Reply #56: sorry for the misspelling ..but...

[wyldwolf]

No, "boll weevils" meant rightwing Southern Democrats who did not follow the exodus of defection begun by Strom Thurmond to the Republican Party, but still tended to cross-over and vote with the Republicans.

Boll weevils was a American political term used in the mid- and late-20th century to describe conservative Southern Democrats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil_%28politics%29

It think it's really a matter of semantics to take issue with me leaving the term "conservative" out of my definition being that the term "boll weevil" was applied to the southern wing of the party - the wing which helped elect Carter in '76.

Nevertheless, the incidents I describe did, indeed, happen.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Reagan’s speech that evening really set the stage for him to come back and win the new Republican nomination overwhelmingly four years later. Nominees like to use that closing night as a tableau to show that all of their opponents have fallen in line and decided to support the nominee--perhaps none more so than Jimmy Carter renominated for President in New York in 1980. He had been given a big run for his money by Ted Kennedy, in the spring of 1980; Kennedy brought his fight to the convention, did not pull out until that second night at New York. And so the result was that there were a lot of Kennedy delegates on the floor, support Carter wanted for the fall. He wanted that picture on closing night after his speech of himself holding up Kennedy’s hand in the air. Kennedy had pulled out, but he was not very happy with Carter and not very enthusiastic about supporting him. He did come to the hall. He did come up on the podium, but he refused to hold Carter’s hand in the air, much as Carter tried, and the result was that on all networks you saw this image of Carter almost chasing Kennedy around the podium trying to get him to hold up his arm, and Kennedy politely shaking hands and trying to leave.

LEAH CLAPMAN: Did Carter catch him?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: He did not catch him, and the result was there was a dramatic display of Democratic disunity that caused a lot of Kennedy supporters to sit on their hands that fall.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/convention96/retro/beschloss_speeches.html

The "boll weevils" incident has been described to me by two party delegates from the convention. (one immediately after, the other more recently who is actually writing a book on the 1980 Democratic convention)

It was a forgone conclusion that by the convention that Carter would be the nominee. He won most of the primaries and had the delegates. Kennedy tried to get the DNC to change a rule that he thought would garner him some of the delegates Carter had but didn't succeed. The rule Kennedy wanted changed was one binding delegates to vote on the first ballot for the candidate they originally were elected to support. (This was a defeat for Sen. Edward Kennedy, who was hoping to convince Carter delegates to abandon the president on the first ballot.)