The 1980 Presidential election was between a Hollywood movie star (Ronald Reagan) representing the Republican Party and the incumbent president (Jimmy Carter) representing Democratic Party. Many factors like high inflation, gasoline shortage, and Americans being held hostages lead to Ronald Reagan’s victory. Reagan made promises to fix Carter’s mistakes and also believed that America was a “shining city on a hill” and there were good days to come. Reagan won the election and was the oldest president of the United States at the time. Reagan won, because the country wanted a change and hoped that he would fix the mistakes that Jimmy Carter had made. Ronald Reagan was the fortieth President of the United States when he won the 1980 presidential …show more content…
They both spent just about $15 million for advertisement on televisions. Reagan promised a restoration of American’s military strength, he also promised that it would be the beginning of the end for inflation. Reagan also said he would end the “trust me government ways”. Carter claimed to have a “grand plan” to fix the mistakes he had made in the past. During the debate Carter would criticized Reagans economic recovery plan, instead of making his own response like an educated adult would, especially for someone how wants to be the president of a country. Reagan was popular before he was running for president, because he was an actor from 1937-1965, then an active republican politician, and later elected as governor of California in 1966. Reagan attracted people, who would not have voted for the same candidate as Protestants did. Many of the people were middle class and working class people who resented the growth of federal and state …show more content…
The country hoped that he could heal the wounds of Watergate that took place during Richard Nixon presidency. Ricard Nixton was president in 1972, Iran and America both relied on selling arms that maintained Iran’s military forces and profited America’s economy. With the natural resources and large oil supply that Iran had, and the country paid for weapons with both oil and revenues. Although when Carter became president in 1976, his government announced a directive in 1977, saying that he was against the transfer of arms to other countries expect when it is in United Sates interests, but these policies was against the interest of companies making arms. After that all imported oils were cut off, which damaged Americas economy for example, the gas prices went up. Also the United States relied on Iran for nearly 4% of daily consumption. This really hurt the American businesses that were selling and making the arms that goes to Iran and other nations. About five days after the halt on imported oils, Carter also froze around ten million dollars of the Iranian money being held in American banks. Freezing all the money had Iran suffering a whole a lot more in their economic hardship, but there was no effect on the U.S. economy (Collins, 2013). After he had won the election he failed to keep his promises which made him look like his