Rank losing campaigns from Best to Worse Since 1972

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Al Gore, 2000  He ran the best campaign he could have.  Arguably, he could have pulled it out by winning WV, TN, or NH, but the first two were probably out of reach for any Democrat by then and NH was not as Democratic as it is now.  And he won the popular vote.

Gerald Ford, 1976:  He overcame a lot to make it as close as he did.  He came back from the widest margin.  Had the election gone on another two (2) weeks, he likely would have won.

Humphrey, 1968:  He, too, would have won if the election lasted another two (2) weeks.  He was dealt a terrible hand, and in an unprecedented situation.  

Hillary Clinton, 2016:  I can't ignore the effort of someone who wins the popular vote by a 2.8 million margin, even given flop in WI, MI, and PA.  On the other hand, she LOST ground; she lost three (3) states that had gone for the Democrats every year since 1992, and lost key swing states (FL, OH) in a year where she WON big.  She didn't pick up a single state to make up for the ones she lost, despite a significant popular vote win.  This represents serious asleep-at-the-switch syndrome by those driving this particular ship.

Romney, 2012:  Romney made specific, defined mistakes that did him in, but the worst thing that happened to him was being recorded (illegally, I might add) by a strategically placed cell phone at a private fundraiser.  (Romney could have prosecuted the person who did that, as he did not give his permission to be voice-recorded, but that would have made the situation worse.)

Kerry, 2004:  He did not know how to respond to the Swiftboat issue.  He came off as stiff and phony.  He picked the wrong running mate; he SHOULD have picked Gephardt.  And he lost ground (IA, NM), but made up for it by winning back NH.  

McCain, 2008:  McCain ran a pretty good campaign, but he had a tough row to hoe, and he made a YUGE mistake by picking Palin as his running-mate.  Had he stuck to his guns and picked Lieberman, he MIGHT have won.

Dole, 1996:  Dole probably did as well as he was going to do.  He might have done better if he had picked a border-state running mate to help him in KY and MO, states he lost.  He did make the mistake of not finding a way to pre-empt the Perot candidacy.  Dole was probably the most Perot-ish Republican nominated before Trump.

Dukakis, 1988:  Dukakis ran a themeless, uninspiring campaign that sought to make no mistakes, and he got caught in verbal traps that made him seem detached and unemotional.  Yet he won 45% of the vote; the most any Democrat won since 1964, with the exception of Carter in 1976, and the most a Democrat would win until Clinton's 1996 effort.  He should have picked someone other than Bentsen as his running-mate; Gephardt, Gore, or Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), the guy Dukakis actually liked the best, would have been more helpful on the ticket.

Carter, 1980:  I refused to believe that Carter was going to lose in 1980.  I was not a Carter supporter (I voted Kennedy in the primary, and abstained in the GE; both moves I regret and wish I could take back.)  To the near end, I thought Carter would win reelection because (A) of his diplomatic accomplishment of brokering a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, and (B) the perception in people's mind that Carter was an honest, decent man of integrity.  The Iran Crisis (an unprecedented crisis) undermined the first point, and Carter's reliance on some slick and gimmicky strategies during the 1980 campaign undermined the other.

If I had been Carter's campaign advisers I would have done everything I could have to pre-empt the Kennedy challenge.  I would have done more to convince liberals that such courses of action lead to incumbent Presidents being defeated for re-election, and that he, Carter, had given liberals most of what they wanted.  Failing to do so, I would have run the General Election campaign as presenting a choice between "Extremism" and the "Moderate, Middle Way".  I would have constantly ridiculed Reagan as an unqualified actor whose military experience was confined to special services.  I would have cited Reagan's extreme positions, and endlessly stressed how lots of seemingly reassuring figures in history unleashed intemperate policies.  I would have constantly pushed the theme that good things take time, and I would have reminded people that they teach their own kids that lesson because it's an important one to learn.  I would remind them of the peace deal he brokered; and how I've kept America out of war and kept the Constitution the way I found it.  Over and over, I'd have pushed the theme of Moderation and Reasonableness, which is the "conservatism" most people had in mind back then.

Bush 41, 1992:  An inexcusable loss, given the sort of advantages incumbents should have.  One thing that was forgotten is that Clinton ZOOMED to a huge lead after looking like a GE loser for most of the primary season, and right after Ross Perot exited the race (only to re-enter later).  His lack of empathy, his telling people that the recession was a part of the normal business cycle, was an awful lack of empathy, and explains why Bush lost so many key races (TX Senate seat, 1970, GOP Primaries, 1980).  George Bush would NEVER have been President if he had not been Reagan's VP, period.  He should have won.  It was all his persona that he didn't.

