Do you think this is the most important U.S. Presidential election ever?

[WhyteRain]

1932. Bigger stakes.

1932:  Rightwing Dem vs. Leftwing Repub.

Nothing changed except FDR put Hoover's big spending economic plan on steroids.

[WhyteRain]

1932. Bigger stakes.

1864: Even bigger stakes.

McClellan would've won easily, at least the popular vote, if the Republicans hadn't suppressed the Southern vote.

McClellan would've won with difficulty if the Republicans hadn't changed the law dating from the start of the Republic to allow soldiers to vote.

[WhyteRain]

I think it's even less important than 1996. Republicans in Congress back then actually had a coherent strategy and platform for governing if Dole somehow won. It's going to be gridlock city for the next four years.

You don't make sense.

In 1996, Congress had a GOP speaker who called Dole (accurately) "the tax collector for the welfare state".  There wasn't a lot of love for Dole in the GOP.

If, as expected, Romney wins, the Repubs look at least as ready to govern with him as they would've been with Dole in 1997.

I hope D.C.'s going to "be gridlock city for the next four years".  That looks like the best possible outcome for now.

[WhyteRain]

1932. Bigger stakes.

1932:  Rightwing Dem vs. Leftwing Repub.

Nothing changed except FDR put Hoover's big spending economic plan on steroids.

Didn't FDR campaign in 32' on a platform of 'balancing the budget'?
Quite amusing.

Yep.  The ol' "bait and switch". 

In the 1932 campaign, FDR's running mate told the country that Hoover was "putting us on the road to socialism!"

Although, to his credit, FDR did slash the crazy-spending-Hoover deficit in his first year.  The the international bankers got ahold of him.

[WhyteRain]

1932. Bigger stakes.

1864: Even bigger stakes.

I've heard that both the Confederacy and slavery were pretty much unrecoverable by the end of Lincoln's first term.

I agree.  At least with the part about slavery.  Slavery was actually a capital-intensive system.  By about the Fall of 1863 the South had suffered so much capital loss that it could no longer afford the slaves.

[WhyteRain]

Let's limit this to, say, the last 100 years or at least the post-Civil War elections.  Otherwise, I'd pick a bunch of the earliest elections as "the most important".

Heck, even the 1844 election:  It was the first election where an "anti-slavery" candidate got a significant number of votes -- about 5% in each of the Northern states he ran in.  If not for him, then the Whigs would have won New York and Michigan (and only needed NY) to win the whole election.  No Polk, no Mexican War, no union with Texas.  Texas would probably have ended up with about half of the white space in the map below.

[WhyteRain]

I'd think the most important election was in the 20th century.  19th century Presidents really didn't have much power compared to the Congress, plus federal laws were much easier to violate back then.

OK, then I would say the 1912 election, where a fluke division of the GOP handed the election to the Democrats.  In 1913 they gave us the Federal Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, and the Direct Election of senators.  That's a sea change.

[WhyteRain]

The 2008 election was far more important than this one.

It is, although if all the changes that Obama has wrought do not long survive, then even the 2008 election may in the future be regarded as not much different than the 1976 one or 1992 one.

[WhyteRain]

I'd think the most important election was in the 20th century.  19th century Presidents really didn't have much power compared to the Congress, plus federal laws were much easier to violate back then.

OK, then I would say the 1912 election, where a fluke division of the GOP handed the election to the Democrats.  In 1913 they gave us the Federal Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, and the Direct Election of senators.  That's a sea change.

Except that is not the case. While amateur "historians" like to blame or praise Wilson for those three things, his election was not the cause of any of them.

Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson all campaigned in favor of a central bank.

All three campaigned in favor of the Sixteenth Amendment which had been sent to the states in 1909. Thirty-three states had ratified it before the nominating conventions had been held, and the needed thirty-sixth state, (Delaware, New Mexico, or Wyoming), ratified after the election, but while Taft was still in office

Direct election of Senators is even less due to Wilson, since at least with the central bank and the income tax he had a role in shaping the enabling legislation.  The Senate reluctantly agreed in 1912 to send the Seventeenth Amendment to the States to forestall a Second Constitutional Convention from being called.  Twenty-seven states (four short of what was needed then) had formally called for a convention to be held to propose such an amendment because of Congressional inaction, and it was widely expected that if the Senate had not caved, a Convention would have been called.  Again, all three major Candidates campaigned in favor of the amendment, and while it was not ratified until Wilson had been in office a month, Wilson played only a role as one of numerous cheerleaders for its passage.

Thanks for straightening me out on that.

[WhyteRain]

Let's limit this to, say, the last 100 years or at least the post-Civil War elections.  Otherwise, I'd pick a bunch of the earliest elections as "the most important".

Heck, even the 1844 election:  It was the first election where an "anti-slavery" candidate got a significant number of votes -- about 5% in each of the Northern states he ran in.  If not for him, then the Whigs would have won New York and Michigan (and only needed NY) to win the whole election.  No Polk, no Mexican War, no union with Texas.  Texas would probably have ended up with about half of the white space in the map below.

The annexation of Texas happened during Tyler's lame duck period, not during Polk?  And Tyler was pretty damned determined to annex Texas and (for obvious reasons) didn't much care about politicians in either party.

The Republic of Texas was well on its way to failed state status in 1845 anyway.  A continuing independent ROT would be losing, not gaining, territory (Mexico might well have been able to force an effective border of the Nueces River and put the Texas/Mexico border just south of San Antonio).

IIRC, the annexation bill was voted up in Dec., 1845.  It was accepted by the Texas Congress in February, 1846, which is when Texas views the union occurred.  Both of those dates were under the Polk administration.