Notes from the Peanut Gallery

Hello again!  It has been a long time, but we’ve got so many buttons to go! So, here’s another attempt at consistent updates.  We’ll see how it goes.

This is one of my favorite buttons because I thought it was silly, but it turns out that Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign actually relied very heavily on peanut imagery.  Buttons, shirts, signs, figurines, balloons — even the plane he traveled in during the campaign was called “Peanut One.”

Democratic Presidential Candidate Jimmy Carter Leaving California Aboard the Peanut One (Photo by Tony Korody/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

American politician and US Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter poses with an unidentified supporter during a campaign event, Brockon, Massachusetts, 1976. Visible signs read ‘Carter for the Country’ and ‘Join the Peanut Gallery, We’re for Carter.’ (Photo by Mikki Ansin/Getty Images)

PLAINS, GA – MARCH 20, 1979: A caricature of Jimmy Carter sitting on a giant peanut for sale in a gift shop in Plains, Georgia, home of the 39th U.S. President. Carter was elected President of the United States in November 1976 and served from 1977 until 1981. He was defeated for re-election in 1980 by Ronald Reagan. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

Large helium-inflated peanut-shaped balloon floating past reviewing stand during inaugural parade for newly elected US President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale. (Photo by Sahm Doherty/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images)

President Jimmy Carter poses with a baby in Quincy, Illinois in 1979, during a summer vacation cruising the Mississippi River. The baby’s T-shirt reads “I’m a Carter Nut” above the outline of a peanut. Amid the supporters greeting Carter, a few protesters hold up signs (background). (Photo by © Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Today, presidential candidates try to portray themselves as someone voters could “have a beer with,” but this seems like an entirely different level of folksiness.  It’s not as though Carter was actually coming into the 1976 campaign straight from the peanut farm — he had just served as Governor of Georgia — but the emphasis on his agricultural roots is clear.  I don’t think it would be an effective strategy today, especially in the Democratic party, and it seems like it might not have succeeded then had it not been in the wake of Watergate and Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Richard Nixon.  Suddenly, a wholesome peanut farmer, far from Washington, D.C., advocating reorganization of the government, was a breath of fresh air to the American voters.

The peanut imagery of the 1976 campaign did cut both ways.  Ford attempted to use it derogatorily on several campaign buttons apparently to no avail (and the misspelling of “emperor” on one of them probably didn’t help.)

(Campaign Paraphernalia 1976 Jimmy Carter Presidential Election)
(Busy Beaver Button Museum)
(Getty Images)
(Henry Ford Museum)

Good vs. Great

I don’t have a Bobby button, so this will have to do.

Many 20-somethings probably spent their Friday nights out on the town with friends.  I curled up on the couch with a cocktail, a cat, and a four-hour documentary about the political career of Bobby Kennedy.

I wouldn’t usually watch a documentary about any Kennedy.  In terms of political history, they have never been an interest of mine, because everyone loves the Kennedys.  I didn’t know much about Bobby, other than his family legacy (and possible family curse?)  I watched because of something grandma said to me about him: “Bobby Kennedy wasn’t always good, but he could’ve been great.”  I had no idea what that meant.

Other than the fact that this was honestly probably the best documentary I have ever seen, I understand what she was saying now.

When Bobby was attorney general under John Kennedy, he didn’t always seem to make the right decisions at first, especially about civil rights.  He approved the wiretapping of Martin Luther King, but then secured his release from prison in Atlanta.  When there were protests and riots and governors who refused to integrate, he was slow to act because these are state issues or these issues are in the courts where they should be dealt with, but eventually he intervened.  He wasn’t always good at first — but he was willing to learn and evolve, and he got there in the end.

He went to the poorest parts of America and met with the people who lived there.  He saw how they lived, spoke to them, asked them what they needed from him.  When the United Farm Workers in California were striking (we talked about them in one of my first posts, remember?) and they wanted to meet with him, he got right on a plane.  He was affected by what he heard and saw and wanted to help.  He gave people hope that someone actually cared about them.