Mondale, 1984:  I rated Mondale behind Bush 41 as he lost 49 states, and only barely carried MN.  In his case, I would attribute that crushing loss to the immense popularity of then-President Reagan, but his loss did not have to be so unmitigated.  His VP choice was horrible (whereas Quayle was actually a good choice by Bush 41).   Mondale SHOULD have picked a running mate that could have actually helped him carry a few states.  The MAGNITUDE of Mondale's loss disheartened Democrats for years; making them wonder if they'd ever elect a President again.

McGovern, 1972:  The worst campaign in modern history, hands down.  McGovern, himself, said it best:  "I opened the doors of the Democratic Party and 20 million people walked out."

One of the biggest false equivalencies in politics is presenting McGovern's defeat as the equivilent of Goldwater's; too far left vs too far right.  But Goldwater laid the foundation for a new, conservative GOP that became the majority party in America in terms of elected officials.  McGovern became a symbol for what Democrats needed to avoid.  Barry Goldwater could have been elected President in 1980 had he tried, but McGovern couldn't have been elected President in his lifetime.

His choice of a guy who had been hospitalized with psychiatric issues as his VP sealed his fate.  When your first and most important appointment is someone revealed to have a history of mental illness, that's not good.  Even worse was the way he got nominated; his campaign was his faction overwhelming all the other factions in a way that alienated them.  Of the McGovernites, Rep. Wayne Hays (D-OH) said it best:  "They reformed us out of a Presidency, and now, they're going to reform us out of a party."  Scumbag that he was, Hays was correct, and he represented the sort of Democratic voter that McGovern needed and didn't get.

The 1972 Democratic National Convention provided one of the biggest pieces of culture shock to America.  It did not have the kind of heated argument of the 1968 convention, but it had the appearance of the inmates running the asylum.  Radical hippies, blacks in Afros and dashikis, Feminist Leftist, a free for all VP nomination where two (2) delegates voted for Mao Zedong; all of this gave the appearance of something other than a serious political gathering.  

Then, there were the anti-war posters.  "Stop Bombing The Dikes!" they read, speaking of the American air campaign to bomb the dikes in North Vietnam in order to bring about movement in the peace talks.  I remember my neighbor talking to my stepdad, saying, "This is WAR!  If bombing the dikes will help us win, why would we not do it?"  Now I was a long-haired teenage peacenik back then, and I hated Nixon and was pulling for McGovern (whom, even then, I thought was a loser), but that argument, made by a man who was a working-class Middle American, had the sort of good sense that I can't refute to this day.

To me, the McGovern campaign was a losing effort without redemption.  No good came about it for the Democratic Party.  And imagine where the Democratic Party would have been today if there had been no Watergate, and Nixon had completed his second term.  

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Al Gore, 2000  He ran the best campaign he could have.  Arguably, he could have pulled it out by winning WV, TN, or NH, but the first two were probably out of reach for any Democrat by then and NH was not as Democratic as it is now.  And he won the popular vote.

Gerald Ford, 1976:  He overcame a lot to make it as close as he did.  He came back from the widest margin.  Had the election gone on another two (2) weeks, he likely would have won.

Humphrey, 1968:  He, too, would have won if the election lasted another two (2) weeks.  He was dealt a terrible hand, and in an unprecedented situation.  

Hillary Clinton, 2016:  I can't ignore the effort of someone who wins the popular vote by a 2.8 million margin, even given flop in WI, MI, and PA.  On the other hand, she LOST ground; she lost three (3) states that had gone for the Democrats every year since 1992, and lost key swing states (FL, OH) in a year where she WON big.  She didn't pick up a single state to make up for the ones she lost, despite a significant popular vote win.  This represents serious asleep-at-the-switch syndrome by those driving this particular ship.

Romney, 2012:  Romney made specific, defined mistakes that did him in, but the worst thing that happened to him was being recorded (illegally, I might add) by a strategically placed cell phone at a private fundraiser.  (Romney could have prosecuted the person who did that, as he did not give his permission to be voice-recorded, but that would have made the situation worse.)

Kerry, 2004:  He did not know how to respond to the Swiftboat issue.  He came off as stiff and phony.  He picked the wrong running mate; he SHOULD have picked Gephardt.  And he lost ground (IA, NM), but made up for it by winning back NH.  

