The Crunch Convention

Available for over a year

Two rivals for the Presidency. Two visions for America. Built from archived editions of Letter from America, we revisit the 1980 Democratic Convention with Alistair Cooke. The clash between sitting President Jimmy Carter, and his rival for the Democrats’ nomination Edward “Teddy” Kennedy, broke the Democratic Party and uncovered old wounds. At that moment, the party, as well as the United States, were at a turning point. Old loyalties were being broken as the Republican Party under Richard Nixon and later Ronald Reagan employed a southern strategy to peel away the Democrats’ white base. Kennedy’s liberal vision of America challenged his party to move from the centre ground, and further to the left. To speak more strongly for minorities, the poor and the dispossessed. Using archive, historians and eye-witnesses, this Archive on 4 tells how one election frames American politics in the years since. Produced by Glyn Tansley