Another thing that was really surprising to me was how much of a rock star he was.  When he drove down the street, he had people whose actual job was to hold onto him so he didn’t get pulled out of the car by excited supporters.  That isn’t something I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.  The most “rock star” politician I’ve seen has probably been Obama, but even he didn’t get a response like that on the campaign trail.  I wonder if people just had more trust in government officials back then and it’s gone downhill ever since?  It also probably has to do with security — we aren’t allowed to get that close to politicians anymore, and I’m sure that has to do with what happened to Bobby and other political/activist figures in the ’60s.

I had so many thoughts and feelings over the four hours I spent with Bobby Kennedy.  I laughed — especially when he thanked his dog first after winning the California primary — and I cried when the took his coffin to Washington on the train and thousands of people lined the railways to watch it go by, their hands on their hearts, saluting, or waving the flag.  Rather than try to summarize the entire documentary, I’ll just recommend that you watch it.  Grandma was right — Bobby Kennedy wasn’t always good.  But he was willing to learn and change, which I think is a quality modern politicians have lost.  The ’60s was a major transitional period in this country, and sometimes it took even the people at the top a minute to catch-up.  Now, we call it “flip-flopping” and use it as an insult.  But what politician can truly be great if they have no room to grow?

And, to the Kennedys: You got me, you handsome, Irish bastards.  I’m interested.

(Image Source)(Netflix: Bobby Kennedy for President)

The Spark that Lit the Flame

My grandma emailed me and shared the first time she became politically active. It’s obviously amazing, so I’ll let her tell you about it in her own words in a moment. But now that I’ve been writing this blog for like, a full ten days, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned (and I talked about it in therapy last night, so it’s nice and fresh.)

I always knew that my grandma was politically active, but I think I viewed it in the abstract. I would hear stories about it from time-to-time, but since we didn’t live right down the street like some of my other family members, I didn’t really ever see it first-hand. Sorting through all of these buttons made these stories seem more real to me.

I started this blog with the intention of looking into the history of the buttons, but I am realizing that the more interesting story is her story with the buttons. They aren’t all from campaigns or causes that she was involved with, but of the ones that were, I’d like to tell her story. We’ve got a date on Sunday to sit down and go through some of them.

The last thing I’ll say for now is this: researching these buttons, talking to my family and my grandma about her activism, and thinking about the way things are now has made me want to do something. Activism has changed a lot, it seems, and especially for millennials it has moved largely to the internet. I think I definitely fall into that category — I’ll happily defend any issue I believe in, as long as I don’t have to actually speak to anyone or put on real pants or leave my cats. And while it’s great to express your opinion on Facebook and Twitter, real change has always come from people who are willing to leave the house. So, I signed up to volunteer with Planned Parenthood yesterday (and shout-out to the wonderful staff at the Livonia location who might be reading this, we got pretty up close and personal today.)  It’s no march on Washington, but it’s something.

And now, without further ado, onto a great story from grandma:

“Wow! Your acquirement of my button collection, has sent me on a trip down Memory Lane! I’m delighted that you got it and are interested in learning more about the various buttons.

Is there a button for Flavin and Morris for the Ferndale School Board? That is the first campaign in which I became politically involved, and I don’t remember if we had a button or not.

The situation:

My son, Rob was in 3rd grade, and was not learning how to read. He was a very bright child; but he was just not catching on! Then the Ferndale School District introduced a FEDERALLY FUNDED reading program – and with that program, Rob was learning to read!

The Ferndale School District includes part of Royal Oak Township – a black -community. Grant, an elementary school in the township, was all black. The federal government told the Ferndale school board to desegregate Grant school or lose federal funding – including the reading program that was helping Rob. Our school board told the feds where they could go with that money!

