Worst campaign you've been alive for (primary and general)

[Landslide Lyndon]

That would have to be Rudy Giuliani.  Front-runner to a DISTANT 6th place finish in Iowa, and then another distant 4th finish in a state that he should have had some appeal in, New Hampshire. 

He then proceeds to put all his marbles in Florida, home of many transplanted New Yorkers, and loses by 21 pts.  I can't remember any other time since 1987 that a SERIOUS Presidential campaign (we're not talking the Kuciniches of the world here) flopped that badly.

As I mentioned elsewhere, Phil Gramm in 1996 might give Rudy a run for his money.

Joe Lieberman in 2004 merits a dishonorable mention.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Yes, he just would have to explain peolpe why conservative policies since 1980 caused a catastrophical and useless crusade and an economical crisis due to a blind "laisser-faire" ideology. In synthesis, why conservatism ruined America. You're right, nothing more simple !

On that particular count, actually, John McCain had the same problems as a far right Republican would have had. (And Obama hardly represented change, anyhow. )

Only because he chose to compromise himself with the conservative religious right : his pick of Sarah Palin meant exactly that. And it was a dramatic erroc : had McCain not done this, he could have come much more close to Obama. But GOP os today the prisoner of a disastrous strategy, to mobilise an hypothetical "conservative grass roots". It worked once, in 2004, but definiteli disgusted indipendent voters.

Actually that is not true at all. Sarah Palin closed McCain closer to Obama then he was before the pick. The economic collapse in September finished McCain.

I think there's a lot of ambiguity over Palin's later effect in light of the economic collapse that followed during it, but considering her introduction was a lot better than her follow-up, I don't think you can make a concrete conclusion either way.  I tend to think that it hurt the "brand" long-term, but I can't really prove it either way.

Her approval ratings did decline, IIRC, to the point where they were a drag on McCain and the ticket but maybe I mis-remember.

They were in steady decline after the Gibson interview and they completely collapsed after the Kouric interviews and after she started using gutter rhetoric (''Obama palls around with terrorists'').

She was the number one reason many moderates/conservatives mentioned when they endorsed Obama.