1984 Democratic National Convention


The 1984 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party 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 female governor of Kentucky, Martha Layne Collins. The Democratic National Committee Chairman at the time, Charles T. Manatt, led the convention.

Logistics

The convention was held at Moscone Center, a convention center in San Fransisco, California. This marked the second time that a Democratic National Convention had been held in the city of San Francisco, with the 1920 edition having been held at the city's Civic Auditorium.

Events of the Convention

was nominated for President and Geraldine Ferraro was nominated for Vice President.
New York Governor Mario Cuomo gave a well-received keynote speech. Mondale's major rivals for the presidential nomination, Senator Gary Hart and Rev. Jesse Jackson, also gave speeches.
Jackson's speech referred to the nation as a "quilt" with places for "he white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the business person, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled". 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

President

The candidates for U.S. president received the following numbers of delegates:
Before the convention had convened, Mondale was widely regarded as having secured the prerequisite delegate support to clinch the nomination. However, he only attained this amount of delegate support with the inclusion of superdelegates that supported his candidacy. His number of pledged delegates alone did not give him enough of the a lead to win the nomination without superdelegate support. His number of pledged delegates heading into the convention was 40 shy of the 1,967 needed to win 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.

Vice President

was nominated by acclamation on a voice vote. She became the first woman to receive a major party nomination in the US.