Well! I spoke at that meeting urging the board to desegregate Grant. Instead, they voted to keep the status quo. The Feds subsequently cut off funding to the district which, at that time was about, I think, $250,000.00/year – a considerable amount of money!

After that meeting, I was invited to attend another meeting with a group of people who were looking to replace that school board which would sacrifice our kid’s education for their own racist reasons. That’s when I became politically involved.

It took years of campaigns to change the board (7 seats; with 2 up for election every year). We’d win two, then lose one, etc. etc., but eventually we got a majority – and then the whole board!

Rob learned to read through that federally funded program– and now, instead of being a drop-out, he is a physicist who works for the U.S. Army.

I thank God for allowing me to see the results of all that time and all that work.”

Not Smiling Anymore

This button doesn’t have any copyright/printer information on the back, so I’m not sure which of Phil Mastin’s campaigns it came from, but I bet he stopped handing them out after 1983.  A Michigan Democrat from Pontiac, he won elections for the State House of Representatives in 1970, 1972, and 1974.  After a failed bid for Oakland County executive in 1976, he won a seat in the State Senate in 1982.

Taxpayers were not smiling when the Democrats in the Senate approve a 38% tax increase proposed by newly-elected Governor James Blanchard.  Many recall efforts across the state were attempted, but two succeeded — Mastin on November 22, 1983, and Democratic Senator David Serotkin on November 30th.  This gave Phil Mastin an unfortunate place in Michigan history, becoming the first state legislature to be recalled by his constituents.  When Republicans won both special elections to fill the seats, it also flipped the majority in the Senate from Democratic to Republican — and they have kept it ever since.

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One Issue Wasn’t Enough

It’s not exactly a secret that my grandma is pretty liberal, so I actually thought this button was a joke at first — being a single-issue candidate is usually an accusation from an opponent, not something celebrated on a button.

As it turns out, there was once a pretty good reason for Republicans to be a single-issue party: It’s 1932, the world is in the midst of the Great Depression, and your presidential candidate is the guy who many Americans are pointing the finger at, incumbent Herbert Hoover.  He was not the most popular guy in America, as his promise of “a final triumph over poverty” in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination in 1928 had turned out to be super ironic.  A few months after taking office, the stock market crashed, and the world’s economy began to fall into the Great Depression.

It’s not fair to say that Hoover did nothing to try to stop the Depression, but it probably looked like that from the outside.  He encouraged business leaders not to cut wages or layoff workers, pushed for Congress to pass public works initiatives that would create jobs, and asked local and state governments to work with private charities around the country.  He just didn’t believe in intervention by the federal government, or widespread government aid.  But, to the average citizen standing in line for bread as unemployment skyrockets to almost 25% and over 5,000 banks fail, a little government intervention would’ve been welcome.

Enter: Franklin D. Roosevelt and his promise of “a new deal for the American people.”

While Democrats essentially ran a single-issue campaign, too, they had a couple things going for them.  First, people tend to blame the party in charge for problems that happen on their watch.  Another big factor, though, was the fact that Hoover rarely made public speeches or radio addresses — he actually had a fear of public speaking.  This made it easy for Democrats to paint him as a cold, aloof leader who didn’t care about the average American.  It also allowed for FDR to make grand speeches about the “new deal” without having to give many specifics about what that might entail, because Hoover wasn’t giving any indication as to what his recovery plan would be, either.  FDR was full of idealism and optimism, while Hoover was…well, nobody really knew.

Anyways, the American people were in on FDR.  Hoover got completely destroyed in the election (and almost on the campaign trail, a few times, when multiple citizens tried to assassinate him.)  FDR won 42 or 48 states as well as the popular vote, and Democrats won control of both Congressional houses.  These victories also ended a period of Republican dominance in federal government.

