1980 President Carter Persuasive Essay

In the election of 1980, President Carter was facing his downfall and was put up against another candidate Ronald Reagan. Although he was the Governor of California from 1967 to 1975, people couldn’t see him as anything but a Hollywood actor. Reagan started to get an amateurish reputation. Before the election another bombshell hit the trust the people had in the President. On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran. As a result of this incident, faith in President Carter started to erode. There was an oil shortage, and inflation started to rise by 18%. All Carter wanted to prove was that he was still the right choice for president, and Ronald Reagan was not. Carter started to flash that Reagan wasn’t

During the campaigning process Carter tried to shed light on some of the good things he had done during his presidency to try and diminish the tension that was looming over him. He tried to raise concerns about Ronald Reagan being president. In the end, Carter only tried to show the side of him that was good, not the side that was ruining the United States’ economy. In the 1980 Presidential Debate, President Carter and Ronald Reagan had been in numerous heated discussions about many different topics. In this part of the Presidential debate the topic of choice was nuclear proliferation: the spread of nuclear weapons. The spread of nuclear weapons is important because the United States can prevent any sort of nuclear conflict. Whether it is the US attacking another country, or another country attacking the US. After a group of Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran, the US government was keeping a watchful eye on nuclear proliferation in the United States and in Iran. In January of 1979, Ronald Reagan was in Jacksonville when he made a statement regarding nuclear proliferation in the United States, “‘...Unilaterally the United States seems to be the only nation in the world that’s trying to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.’” (Rafshoon

He had the help of his wife and President Carter’s “weak” personality. Throughout the election and campaigning process Ronald Reagan had been facing personal attacks from President Carter. In a campaign ad on behalf of Ronald Reagan, Reagan’s wife, Nancy Reagan addresses these attacks, “‘ I deeply, deeply resent, and am offended by, the attacks that President Carter has made on my husband—the personal attacks that he’s made on my husband. His attempt to paint my husband as a man he is not. He is not a warmonger, he is not a man who is going to throw the elderly out on the street and cut out their social security. That’s a terrible thing to do and to say about anybody. That’s campaigning on fear.’” (Campaign ‘80 00:00:00-00:00:29) Nancy Reagan is presenting herself as a wife. A wife who is defending her husband against personal attacks that were made on him by another man. Any woman or wife would do this to protect their husband, or the person they love. The ad is using plain-folk propaganda to show that Nancy Reagan is a wife like any other. She is simply protecting her husband from someone who is causing harm. Later in the ad Nancy hints that no person should vote for someone who blatantly puts down another. This could have led more women and wives to vote for Reagan because he represents a husband just like any other. In the campaign ad Nancy accuses President Carter of “campaigning on fear” but Carter wasn’t the