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  • [Bryce] To gain some historical perspective on 2016, let’s look back at the previous 13 presidential elections.

  • In 1964, less than a year after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the power of the Democratic Party was at its peak.

  • President Lyndon Johnson had just signed the historic Civil Rights Act into law in July.

  • The result?

  • Johnson trounced the ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater in the most lopsided popular vote margin in presidential election history.

  • 1968 was the most tumultuous election year of the century.

  • [King] “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord!”

  • Both Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, and with protests raging

  • over the war in Vietnam, LBJ chose not to run for reelection.

  • [Johnson] “I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

  • The result was a major political realignment, as Republican Richard Nixon took advantage of racial resentment.

  • But the segregationist George Wallace - an independent - was a major beneficiary, winning

  • most of the deep south.

  • [Wallace] “Why don’t you young punks get outta the auditorium.”

  • The backlash was strong among whites over the Democratic Party’s embrace of Civil Rights

  • and Johnson’s ambitious Great Society programs to fight poverty.

  • That realignment was on full display in 1972 as incumbent President Nixon destroyed his

  • opponent, George McGovern, and won 49 states.

  • News stories on the Watergate scandal that would force Nixon to resign from office two years later

  • were just beginning to break.

  • The ‘72 election is also notable for the attempt on the life of the Democratic frontrunner George Wallace,

  • who was shot five times and paralyzed from the waist down, ending his campaign.

  • With the Republicans reeling from the fallout over Nixon -

  • [Nixon] I shall resign the Presidency.”

  • 1976 was the only time in the 24 year-period from ‘68-’92 that a Democrat won the presidency.

  • That candidate was deeply religious southerner Jimmy Carter, who was - momentarily - able

  • to switch the South back to Democratic control in his narrow victory over Nixon’s successor,

  • President Gerald Ford.

  • In 1980, the Republican former governor of California, Ronald Reagan offered a more optimistic vision

  • for an American economy weakened by high unemployment and inflation.

  • [Reagan] “Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?”

  • The Iran hostage crisis was the nail in President Carter’s political coffin, helping Reagan

  • win more electoral votes than any non-incumbent presidential candidate in history.

  • Four years later, Reagan’s Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale, only managed to win his home

  • state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia--which has never voted Republican.

  • Mondale’s uphill battle against a popular sitting president was pretty much impossible

  • from the start with the economy booming under Reagan.

  • Mondale did make some history by choosing Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, the

  • first woman nominated to a major-party presidential ticket.

  • In 1988, the Republican torch was passed to Vice President George HW Bush--who had spent

  • most of his adult life serving the country.

  • To fend off Democrat Michael Dukakis, Bush turned to the dark arts, unleashing a series

  • of negative attacks against his opponent, who failed to respond in kind.

  • [Narrator] “Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers

  • to have weekend passes from prison.

  • One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times.”

  • While Bush’s electoral college victory margin was convincing, his too-close-for-comfort

  • popular vote margin and underwhelming voter turnout foreshadowed a tough road to reelection.

  • And in 1992, Bush’s reelection was made much tougher when he alienated his conservative base

  • by breaking a campaign pledge against raising taxes.

  • [H.W. Bush] “Read my lips: No. New. Taxes.”

  • Bush shouldve been flying high after leading a decisive American victory in the Persian Gulf War...

  • [Frontline Narrator] “The man often derided as a political wimp had maneuvered his generals,

  • his country, and the most world...”

  • But the economy dipped into recession, opening the door for a young charismatic southern

  • democratic governor named Bill Clinton.

  • Clinton and Independent Ross Perot, who ran an incredibly strong third-party campaign,

  • picked Bush apart and held him to just 37.4% of the popular vote.

  • Clinton’s 43% was enough to give him a convincing electoral college victory.

  • Going into the 1996 election, Clinton was very beatable after failing to enact his main target:

  • health care reform.

  • But the economy was booming, the world was peaceful, and the Republicans nominated the

  • uninspiring Bob Dole, a man 23 years older than Clinton.

  • Ross Perot ran a second time, and his 8.4% again undercut the Republicans, cementing

  • Clinton’s reelection, and making him the first president since Woodrow Wilson to win

  • two terms without crossing the 50% threshold in the popular vote.

  • The November 7, 2000 election between Clinton’s Vice President Al Gore, and Texas Republican

  • governor George W. Bush, was the most dramatic - and controversial - since 1876.

  • For the first time in 112 years the eventual winner failed to win the popular vote.

  • The race came down to Florida, where Bush led Gore by less than 1,000 votes, out of more than 5.8 million cast.