McCain, 2008:  McCain ran a pretty good campaign, but he had a tough row to hoe, and he made a YUGE mistake by picking Palin as his running-mate.  Had he stuck to his guns and picked Lieberman, he MIGHT have won.

Dole, 1996:  Dole probably did as well as he was going to do.  He might have done better if he had picked a border-state running mate to help him in KY and MO, states he lost.  He did make the mistake of not finding a way to pre-empt the Perot candidacy.  Dole was probably the most Perot-ish Republican nominated before Trump.

Dukakis, 1988:  Dukakis ran a themeless, uninspiring campaign that sought to make no mistakes, and he got caught in verbal traps that made him seem detached and unemotional.  Yet he won 45% of the vote; the most any Democrat won since 1964, with the exception of Carter in 1976, and the most a Democrat would win until Clinton's 1996 effort.  He should have picked someone other than Bentsen as his running-mate; Gephardt, Gore, or Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), the guy Dukakis actually liked the best, would have been more helpful on the ticket.

Carter, 1980:  I refused to believe that Carter was going to lose in 1980.  I was not a Carter supporter (I voted Kennedy in the primary, and abstained in the GE; both moves I regret and wish I could take back.)  To the near end, I thought Carter would win reelection because (A) of his diplomatic accomplishment of brokering a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, and (B) the perception in people's mind that Carter was an honest, decent man of integrity.  The Iran Crisis (an unprecedented crisis) undermined the first point, and Carter's reliance on some slick and gimmicky strategies during the 1980 campaign undermined the other.

If I had been Carter's campaign advisers I would have done everything I could have to pre-empt the Kennedy challenge.  I would have done more to convince liberals that such courses of action lead to incumbent Presidents being defeated for re-election, and that he, Carter, had given liberals most of what they wanted.  Failing to do so, I would have run the General Election campaign as presenting a choice between "Extremism" and the "Moderate, Middle Way".  I would have constantly ridiculed Reagan as an unqualified actor whose military experience was confined to special services.  I would have cited Reagan's extreme positions, and endlessly stressed how lots of seemingly reassuring figures in history unleashed intemperate policies.  I would have constantly pushed the theme that good things take time, and I would have reminded people that they teach their own kids that lesson because it's an important one to learn.  I would remind them of the peace deal he brokered; and how I've kept America out of war and kept the Constitution the way I found it.  Over and over, I'd have pushed the theme of Moderation and Reasonableness, which is the "conservatism" most people had in mind back then.

Bush 41, 1992:  An inexcusable loss, given the sort of advantages incumbents should have.  One thing that was forgotten is that Clinton ZOOMED to a huge lead after looking like a GE loser for most of the primary season, and right after Ross Perot exited the race (only to re-enter later).  His lack of empathy, his telling people that the recession was a part of the normal business cycle, was an awful lack of empathy, and explains why Bush lost so many key races (TX Senate seat, 1970, GOP Primaries, 1980).  George Bush would NEVER have been President if he had not been Reagan's VP, period.  He should have won.  It was all his persona that he didn't.

Mondale, 1984:  I rated Mondale behind Bush 41 as he lost 49 states, and only barely carried MN.  In his case, I would attribute that crushing loss to the immense popularity of then-President Reagan, but his loss did not have to be so unmitigated.  His VP choice was horrible (whereas Quayle was actually a good choice by Bush 41).   Mondale SHOULD have picked a running mate that could have actually helped him carry a few states.  The MAGNITUDE of Mondale's loss disheartened Democrats for years; making them wonder if they'd ever elect a President again.

McGovern, 1972:  The worst campaign in modern history, hands down.  McGovern, himself, said it best:  "I opened the doors of the Democratic Party and 20 million people walked out."

One of the biggest false equivalencies in politics is presenting McGovern's defeat as the equivilent of Goldwater's; too far left vs too far right.  But Goldwater laid the foundation for a new, conservative GOP that became the majority party in America in terms of elected officials.  McGovern became a symbol for what Democrats needed to avoid.  Barry Goldwater could have been elected President in 1980 had he tried, but McGovern couldn't have been elected President in his lifetime.

His choice of a guy who had been hospitalized with psychiatric issues as his VP sealed his fate.  When your first and most important appointment is someone revealed to have a history of mental illness, that's not good.  Even worse was the way he got nominated; his campaign was his faction overwhelming all the other factions in a way that alienated them.  Of the McGovernites, Rep. Wayne Hays (D-OH) said it best:  "They reformed us out of a Presidency, and now, they're going to reform us out of a party."  Scumbag that he was, Hays was correct, and he represented the sort of Democratic voter that McGovern needed and didn't get.

