Is Trump the worst candidate ever?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Romney was the worst of a long line of RINOs the party nominated from Reagan in 1984.

Hilarious !
You have a lot of nerve calling Romney a "RINO."
And trump ? The perfect Republican ?

The whole concept of a RINO is that there were "real" Republicans before the RINOS, and then the RINOS came along as fake imitators and stole the mantle. If Reagan was a RINO, who were the genuine Republicans before him, considering he's pretty much defined what a "genuine" Republican is ever since his presidency.

I'm a RINO.  I'm a registered Republican who is an independent voter.  But I vote in every Republican Primary, so it does kind of behoove the GOP not to blow me and my kind off, eh?

RINO was a tag usually attached to a Republican who, in recent years, advocated support for some non-military government program.  Only now, thanks to Trump, the REAL Republican Party is revealed as have a "big government" majority.  The majority of the GOP rank and file don't want smaller government; they want THEIR favorite programs supported and reinforced at the expense of programs that are perceived as not favoring working folks. 

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Donald Trump is the greatest Republican nominee since Theodore Roosevelt. I can count the number of acceptable ones between them on one hand. I don't understand why this is a question.

[Protect Trans Hoosiers]

The state of the GOP as it is now kind of invited a candidate as bad as Trump. The candidate best suited to win the party would be the one least suited to win the general election.

The Democrats were in a much shape, establishment wise, to nominate a consensus candidate, but they were hell-bent on Clinton, which is the only reason we're even talking about a President Trump as a serious possibility.

There have been worse major party nominees, but it's hard to think of any.

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

Different does not mean worst.

He hasn't gotten this far by accident.

[temmie b. <3]

Given that he's literally tweeting about TEH JOO-ISH CUNSPEERACY right now, I think he is one of the worst candidates in a long time.

[cinyc]

There have been worse major party nominees, but it's hard to think of any.

Mondale?  Goldwater?  McGovern?  Dukakis?

Trump is far from the worst major party nominee - at least so far.  I'll revisit this if he loses in a 49-state landslide, like Mondale, though.  I doubt that will happen.

[temmie b. <3]

There have been worse major party nominees, but it's hard to think of any.

Mondale?  Goldwater?  McGovern?  Dukakis?

Trump is far from the worst major party nominee - at least so far.  I'll revisit this if he loses in a 49-state landslide, like Mondale, though.  I doubt that will happen.

To be fair, Mondale wasn't a bad candidate; he had the bad luck of going up against Reagan. And the 1972 election wouldn't have been anywhere near as lopsided if Nixon hadn't manipulated the Democratic primary. Can't really defend any of the latter three candidates, though.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

Do I think all Muslims should be banned? No. But I think it's a good starting point in a negotiation to ban those from countries like Syria that are risks.

No Islamist terrorist attack in the United States that I'm aware of has involved anybody from Syria.

Pop quiz: name the two countries that house the Islamic caliphate known as ISIS?

Don't patronize me, jackass.

There's obviously nothing about Syria that makes it inherently less of a risk than Pakistan or Saudi Arabia (our partners in peace!) or any of these other places, but, going by things that have actually happened in the real world so far, there is no reason whatsoever to think that 'negotiation' with an illegal and immoral starting point and an eventual goal informed by 'risk assessment' that is based on just looking at a map on Wikipedia and blueskying from there is an even remotely good idea.

[IceSpear]

There have been worse major party nominees, but it's hard to think of any.

Mondale?  Goldwater?  McGovern?  Dukakis?

Trump is far from the worst major party nominee - at least so far.  I'll revisit this if he loses in a 49-state landslide, like Mondale, though.  I doubt that will happen.

To be fair, all those candidates today would get at least 45% of the vote and win at least 15-20 states if they were nominated. It's just a function of increased polarization.

Similarly, Trump in the 70s/80s against a competent Democrat almost certainly would've been wiped out.

[HisGrace]

Not sure I agree with your definition of Republican.  But Reagan?  Let's review.