  • After more than a month of recounts and court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision)

  • awarded Florida’s 25 electoral votes, and the presidency, to Bush.

  • Bush’s 2004 reelection was defined by two things: the war on terrorism.

  • [W. Bush] “The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

  • And the war in Iraq, which Bush launched under the false assertion that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein

  • possessed nuclear and biological weapons.

  • Senator John Kerry - the current U.S. Secretary of State - was the Democratic nominee.

  • Kerry’s critiques of Bush were undermined by his vote authorizing the Iraq War, and

  • a smear campaign to cast doubt on his record as a Vietnam war hero.

  • Bush’s margin of victory was the smallest ever recorded for an incumbent president and,

  • just like his 2000 victory, was not without controversy, as the results from Ohio were

  • highly questionable after numerous voting irregularities came to light.

  • Going into the 2008 election, the stage was set for a Democratic wave.

  • Bush and his Iraq War were deeply unpopular with an American people yearning for change,

  • opening the door for two historic candidacies.

  • Barack Obama - a young, freshman senator from the state of Illinois - burst onto the scene

  • to challenge the junior senator from New York, former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton,

  • for the Democratic nomination.

  • The two superstars battled for an entire year, debating more than 20 times.

  • Fueled by the energetic support of young Americans, commanding oratory, and a brilliant grassroots-driven campaign,

  • Obama came from behind to narrowly secure the nomination.

  • The Republicans chose Senator John McCain as their nominee, a political moderate and

  • former war hero.

  • Recognizing the power of Obama’s movement-oriented campaign, McCain made a desperate play, tapping

  • a little known Alaskan governor as his running mate.

  • But Sarah Palin quickly proved to be unqualified in the eyes of most American voters, eroding

  • McCain’s credibility.

  • [Couric] “Can you name a few?”

  • [Palin] “I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too.

  • Alaska isn’t a foreign country.”

  • [TV News Reporter #1] “The stock market is now down 21%”

  • [Reporter #2] “Were now down 43%” [Reporter #3] “I have never, live, looked

  • at the DOW Jones Industrial board and seen a 600 point loss.”

  • [Reporter #4] “Who knows where this is going to end up.

  • I mean this is volatility we haven’t seen, of course, since way before you and I were born, even before our grandparents.

  • You know, 1929.”

  • [Reporter #5] “So almost everything there completely wiped out.

  • And the NASDAQ everything and more has been completely wiped out.”

  • [Bryce] With the economy collapsing on Bush’s watch,

  • and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars flowing into Wall Street banks to keep them solvent,

  • Obama and his democratic party surged to victory.

  • The election of the first African American president turned a higher percentage of his

  • fellow citizens out to vote than in any election since the tumultuous 1968 campaign.

  • [Charles Gibson] “Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States.”

  • [Crowd cheering loudly] [President-elect Obama] “It’s been a long time coming."

  • But because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change

  • has come to America.”

  • 2012 was defined by three things.

  • President Obama’s all-hands-on-deck approach to rescuing the economy; the Republican Party’s

  • efforts to block Obama at all costs; and Obama’s signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act

  • that dramatically reduced the number of Americans without health insurance.

  • With the economy recovering slowly, Obama seemed beatable.

  • But on May 2, 2011, the President announced the death of Osama bin Laden, the alleged

  • mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, haunted by the US Government for 10 years.

  • [President Obama] “The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin

  • Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.”

  • The moment - celebrated as a victory in the War on Terror - helped cement Obama’s image as a formidable Commander-In-Chief.

  • [Crowd singing national anthem] “Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there.”

  • Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney captured the Republican nomination.

  • [Mitt Romney] “Too many Americans are struggling to find work in today’s economy.”

  • He was a capable opponent, but after making hundreds of millions of dollars as a capital investor,

  • he was labeled as a representative of the increasingly vilified 1%.

  • [Protesters chanting] “Whose streets?

  • Our streets!”

  • The Occupy Movement, led by protesters who encamped at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan’s financial district,

  • had focused the world’s attention on social and economic inequality.

  • In the end, Obama was carried by his best-in-history political organization - still fully intact

  • after his ‘08 campaign - and secured a larger-than-expected reelection victory.

  • 2016 is set to be another historic, first of it’s kind election for the United States.

  • But will it be the first time we elect someone who has never served their country before?

  • Or the first time America chooses a woman as it’s leader?

  • Until next time, thanks for watching, and subscribe for more original videos like this.

[Bryce] To gain some historical perspective on 2016, let’s look back at the previous 13 presidential elections.

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