The 1972 Democratic National Convention provided one of the biggest pieces of culture shock to America.  It did not have the kind of heated argument of the 1968 convention, but it had the appearance of the inmates running the asylum.  Radical hippies, blacks in Afros and dashikis, Feminist Leftist, a free for all VP nomination where two (2) delegates voted for Mao Zedong; all of this gave the appearance of something other than a serious political gathering.  

Then, there were the anti-war posters.  "Stop Bombing The Dikes!" they read, speaking of the American air campaign to bomb the dikes in North Vietnam in order to bring about movement in the peace talks.  I remember my neighbor talking to my stepdad, saying, "This is WAR!  If bombing the dikes will help us win, why would we not do it?"  Now I was a long-haired teenage peacenik back then, and I hated Nixon and was pulling for McGovern (whom, even then, I thought was a loser), but that argument, made by a man who was a working-class Middle American, had the sort of good sense that I can't refute to this day.

To me, the McGovern campaign was a losing effort without redemption.  No good came about it for the Democratic Party.  And imagine where the Democratic Party would have been today if there had been no Watergate, and Nixon had completed his second term.  

I think you underrate Carter's 1980 campaign and overrate Gore's 2000 one.

It is almost impossible for anyone to get reelected with how badly the Economic Conditions were in 1980 along with the US looking helpless on the world stage. Also Carter did attack Reagan for all those things, and really did try to turn Reagan into Goldwater 2.0 but a commentator on ABC's coverage of the 1980 says that hurt him because that undermined his claim that he was an honorble man and politican and turned what would have been a big defeat into a landslide.


Gore 2000 really should have won, due to the election taking place in a time of Peace and Prosperity. 

America was less Democratic at the Presidential level in 2000 than it is now.

A Southern realignment occurred during the 1990s, where key Southern States (TN, AR, NC, GA, LA) became MORE Republican, due to cultural issues and issues of Fossil Fuels.  This cost Gore TN and AR.  I believe that Gore would have won FL if they had a hand recount of all paper ballots, and that SHOULD have been done for the sake of the American people, but technicalities trumped justice.

A tactical mistake Carter made was refusing to debate Reagan if Anderson were included.  I personally think that such a setup would have favored Carter; Anderson was a Republican, and while he was rather liberal, he would have attacked Reagan as too radical, too hawkish, etc.  Not all of Anderson votes were Democratic votes; some came from moderate Republicans who had voted for Ford and were not opposed to voting for Reagan. 

I was around for that campaign.  I will tell you that Carter did not use incumbency as he could have.  He ended up being blamed for what was going wrong, while not getting credit for what was going right.  But the election broke for Reagan at the very end; Reagan did NOT lead from wire to wire.  IN truth, this was the only election I can think of that was not expected to be a total blowout until it happened.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Al Gore, 2000  He ran the best campaign he could have.  Arguably, he could have pulled it out by winning WV, TN, or NH, but the first two were probably out of reach for any Democrat by then and NH was not as Democratic as it is now.  And he won the popular vote.

Gerald Ford, 1976:  He overcame a lot to make it as close as he did.  He came back from the widest margin.  Had the election gone on another two (2) weeks, he likely would have won.

Humphrey, 1968:  He, too, would have won if the election lasted another two (2) weeks.  He was dealt a terrible hand, and in an unprecedented situation.  

Hillary Clinton, 2016:  I can't ignore the effort of someone who wins the popular vote by a 2.8 million margin, even given flop in WI, MI, and PA.  On the other hand, she LOST ground; she lost three (3) states that had gone for the Democrats every year since 1992, and lost key swing states (FL, OH) in a year where she WON big.  She didn't pick up a single state to make up for the ones she lost, despite a significant popular vote win.  This represents serious asleep-at-the-switch syndrome by those driving this particular ship.

Romney, 2012:  Romney made specific, defined mistakes that did him in, but the worst thing that happened to him was being recorded (illegally, I might add) by a strategically placed cell phone at a private fundraiser.  (Romney could have prosecuted the person who did that, as he did not give his permission to be voice-recorded, but that would have made the situation worse.)

