minnesota came first, and so it brought in frontrunner Jim Jones. The Mayor of San Francisco was one of the nationally recognizable faces of the Bull Moose Party, fiery populist rhetoric and a minor cult of celebrity from his time as the leader of the People’s Temple Church in the San Francisco area making the rounds. He initially led in the polls by a considerable margin, topping his closest opponent Congressman John Anderson by a whopping 15 points. However, the attempt by Lynnette Fromme at taking President Reagan’s life halted whatever momentum Jones had. Fromme’s former membership at People’s Temple was only tangentially related to Jones at that point in the primary process, but it opened up discussion into shady aspects of the Mayor’s record that caused MN primary voters to give the race a second look.