thumb|The [[Moscone Center was the site of the 1984 Democratic National Convention]]

The 1984 Democratic National Convention was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California from July 16 to July 19, 1984, to select candidates for the 1984 United States presidential election. Former Vice President Walter Mondale was nominated for president and Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York was nominated for vice president. Ferraro became the first woman to be nominated by either major party for the presidency or vice presidency. In another first, the 1984 Democratic Convention was chaired by the governor of Kentucky, Martha Layne Collins. The Democratic National Committee Chairman at the time, Charles T. Manatt, led the convention.

Site selection

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Finalist bid cities

|-

! City !! Venue !! Previous major party conventions hosted by city

|-

| Chicago, Illinois || McCormick Place || Democratic: 1864, 1884, 1892, 1896, 1932, 1940, 1944, 1952, 1956, 1968<br>Republican: 1860, 1868, 1880, 1884, 1888, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1932, 1944, 1952, 1960

|-

| Detroit, Michigan || Joe Louis Arena and Cobo Hall || Republican: 1980

|-

| New York City, New York || Madison Square Garden By the time that a vote was held for where to hold the convention, the contenders were Chicago, Detroit, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Mannatt argued that locating a convention in California could be wise for Democrats with an eye to the general election in the state, since California was a state that had a 5–3 Democratic advantage in party registration but which had voted Republican for the past several presidential elections. California's largest city, Los Angeles (Mannatt's home city) was logistically unavailable to host the 1984 convention due to its hosting of 1984 Summer Olympics. San Francisco's proposed venue, its new downtown Moscone Center convention center, had 650,000 square feet of space, and promised to be capable of seating 20,000 conventiongoers. Another factor speculated to disadvantage San Francisco's bid was the small size of its police force. Madison Square Garden had also been seen during the previous two conventions as being somewhat undersized in its amount of usable area, and the 1984 convention was to feature more delegates than previous conventions had. It was the party's third convention to be held in the state of California, after the 1920 convention and the 1960 convention in Los Angeles.

|-

! width="120px" |City

! width="40px" style="background: silver" | Round 1

! width="40px" style="background: silver" | Round 2

|-

| style="background: #f9f9f9; text-align: left" | San Francisco, California

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 13

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 23

|-

| style="background: #f9f9f9; text-align: left" | Chicago, Illinois

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 3

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 2

|-

| style="background: #f9f9f9; text-align: left" | Detroit, Michigan

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 4

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 1

|-

| style="background: #f9f9f9; text-align: left" | New York City, New York

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 2

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 1

|-

| style="background: #f9f9f9; text-align: left" | Washington, D.C.

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 5

| style="background: #f9f9f9" | 0

|}

Logistics

The convention was the first to utilize the rule changes recommended by the Hunt Commission in response to the protracted 1980 Democratic Party presidential primaries between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy, including the use of superdelegates.

The San Francisco Hilton served as the convention's headquarters hotel. It had previously been the headquarters hotel of the 1964 Republican National Convention.

The convention cost in excess of $20 million to stage. $9 million was provided by the City of San Francisco's government itself. It was the first time anyone mentioned lesbians and gays in a national convention address. Jackson also attempted to move the party's platform farther to the left at the convention, but without much success. He did succeed in one instance, concerning affirmative action.

"AIDS poster boy" Bobbi Campbell gave a speech at the National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights, dying of AIDS complications a month later.

Voting

The following candidates had their names placed in nomination

<gallery perrow="4">

File:Walter Mondale 1977 vice presidential portrait.jpg|alt=|Former Vice President Walter Mondale from Minnesota

File:Gary hart.jpg|Senator Gary Hart of Colorado

File:JesseJackson.png|Reverend Jesse Jackson of Illinois

</gallery>

President

Before the convention had convened, Mondale was widely regarded as having secured the prerequisite delegate support to clinch the nomination.

Jesse Jackson had unsuccessfully called for the suspension of the party's electoral rules to give him a number of delegates closer to the 20% average share of the vote he garnered during the primaries. The system tended to punish shallow showings as yielding no delegates at all, hence Jackson's smaller delegate count than would be expected (12%).

The candidates for U.S. president received the following numbers of delegates:

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"

! colspan="3" | Democratic National Convention presidential vote, 1984

|-

! style="width: 17em" |Candidate

! style="width: 5em" |Votes

! style="width: 7em" |Percentage

|-

|Walter Mondale

| align="right" | 2,191

| align="right" | 56.41%

|-

|Gary Hart

| align="right" | 1,201

| align="right" | 30.92%

|-

|Jesse Jackson

| align="right" | 466

| align="right" | 12.00%

|-

|Thomas Eagleton

| align="right" | 18

| align="right" | 0.46%

|-

|George McGovern

| align="right" | 4

| align="right" | 0.10%

|-

|John Glenn

| align="right" | 2

| align="right" | 0.05%

|-

|Joe Biden

| align="right" | 1

| align="right" | 0.03%

|-

|Martha Kirkland

| align="right" | 1

| align="right" | 0.03%

|-

|-bgcolor="#EEEEEE"

| align="right" | Totals

| align="right" | 3,884

| align="right" | 100.00%

|}

Vice president

For Vice President of the United States, Mondale had a pick between Mayor Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco (future five-term United States Senator from California) and Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York; he chose Congresswoman Ferraro to be his vice presidential running mate, which established her as the first woman to be nominated for Vice President of the United States from a major American political party. Until 2024, this was the most recent time that neither a sitting nor former United States Senator was nominated for vice president by the Democratic Party.

See also

  • 1984 Democratic Party presidential primaries
  • Rosalind Wiener Wyman, chair and chief executive officer of the convention
  • 1983 Libertarian National Convention
  • 1984 Republican National Convention
  • 1984 United States presidential election
  • History of the United States Democratic Party
  • List of Democratic National Conventions
  • United States presidential nominating convention
  • Walter Mondale 1984 presidential campaign

References

Works cited

  • Democratic Party Platform of 1984 at The American Presidency Project
  • Complete video, text and audio of Mario Cuomo's Keynote Address at Democratic National Convention
  • Mondale Nomination Acceptance Speech for President at DNC (transcript) at The American Presidency Project
  • Video of Mondale nomination acceptance speech for President at DNC (via YouTube)
  • Audio of Mondale nomination acceptance speech for President at DNC
  • Video of Ferraro nomination acceptance speech for Vice President at DNC (via YouTube)
  • Transcript and Audio of Ferraro nomination acceptance speech for Vice President at DNC