Kerry, 2004:  He did not know how to respond to the Swiftboat issue.  He came off as stiff and phony.  He picked the wrong running mate; he SHOULD have picked Gephardt.  And he lost ground (IA, NM), but made up for it by winning back NH.  

McCain, 2008:  McCain ran a pretty good campaign, but he had a tough row to hoe, and he made a YUGE mistake by picking Palin as his running-mate.  Had he stuck to his guns and picked Lieberman, he MIGHT have won.

Dole, 1996:  Dole probably did as well as he was going to do.  He might have done better if he had picked a border-state running mate to help him in KY and MO, states he lost.  He did make the mistake of not finding a way to pre-empt the Perot candidacy.  Dole was probably the most Perot-ish Republican nominated before Trump.

Dukakis, 1988:  Dukakis ran a themeless, uninspiring campaign that sought to make no mistakes, and he got caught in verbal traps that made him seem detached and unemotional.  Yet he won 45% of the vote; the most any Democrat won since 1964, with the exception of Carter in 1976, and the most a Democrat would win until Clinton's 1996 effort.  He should have picked someone other than Bentsen as his running-mate; Gephardt, Gore, or Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), the guy Dukakis actually liked the best, would have been more helpful on the ticket.

Carter, 1980:  I refused to believe that Carter was going to lose in 1980.  I was not a Carter supporter (I voted Kennedy in the primary, and abstained in the GE; both moves I regret and wish I could take back.)  To the near end, I thought Carter would win reelection because (A) of his diplomatic accomplishment of brokering a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, and (B) the perception in people's mind that Carter was an honest, decent man of integrity.  The Iran Crisis (an unprecedented crisis) undermined the first point, and Carter's reliance on some slick and gimmicky strategies during the 1980 campaign undermined the other.

If I had been Carter's campaign advisers I would have done everything I could have to pre-empt the Kennedy challenge.  I would have done more to convince liberals that such courses of action lead to incumbent Presidents being defeated for re-election, and that he, Carter, had given liberals most of what they wanted.  Failing to do so, I would have run the General Election campaign as presenting a choice between "Extremism" and the "Moderate, Middle Way".  I would have constantly ridiculed Reagan as an unqualified actor whose military experience was confined to special services.  I would have cited Reagan's extreme positions, and endlessly stressed how lots of seemingly reassuring figures in history unleashed intemperate policies.  I would have constantly pushed the theme that good things take time, and I would have reminded people that they teach their own kids that lesson because it's an important one to learn.  I would remind them of the peace deal he brokered; and how I've kept America out of war and kept the Constitution the way I found it.  Over and over, I'd have pushed the theme of Moderation and Reasonableness, which is the "conservatism" most people had in mind back then.

Bush 41, 1992:  An inexcusable loss, given the sort of advantages incumbents should have.  One thing that was forgotten is that Clinton ZOOMED to a huge lead after looking like a GE loser for most of the primary season, and right after Ross Perot exited the race (only to re-enter later).  His lack of empathy, his telling people that the recession was a part of the normal business cycle, was an awful lack of empathy, and explains why Bush lost so many key races (TX Senate seat, 1970, GOP Primaries, 1980).  George Bush would NEVER have been President if he had not been Reagan's VP, period.  He should have won.  It was all his persona that he didn't.

Mondale, 1984:  I rated Mondale behind Bush 41 as he lost 49 states, and only barely carried MN.  In his case, I would attribute that crushing loss to the immense popularity of then-President Reagan, but his loss did not have to be so unmitigated.  His VP choice was horrible (whereas Quayle was actually a good choice by Bush 41).   Mondale SHOULD have picked a running mate that could have actually helped him carry a few states.  The MAGNITUDE of Mondale's loss disheartened Democrats for years; making them wonder if they'd ever elect a President again.

McGovern, 1972:  The worst campaign in modern history, hands down.  McGovern, himself, said it best:  "I opened the doors of the Democratic Party and 20 million people walked out."

One of the biggest false equivalencies in politics is presenting McGovern's defeat as the equivilent of Goldwater's; too far left vs too far right.  But Goldwater laid the foundation for a new, conservative GOP that became the majority party in America in terms of elected officials.  McGovern became a symbol for what Democrats needed to avoid.  Barry Goldwater could have been elected President in 1980 had he tried, but McGovern couldn't have been elected President in his lifetime.

