Jul. 19, 1984: Mondale Accepts Nomination at the Moscone Center in San Francisco

On the Fourth night of the convention

Frtiz at the podium

 "Budgets will be squeezed...Taxes will go up."

Background going into convention: After the California primary, Hart had won more states, but Mondale had edged him out in the popular vote.

1984 Popular Vote totals in all Democratic primaries

Mondale: 6,952,912 (38.3%) (19 states + DA, PR)
Hart:        6,504,842 (35.9%) (26 states)
Jackson:  3,282,431 (18.1%) (2 states + DC)

Earlier in evening

the audience witnessed the history-making speech by Geraldine Ferraro, a Congresswoman from Queens.

The Prosecutor:

"If you break the law, you must pay for your crime"

Our faith that we can shape a better future is what the American dream is all about. The promise of our country is that the rules are fair. If you work hard and play by the rules, you can earn your share of America's blessings. Those are the beliefs I learned from my parents. And those are the values I taught my students as a teacher in the public schools of New York City.

At night, I went to law school. I became an assistant district attorney, and I put my share of criminals behind bars. I believe if you obey the law, you should be protected. But if you break the law, you must pay for your crime.

Jul. 18, 1984

On the previous night

Speech by second-place finisher Gary Hart

(cf. Hart's offer to Jackson the night before the convention)

 

Democrats are..."the Party of Experimentation...we'll try some thing else"

Our party's greatest heritage is its willingness to change. We have failed when we became cautious and complacent. We have won America's confidence when we were bold and innovative. The Party of Experimentation.

Our party's great experimenter, Franklin Roosevelt, said it best at a critical hour at the dawn of his Presidency. He said: ''We will try something, and if it works we will keep it. If it doesn't, we'll try some thing else.''

... Tonight the torch of idealism is lit in thousands of homes and tens of thousands of towns and hundreds of thousands of lives, among the young in spirit and the young in age. It cannot go out. It will not go out. It will continue to burn.

 

 and third-place finisher Jesse Jackson 

America as quilt...

I ask for your vote on the first ballot as a vote for a new direction for this Party and this nation -- a vote of conviction, a vote of conscience. But I will be proud to support the nominee of this convention for the Presidency of the United States of America. Thank you...

America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up the American quilt.

Even in our fractured state, all of us count and fit somewhere. We have proven that we can survive without each other. But we have not proven that we can win and make progress without each other. We must come together. Jesse Jackson (source)

 

Jul. 16, 1984

Opening night, the speech that stuck in people's minds.

A Democratic star is born. All the postmodern intellectual appeal of Gary Hart, but with a warm fatherly compassion and old school Democratic working class appeal...the recently-elected Governor of New York...

Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, just a year and half after taking office, vaults to national prominence with keynote address

America as wagon train...

It's an old story. It's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans -- The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. "The strong" -- "The strong," they tell us, "will inherit the land."

We Democrats believe in something else. We democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact, and we have more than once. --- Mario Cuomo

The Moscone Center was initially built in 1981 by architects Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum as one single hall, Moscone South, and named after San Francisco former mayor George Moscone, who was assassinated in November 1978.