Democrat (voted for FDR 4 times)
Only divorced president (family values)
Head of a Union
Hollywood

Actually Trump may be the second coming of Reagan.

Those are all surface level things that have nothing to do with ideology, aside from voting for FDR. And that was 40 years before he became president. Hillary Clinton working on Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller's campaigns doesn't mean she's not liberal today. And people voted for FDR for all kinds of reasons. I would have even voted for him during the war to prevent a change of leadership even though I strongly disagree with his economics.

Now, Reagan would have some issues today due to sometimes being willing to compromise, being rational about immigration, signing arms control agreements with enemy nations and other things in that vein, but that has more to do with the GOP losing it's mind with rage during the Obama administration than it does with Reagan not fitting with the GOP's stated pre-Trump ideology.

Mondale?  Goldwater?  McGovern?  Dukakis?

Trump is far from the worst major party nominee - at least so far.  I'll revisit this if he loses in a 49-state landslide, like Mondale, though.  I doubt that will happen.

Mondale was just unlucky to face Reagan at the peak of his popularity, Dukakis also had to face Bush with a very good economy and Reagan solidly over 50 percent approval, and Trump would lose just as badly as Goldwater if he had to face a Democrat as popular as LBJ was in 64. McGovern is probably even less electable than Trump, though.

[Seriously?]

There have been worse major party nominees, but it's hard to think of any.

Mondale?  Goldwater?  McGovern?  Dukakis?

Trump is far from the worst major party nominee - at least so far.  I'll revisit this if he loses in a 49-state landslide, like Mondale, though.  I doubt that will happen.

To be fair, Mondale wasn't a bad candidate; he had the bad luck of going up against Reagan. And the 1972 election wouldn't have been anywhere near as lopsided if Nixon hadn't manipulated the Democratic primary. Can't really defend any of the latter three candidates, though.

Mondale ran on raising taxes and Star Wars is bad against a positive Reagan message that it was morning again in America. Go back and look at the competing commercials. It was really a terrible, terrible campaign. He was within 3,700 votes of losing his home state of Minnesota and ending up with just DC's 3 electoral votes. It was a massive landslide for Reagan.

[Seriously?]

Do I think all Muslims should be banned? No. But I think it's a good starting point in a negotiation to ban those from countries like Syria that are risks.

No Islamist terrorist attack in the United States that I'm aware of has involved anybody from Syria.

Pop quiz: name the two countries that house the Islamic caliphate known as ISIS?

Don't patronize me, jackass.

There's obviously nothing about Syria that makes it inherently less of a risk than Pakistan or Saudi Arabia (our partners in peace!) or any of these other places, but, going by things that have actually happened in the real world so far, there is no reason whatsoever to think that 'negotiation' with an illegal and immoral starting point and an eventual goal informed by 'risk assessment' that is based on just looking at a map on Wikipedia and blueskying from there is an even remotely good idea.

Except their refugees have raped women in Germany and elsewhere and the way of verifying identity in a country in the midst of a civil war is suspect and all those ISIS fighters that could easily blend into the refugee population, resettle in the US and wreak havoc... But yea, there's obviously nothing about Syria to be concerned about.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

But yea, there's obviously nothing about Syria to be concerned about.

1. Did I say that?
2. I haven't, like, done extensive analysis of European crime reports or anything, but I'm pretty sure most German women who are raped are raped by German men.
3. Don't patronize me, jackass.

[Phony Moderate]

In regards to the OP, those things don't make him a bad candidate per se, just a bad individual. The likes of Alf Landon and Alton B. Parker were worse candidates.

[temmie b. <3]

There have been worse major party nominees, but it's hard to think of any.

Mondale?  Goldwater?  McGovern?  Dukakis?

Trump is far from the worst major party nominee - at least so far.  I'll revisit this if he loses in a 49-state landslide, like Mondale, though.  I doubt that will happen.