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Fashion Victim

This button was inspired by events at a Michigan campaign stop!  In 1952, Democrat Adlai Stevenson of Illinois was running for president against Dwight Eisenhower.  His family was super wealthy and connected (his grandfather was Grover Cleveland’s vice president,) which made it difficult him to connect with the regular voters — he wasn’t the kind of guy Average Joe wants to grab a beer with, especially when he’s running against a famous war hero.

On Labor Day of 1952, Stevenson made a campaign stop in Flint.  While Governor G. Mennen Williams addressed the crowd, Stevenson sat cross-legged and studied his speech.  A photographer from the Flint Journal, William Gallagher, was standing just below where the candidate was seated, and noticed a hole in the sole of his shoe.  He took a picture, for which he would later win a Pulitzer Prize.

Eisenhower’s campaign immediately began producing these buttons, trying to suggest that Stevenson wasn’t even able to care for himself, let alone the entire country.  Stevenson’s campaign, however, produced their own shoe pins (see below,) explaining that the Democrat was frugal, and he would treat taxpayer dollars with just as much care as he did his own.

Voters didn’t buy it, and Eisenhower won the election by a landslide.  Stevenson ran again in 1956, but Americans have long memories when it comes to fashion faux pas, so Eisenhower was re-elected.  Stevenson tried one more time in 1960 but failed to secure the nomination.  He didn’t stand a chance against JFK, a man who never left the house looking any less than 100%.

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I’ll Take Two!

Voter turnout had been declining for years in Chicago, and by 1988, Thomas Schaffner decided to do something about it.  In the October issue of his newsletter, Chicago File, he proposed that Congress give current and former Chicago residents  “the authority to pick up the voting ‘slack.'”  He sent these buttons along with the issue to his 1,000 subscribers, many former residents still interested in the city politics.  With his two-ballots method, he quipped that Chicago’s voter turnout for the presidential election could exceed 100%.

The newsletter also included some the unique traditions, scandals, and strange histories of Chicago elections, such as the 1927 “Pineapple Primary” when Al Capone’s goonies threw grenades into polling places where their candidate wasn’t projected to do well.  He advised his readers, “Proclaim yourself precinct captain…wear something official-looking and walk around your neighborhood telling people who they should vote for.  Don’t forget to invent some ugly rumors about your candidate’s opponent.”

Schaffner admitted to creating the buttons to boost circulation of his newsletter, and offered them for free to new subscribers who signed up at a discounted rate before election day.

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Screwy Truman

This button is from 1948, during the presidential campaign between incumbent Harry Truman and Republican nominee Thomas Dewey.  It refers to the fact that during his first term, Truman had a balcony built on the south portico of the White House.  Since Dewey was almost unanimously predicted to win the election, this rhyme both pokes fun at Truman for remodeling just in time to vacate the White House, as well as attack the addition as wasteful government spending.

Dewey’s victory was almost certain — the Chicago Daily Tribune even distributed 150,000 issues with the front page headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” before the official results declared Truman the winner.  However, his failure in the 1944 campaign had made him very cautious, and he often spoke in empty platitudes rather than risk making any mistakes.  Truman’s “whistle-stop” campaign, however — a 21,928-mile trek across the nation, making spontaneous speeches at stops from the rear platform of the observation car — drew millions of people but was barely covered by the national press.  Likewise, polls in 1948 were largely done by telephone, and many in Truman’s Midwestern and Southern base did not yet own telephones.

As we know, Truman did win the election and did get to enjoy the balcony for four more years.  Maybe he sat there at the end of a long day and contemplated the Korean War, which my grandfather served in and where he invented the selfie (please see indisputable proof below.)  Perhaps that is where he chose to General Eisenhower as the commander of NATO troops.  He didn’t actually get to enjoy it for long, because as they were building the balcony, other parts of the White House were collapsing around him due to serious structural issues.  The Truman family spent most of his second term living in the Blair House while almost the entire interior of the White House was gutted and rebuilt.

(Text from back of photo: “Took this myself, holding the camera at arm’s length.”)