1984 Democratic Party presidential primaries 1924) that the Democratic Party nominated a private citizen for President (i.e., not serving in an official government role at the time of the nomination and election). Mondale was the last private citizen to be nominated for President by the Democratic Party until former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. Except former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia in 1976, all the other four of the private-citizen Democratic nominees mentioned (Davis, Stevenson, Carter, Mondale and Clinton) lost their general elections. (Republican private-citizen nominees include former Vice President Richard Nixon in 1968, former Governor Ronald Reagan of California in 1980, former
Presidency of Jimmy Carter refusal to play by the rules of Washington, however, which contributed to the Carter administration's difficult relationship with Congress. After the election, Carter demanded the power to reorganize the executive branch, alienating powerful Democrats like Speaker Tip O'Neill and Jack Brooks. During the Nixon administration, Congress had passed a series of reforms that removed power from the president, and most members of Congress were unwilling to restore that power even with a Democrat now in office. Unreturned phone calls, verbal insults, and an unwillingness to trade political favors soured many on Capitol Hill and affected the president's ability to enact