Why did John Glenn fail in 1984?

[senor]

I would like to get some opinions on why John Glenn was defeated for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984.

John Glenn seemed to be a perfect candidate....

1.) He had name recogniton nationally.

2.) He was from a military background as a Marine officer.

3.) He had good looks, strong in stature and "looked like a President".

4.) He was of course famous with pictures of him with JFK and in his spacesuit, and his face is in millions of school books throughout the country.

But he lost very early to eventual winner Walter Mondale, a man with little charisma, a V.P. to the Carter Presidency which was soundly defeated in 1980. Wouldn't the party want to go into a different direction from Mondale? Then there is Gary Hart, who would of also have made a better candidate than Mondale.

Why didn't John Glenn try again in 1988? Surely he would of been better than freaking Dukakis. I just think that the country missed out by not electing him and I have never understood why the Democrats gleaned over this guy.

[Einzige Mk. II]

Glenn was too modest a guy to be really successful in high-level politics. There was a film based on his career in the space programme that came out almost concurrently to the 1984 primaries, The Right Stuff, and he apparently thought it would be dishonorable to use the publicity from it to boost his campaign. Which may have been the right stuff anyway, as the movie bombed.

Glenn never really seems to have had much of a base beyond his own personal magnetism. Who did he represent within the Democratic Party? Why should he have been selected over career politicians? At least with Reagan he'd taken the time to become the public face of one wing of his party. Glenn seems to have waffled a bit. I do agree he'd have been a stronger candidate than either Mondale or Dukakis, but - and this may be counterintuitive - a worse President had he managed to win.

[J. J.]

Very stale by 1984.  He was considered for VP in 1976, when he wasn't so stale, but Carter chose Mondale.

Hart, on the other hand, was looking to take the Democratic Party in another direction.

[senor]

Was he a dull person? A bad speaker? Made it in Ohio because he is famous?

Why would the Democrats choose a guy that was a sure loser out of the gate? I guess the same can be said about the Republicans also. I think that when the party knows they are going to lose, they give it to the guy who worked hard in the party, with the faint hope of victory. Mondale paid his dues. But hell, why not nominate a handsome astronaut with stronger war and military experience?

[muon2]

Don't overlook the power of organization at the state level. Mondale spent a great deal of time lining up union leaders and state party chairmen, and with their support other local leaders and elected officials. Glenn had a powerful personal story but lacked the connections through the DNC that Mondale enjoyed. The primary voters couldn't help Glenn overcome that, since the independent-minded primary voters were gravitating to Hart.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Dave Barry once said, of John Glenn's speaking style, "he couldn't electrify a fish tank if he threw a toaster into it". That might be your answer there.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

That's all very good, but most people don't win on sentiment alone, no?

Oh, and muon is right. It didn't help that it was pretty much a two-way between Mondale and Hart.

[RogueBeaver]

Hart was a New Democrat in 1984, but didn't fully expound on it for some reason. As for Glenn: what the others said. He wasn't a professional politician and lacked the charisma or organization to upend the prohibitive frontrunner Mondale.

[Badger]

Wow, you're old. Never knew that.

What's the reason Glenn crashed?

<shakes fist> GRRRRR. 40 is not old. Particularly when you look 30ish and have a 16 month old son. :-P

Glenn had a ton of hype based on his impressive biography as a space hero, which was augmented by the big Hollywood blockbuster "The Right Stuff" that came out at the time and was very flattering towards Glenn. Plus he was seen as the relative "moderate" in the primaries that pundits thought might be a good Democratic alternative in the general election against Reagan, and the primary race was accordingly at first seen as a Mondale-Glenn race.

The problem is there was relatively little to back the hype. Glenn certainly wasn't a bad senator, but by 1984 at least he hadn't accomplished anything nationally noteworthy. He was decidedly charisma challenged both as a speaker and in general. And he ran on little else other than his patriotic biography and general "moderate" Democrat image (even though he and Mondale agreed on almost every major issue).

Suffice to say he failed to ignite much interest among the party faithful, and placed a decidedly poor 5th place 4% showing in the Iowa Caucuses, which mortally wounded any serious chance he had at winning. A week later he finished a weak 3rd place in NH which Gary Hart won, turning the primary race into a Mondale-Hart match up in the media. Glenn limped on until the first ever Super Tuesday where he peaked with a 3 way tie for 2nd place (far behind the winner, Mondale) in Alabama then dropped out a day or two later.