His choice of a guy who had been hospitalized with psychiatric issues as his VP sealed his fate.  When your first and most important appointment is someone revealed to have a history of mental illness, that's not good.  Even worse was the way he got nominated; his campaign was his faction overwhelming all the other factions in a way that alienated them.  Of the McGovernites, Rep. Wayne Hays (D-OH) said it best:  "They reformed us out of a Presidency, and now, they're going to reform us out of a party."  Scumbag that he was, Hays was correct, and he represented the sort of Democratic voter that McGovern needed and didn't get.

The 1972 Democratic National Convention provided one of the biggest pieces of culture shock to America.  It did not have the kind of heated argument of the 1968 convention, but it had the appearance of the inmates running the asylum.  Radical hippies, blacks in Afros and dashikis, Feminist Leftist, a free for all VP nomination where two (2) delegates voted for Mao Zedong; all of this gave the appearance of something other than a serious political gathering.  

Then, there were the anti-war posters.  "Stop Bombing The Dikes!" they read, speaking of the American air campaign to bomb the dikes in North Vietnam in order to bring about movement in the peace talks.  I remember my neighbor talking to my stepdad, saying, "This is WAR!  If bombing the dikes will help us win, why would we not do it?"  Now I was a long-haired teenage peacenik back then, and I hated Nixon and was pulling for McGovern (whom, even then, I thought was a loser), but that argument, made by a man who was a working-class Middle American, had the sort of good sense that I can't refute to this day.

To me, the McGovern campaign was a losing effort without redemption.  No good came about it for the Democratic Party.  And imagine where the Democratic Party would have been today if there had been no Watergate, and Nixon had completed his second term.  

I think you underrate Carter's 1980 campaign and overrate Gore's 2000 one.

It is almost impossible for anyone to get reelected with how badly the Economic Conditions were in 1980 along with the US looking helpless on the world stage. Also Carter did attack Reagan for all those things, and really did try to turn Reagan into Goldwater 2.0 but a commentator on ABC's coverage of the 1980 says that hurt him because that undermined his claim that he was an honorble man and politican and turned what would have been a big defeat into a landslide.


Gore 2000 really should have won, due to the election taking place in a time of Peace and Prosperity. 

America was less Democratic at the Presidential level in 2000 than it is now.

A Southern realignment occurred during the 1990s, where key Southern States (TN, AR, NC, GA, LA) became MORE Republican, due to cultural issues and issues of Fossil Fuels.  This cost Gore TN and AR.  I believe that Gore would have won FL if they had a hand recount of all paper ballots, and that SHOULD have been done for the sake of the American people, but technicalities trumped justice.

A tactical mistake Carter made was refusing to debate Reagan if Anderson were included.  I personally think that such a setup would have favored Carter; Anderson was a Republican, and while he was rather liberal, he would have attacked Reagan as too radical, too hawkish, etc.  Not all of Anderson votes were Democratic votes; some came from moderate Republicans who had voted for Ford and were not opposed to voting for Reagan. 

I was around for that campaign.  I will tell you that Carter did not use incumbency as he could have.  He ended up being blamed for what was going wrong, while not getting credit for what was going right.  But the election broke for Reagan at the very end; Reagan did NOT lead from wire to wire.  IN truth, this was the only election I can think of that was not expected to be a total blowout until it happened.

Reason carter didn’t participate in that debate is it would have been more likely he was attacked by both sides than Reagan

Also about Carter not being tough enough on Reagan most commentators in 1980 said that’s why he lost so big because he tried to portray Reagan as Goldwater when he obviously was a far more formidable politician.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1980/1117/111729.html

https://youtu.be/GIMuqG-1KMY

Watch that video from 4:27:40 to like 4:30:00


Also while yes polls showed election was close until the debate the reasons for that was the Carter campaign implied Reagan would be a warmonger extremist and once the debate showed that Reagan wasn’t Carter collapsed because one of the reasons why many voters were undecided or lean Carter was because of Reagan extremism and that debate just got rid of that fear .



Lastly Reagan as an unqualified actor wouldn’t work because he was a former two term governor of California which is more experience than Carter had in 1976.


The fact is there was no way for Carter to win that year with the conditions of the nation the way they were and Carter quick collapse in the polls after the debate showed people never wanted to re-elect him in the first place .



Gore on the other hand would have won if he campaigned in WV (which was Solidly dem then)or embraced Clinton .

I remember Gore campaigning in WV in 2000.  I also remember finding it odd that he was behind.  WV was a Dukakis 1988 state. 

I understand your argument for Carter not debating when Anderson was invited, but this is a case where I think the conventional wisdom was wrong.