I was only going back to 1952! I agree that Landon would've been worse he got about what 3 states?
It’s certainly too rigid to just consider candidates back to 1952!
Landon certainly was a very bad candidate – he was according to all accounts an awful speaker and he won just two states and lost his home state which only Goldwater has lost for the Republicans since. However, my readings on the topic suggest that the Republicans were devoid of quality candidates – Styles Bridges, their most talented prospect, was only thirty-eight at the time, though the reason Landon rejected him as a running mate is sort of silly.
However, Mondale was really no better – the Democrats in 1984 possessed no one who could take the new “anti-personalist” culture that came to dominate during the 1980s. However, what Mondale did was really silly except among the academic culture that was coming to dominate the Boom and 13er generations who were growing up or entering such academic positions at the time. Alan Cranston is the only Democratic candidate listed in articles on the 1984 election who seems from what I have read (lacking personal experience) to have had any hope of capturing this new demographic, and he was only three years younger than Reagan, fourteen years older than Mondale, and eight years older than George McGovern.