To be fair, Mondale wasn't a bad candidate; he had the bad luck of going up against Reagan. And the 1972 election wouldn't have been anywhere near as lopsided if Nixon hadn't manipulated the Democratic primary. Can't really defend any of the latter three candidates, though.

Mondale ran on raising taxes and Star Wars is bad against a positive Reagan message that it was morning again in America. Go back and look at the competing commercials. It was really a terrible, terrible campaign. He was within 3,700 votes of losing his home state of Minnesota and ending up with just DC's 3 electoral votes. It was a massive landslide for Reagan.

A good point, and Mondale made a few mistakes, but I feel that Mondale would have lost even if he had run a perfect campaign.

[Meclazine for Israel]

This site might as well be the Daily KOS or Democratic Underground with the anti-Republican nonsense that gets posted here on a daily basis.

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

The whole concept of a RINO is that there were "real" Republicans before the RINOS, and then the RINOS came along as fake imitators and stole the mantle. If Reagan was a RINO, who were the genuine Republicans before him, considering he's pretty much defined what a "genuine" Republican is ever since his presidency.

Not sure I agree with your definition of Republican.  But Reagan?  Let's review.

Democrat (voted for FDR 4 times)
Only divorced president (family values)
Head of a Union
Hollywood

Actually Trump may be the second coming of Reagan.

Because of the age-related dementia effecting them both?

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

If he were trying to lose, what would he do differently?

Plenty, but only if he were willing to look like he was obviously trying to lose.

If he's trying to lose while plausibly pretending to appear to be trying to win...  very little. (Picking Palin, Gingrich or someone equally flawed as VP, and the following it with a disastrous convention would seem to be next on the "Pretending to Try" checklist.)

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

This site might as well be the Daily KOS or Democratic Underground with the anti-Republican nonsense that gets posted here on a daily basis.

Stop nominating insane bigoted wanna-be fascists?

[Protect Trans Hoosiers]

There have been worse major party nominees, but it's hard to think of any.

Mondale?  Goldwater?  McGovern?  Dukakis?

Trump is far from the worst major party nominee - at least so far.  I'll revisit this if he loses in a 49-state landslide, like Mondale, though.  I doubt that will happen.

Goldwater comes close, but he represented a brand of conservatism the nation wasn't ready for, and was not the right man to communicate it.  He would have been a viable candidate 16 years later, without the backdrop of Cold War fears and the battle against Jim Crow.  Goldwater was tone-deaf and stubborn, I will grant you, and a terrible choice for a Presidential nominee in any year, but nowhere near as bad as Trump when it comes to saying terrible things.

Ronald Reagan would have had it handed to him in 1964 as well.  Not as badly, but it would have been ugly.

McGovern was plagued by a messy convention, a disaster over the mental health treatment of his first VP pick at a time when mental illness carried extreme stigma, and coming from the far left.  Does that make him a terrible candidate?

A reanimated, 45-year-old JFK would have been doomed against Reagan in 1984.

There was nothing wrong with Dukakis the candidate.  (Edit: OK, that's a bridge too far.  He had his problems.  But Trump-level problems?) The campaign was a train wreck, and Bush was riding Reagan's overwhelming positives, a great economy, and the sense of the inevitable collapse of European communism.

Trump only has two saving graces:

1. The polarization of the nation making a Republican dead rat viable in 20 states.
2. The unpopularity of Hillary Clinton.

In a political climate of years past he would lose in a 49-state landslide.

[DINGO Joe]

Yeah, everything from his involvement with the Birthers to his Saddam love makes him the most vile candidate at least in modern times. 

[C r a b c a k e]

I think we can all agree he is the most unlikely nominee ever. Who comes close? Greeley? Wilkie?

[Iowa+3]

He'll have a comparable run to Willkie.

[Deblano]

Nope. He's the best candidate with the best words. He has great relations with the gays and loves the spirit of the Mexican people.

[Lincoln Republican]

Yes, with Hillary running a close second.