Podgy the Bear
mollybecky
Sr. Member
Posts: 2,969
|
 |
« on: March 29, 2015, 02:28:11 PM » |
|
Most inept campaign--McGovern in 1972. He wasn't going to win, but he could have made it a 45-55 race. The electoral vote wouldn't have changed very much--probably picking up a few states in the Midwest--but I think the blowouts he suffered in the South would have been less severe.
The Eagleton affair, his losing the AFL/CIO endorsement (and therefore big labor support), and overreliance on a youth vote (which he lost anyway) hurt McGovern (but not necessarily the Democrats) that year. Looks like the party had written off McGovern very early to hold Congress (which they did).
I know that the biggest surprise is that Truman won in 1948, but I don't think that Dewey ran a bad race. It's more that Truman ran a great campaign (not only against Dewey but against the 80th Congress) and he was able to minimize the damage from the Progressives and Dixiecrats.
|
