Ronald Reagan 1980 presidential campaign clinch the nomination for the Republican Party. His opponent in the general election, incumbent President Jimmy Carter, passed the delegate threshold to become the presumptive nominee of his party on June 3. On May 26, George H. W. Bush, Reagan's remaining opponent for the Republican nomination, conceded defeat and urged his supporters to back Reagan. Ronald Reagan's choice for vice presidential running mate had been a subject of speculation since the end of the primaries. When former President Gerald Ford revealed in a CBS interview with Walter Cronkite that he was seriously considering the vice presidency, Ford garnered a great
Ronald Reagan in music America toward a fascist theocracy. And everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe." Several songs on Zappa's 1988 album "Broadway the Hard Way" ridicule Reagan, notably "Promiscuous," which jabs at the Reagans' attempts to reduce sex education in public schools and replace it with abstinence-only propaganda as well as his slow response to the AIDS pandemic. On his 1989 album, "Big Daddy", John Mellencamp's song "Country Gentleman" is "a scathing indictment on Ronald Reagan". Written and recorded during Reagan's final year in office, the song's last line thanks God that "he went back