Who was the best of recent failed Republican presidential nominees?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

The way they're listed in the poll is actually the order I'd put them in myself.

Romney
McCain
Dole
Goldwater
Dewey

But I admit I know very little about Dewey. Some people on here like to go back and track elections and politics from before the advent of modern pop culture, but that doesn't interest me too much. I guess I just don't find politics from before ca. 1950 easy to relate with.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I don't know how anyone who lived through the 2008 presidential campaign could argue that McCain wasn't one of the worst major party presidential nominees in modern American history.

Romney's campaign is rightly criticized, too, but at least the candidate didn't come across as unhinged and incapable.

You're judging how good they are at politics. I'm judging how good they are, period.