organized crime, specifically the numbers racket.
The vice presidential candidate was forced to spend
the better part of a month responding to recurrent
insinuations that she and her husband, John Zac-
caro, had Mafia ties and that there were irregu-
larities in their financial records. She devoted a
press conference to refuting these allegations on Au-
gust 21.
In the first of the televised presidential debates,
held in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 7, 1984,
Reagan, uncharacteristically, stumbled badly. At
times he seemed lost, confused, and hesitant. Mon-
dale, though far from overwhelmingly brilliant, was
nonetheless the clear winner, and doubts were rekin-
dled concerning Reagan’s age. The vice presidential
contenders emerged from their debate on October
11 with a virtual draw, assisting neither campaign.
Bush came forward as a bland, even whiney, figure,
while Ferraro accused Bush of patronizing her. Her
belligerent response to the vice president caused
some viewers to see her as defensive and abrasive.
The second presidential debate occurred on Octo-
ber 21, 1984, in Kansas City, Missouri. Reagan man-
aged to recapture his stride. He expressed himself
well and smoothly, and he even humorously defused
worries about his age, saying, “I am not going to ex-
ploit, for political purposes, my opponent’syouth
and inexperience.” Whatever chances the Mondale
campaign might have had were scuttled.
Only the final tallies revealed the full extent to
which the disaster predicted for the Democrats had
been underestimated. Mondale lost every state in
the union, with the sole exception of his home state of
Minnesota, and he only won that state by a razor’s-
edge margin of 3,761 votes. The District of Colum-
bia, with its predominantly African American popu-
lation, remained firmly supportive of the Democratic
Party. The district’s three electoral votes, however,328 Elections in the United States, 1984 The Eighties in America
President Ronald Reagan is sworn in for a second term of office by Chief Justice Warren Burger on January 21, 1985.(Courtesy, Ron-
ald Reagan Library/NARA)