overthrown and murdered by one of his colleagues. Several days later, Reagan ordered American forces to invade Grenada. Reagan cited a regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean nation and concern for the safety of hundreds of American medical students at St. George's University as adequate reasons to invade. Two days of fighting commenced, resulting in an American victory. While the invasion enjoyed public support in the United States, it was criticized internationally, with the United Nations General Assembly voting to censure the American government. Regardless, Cannon later noted that throughout Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign, the invasion overshadowed the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, which killed 241 Americans taking part in an international peacekeeping operation. 1984 election Reagan announced his reelection campaign on January 29, 1984, declaring, "America is back and standing tall." In February, his administration reversed the unpopular decision to send the United States Marine Corps to Lebanon, thus eliminating a political liability for him. Reagan faced minimal opposition in the Republican primaries, and he and Bush accepted the nomination at the the Dallas convention in August. In the general election, his campaign ran the commercial, "Morning in America". At a time when the American economy was already recovering, former vice president Walter Mondale was attacked by Reagan's campaign as a "tax-and-spend Democrat", while Mondale criticized the deficit, the SDI, and Reagan's civil rights policy. However, Reagan's age induced his campaign managers to minimize his public appearances. Mondale's campaign believed that Reagan's age and mental health were issues before the October presidential debates. Following Reagan's performance in the first debate where he struggled to recall statistics, his age was brought up by the media in negative fashion, and some respondents reconsidered voting for him. Reagan's campaign changed his tactics for the second debate where he quipped, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." This remark generated applause and laughter, even from Mondale. At that point, Broder suggested that age was no longer a liability for Reagan, and Mondale's campaign felt that "the election was over". In November, Reagan won a landslide reelection victory with 59 percent of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes. Mondale won 41 percent of the popular vote and 13 electoral votes from the District of Columbia and his home state of Minnesota. Response