In a nutshell, he lacked either the charisma, record, or ability to articulate a compelling vision for America to match his patriotic biography and initial media hype. Thus I doubt he would've done any better against Reagan should've luck and circumstances somehow made him the nominee.

[Guderian]

It should be said that Glenn was never really given a free pass in the party for being a famous astronaut. When he first ran for Senate in 1970 he lost the Democratic primary to Howard Metzenbaum and four years later just barely defeated him in a rematch. Part of this was Glenn's own dull persona but the other part was the fact that he was never a favorite of the unions, party bosses, activists and other Democratic power brokers. And then came Gary Hart who offered a livelier, more vibrant alternative to Mondale, and soon poor old Glenn was paying off campaign debts for next 20 years...

[hcallega]

Glenn was unsatisfying to a lot of parts of the party. He was a generally center-left Democrat, but he ticked off organized labor a few times and wasn't so much a New Democrat as a Midwestern Centrist and pragmatist. Of course he also wasn't a real "politician" and wasn't particularly charismatic or committed to the race. Mondale had the old left, Hart new democrats, and Jackson had black voters and the far-left.

[wolfsblood07]

I agree with those who say that Glenn turned out to be a boring candidate.  In the early debates he came off as an old guy without much charisma.  You also have to remember that in 1983 there were a lot of Democrats who wanted Ted Kennedy to run again.  Gary Hart ended up getting the support of a lot of those folks, with his "new ideas" and talk of "dynamic entrepreneurship".  Hart also presented himself as an expert on military reform.  So Hart emerged as the alternative to Mondale after this 2nd place finish in the Iowa caucuses, and upset win in the New Hampshire primary.  Glenn was quickly forgotten in the media and by the voters.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Mondale had many of the key mass constituencies and special interest groups of the Democratic Party sewed up early.  Unions.  Traditional liberals.  Endorsements of elected officials that mattered (outside of the South).  Glenn had none of that; his main appeal to voters was his perceived electability.  He would have been a stronger candidate against Reagan than Mondale turned out to be, but the average Democrat wasn't looking for electability in 1984.  They were in denial of the possibility that a 49 state landslide could happen to them again until it was too late.

A ticket of Glenn-Hollings may well have run strongly, but it would have not had the strong backing of liberals.  Glenn was a guy who needed to be forced on the party either by circumstances, or by a sudden sense of pragmatism by the Democratic Party Establishment (assuming it could prevail on the rest of the party).  This didn't happen. 

[DINGO Joe]

John Glenn was "low-energy" before the term became hip.

[Jakester]

In addition to his lack of ability on the stump, lack of charisma, and misguided strategy in the primaries, I suggest a somewhat off-the-wall, possibly wacky, not verifiable reason for John Glenn's utter failure in 1984: his heart wasn't in it, and the reason for that is, he wasn't a true Democrat. He strikes me as fundamentally a Republican. I realize this flies in the face of every public political utterance he ever made but I'd like to offer it as a possible explanation.

Glenn was basically adopted by the Kennedy family in 1962 at the peak of their popularity, when they looked to be putting together a coalition that would govern for 20 years. I can easily imagine Glenn wanting to be part of that. To be taken under the wing of JFK and RFK in 1962-'63 was the REAL top of pyramid (to use Tom Wolfe's phrase from "The Right Stuff"); I sense that Glenn, as ambitious a Marine as ever flew a jet, happily accepted all the attention and recruiting, to some degree, because it was a good career move.

While it's true he and Bobby were friends for years, and two men of this caliber are not likely to fake a friendship, is it possible Glenn relished the possibility of a great job in an RFK Administration? I have never detected in a Glenn speech one-tenth the commitment to Democratic Party ideals of RFK. If Glenn had loved those ideals deep-down, I suggest he would have been able to get up on the stump in Des Moines and light fires in the hearts of his listeners.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Don't overlook the power of organization at the state level. Mondale spent a great deal of time lining up union leaders and state party chairmen, and with their support other local leaders and elected officials. Glenn had a powerful personal story but lacked the connections through the DNC that Mondale enjoyed. The primary voters couldn't help Glenn overcome that, since the independent-minded primary voters were gravitating to Hart.

Mondale's problem was that he could not crack liberal Republican constituencies that would all fall in 1992.  But, yes, Mondale was the candidate of the "special interests" in 1984, something the GOP hammered him for.

Glenn got lost in the crowd.  His timing was poor.  Glenn would have beaten Bush 41 in 1988.  The attacks used against Dukakis wouldn't have happened against Glenn.