Rank losing campaigns from Best to Worse Since 1972

[Da2017]

Rank them by how well they did given the circumstances

 

[SingingAnalyst]

Rank them by how well they did given the circumstances

In order from best to worst, in 3 tiers (those in the middle tier I think are very similar in quality, and I did my best to rank them).
Top tier:
Ford 1976: he came from 33 points behind to 1 point ahead per Gallup the weekend before the election. He ran an honorable Presidency and campaign, and Carter, in accepting victory, rightly praised Ford for doing much to heal the nation after Watergate.

Kerry 2004: he almost unseated an incumbent President in the first post-9/11 Presidential election. He built coalitions well, did well among young people (a harbinger of what was to come), and turned out his base. He did make a couple of gaffes: In addition to being "for" something before he was against it, he commented in Columbus that "there's nothing like some good ol' Buckeye football." Bush, of course, pounced on this remark the next day in Ann Arbor. It's amazing Kerry came as close as he did.

Gore 2000: after 8 years of Lewisnky-scandal-plagued Clinton, voters were ready for a change; that's what motivated his pick of Lieberman (though as Monday morning quarterbacks we can say he should have picked Shaheen or Graham). I did not expect Gore to win the PV.
***
Middle tier:
Romney 2012: obviously his "binders full of women" and "47%" comments hurt him, but he ran an honorable campaign at a time when many voters simply did not see a reason to change course.

Mondale 1984: perhaps the most doomed campaign in modern history; after the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, and after voting out incumbents in two consecutive elections, voters were not going to have their 5th President in a bit more than a decade. Mondale fought hard, throwing everything at Reagan including the kitchen sink (nothing stuck, because Reagan was the Teflon President). He kept his composure till the very end, and accepted defeat gracefully (if tearfully).

Carter 1980: his bad luck (stagflation, the Iran hostage crisis, his rift with Sen. Edward Kennedy) did not keep him from running a solid campaign. In particular, in one debate, he hit Reagan hard for not answering a question about what he would do about the Iran crisis. 1980 just was not his year.

McGovern 1972: what can one say about an inferior nominee, coming out of a hacked process that saw Edmund Muskie in tears? In addition to building on anti-war, anti-draft sentiment among young people, he had to appeal to farmers, workers, and newly empowered ethnic minorities. He simply couldn't do it all.

Dole 1996: at a time when many still questioned President Bill Clinton's honesty and integrity, Dole ran a rather lackluster campaign.

Bush 1992: seemed clueless, as if his incumbency and experience would carry the day in a year that the book "America: What Went Wrong?" was a best-seller. His "back nine" quip ("Most of my supporters are on the back nine or at their daughter's coming out parties") showed many how out of touch he was. At the end he seemed strident and angry ("Someone who carjacks someone should go to jail until they're so old they can't drive" at a time when a wave of carjackings was sweeping the nation, showed his frustration).

McCain 2008: His pick of Sarah Palin was a terrible choice (Monday morning quarterback here). Maybe Tim Pawlenty would have been better?
***
Bottom Tier:
Dukakis 1988: His technocratic, unfeeling answer to Brit Hume's pointed death penalty question, and of course, his famous tank ride, helped Bush become the first sitting VP to be elected President since 1836 (not that Bush's campaign was much better).

Clinton 2016: We all know the story. Her nomination was inevitable and she almost lost it. Her election was inevitable too, until it wasn't.

[Kodak]

1. Ford
2. Kerry
3. Romney
4. Gore
5. McCain
6. Clinton (not nearly as bad as Dukakis)
7. Mondale
8. Carter
9. McGovern
10. Dole
11. Bush
12. Dukakis

[OSR stands with Israel]

1. Ford
2. Kerry
3. Romney
4. Gore
5. McCain
6. Clinton (not nearly as bad as Dukakis)
7. Mondale
8. Carter
9. McGovern
10. Dole
11. Bush
12. Dukakis
12. Clinton

you have Clinton twice on the list

[OSR stands with Israel]

1. Ford
2. Kerry

3. McCain
4. Dole

5. Mondale
6. Gore
7. Romney

8. Carter
9. Dukakis

10. Bush Sr
11. Clinton
12. McGovern

[Mr. Smith]

Since the Winning one goes from '68, fair is fair.

Admirable

1. Humphrey
2. Kerry
3. McCain

Mediocre

4. Carter '80
5. H. Clinton
6. Gore

Pathetic

7. Ford
8. Romney
9. Dole
10. Mondale

Outrageously Bad

11. G.H.W. Bush '92
12. McGovern
13. Dukakis

[Politician]

1. Ford
2. Kerry
3. McCain
4. Romney
5. Gore
6. Carter
7. Mondale
8. Dole
9. McGovern
10. Dukakis
11. Bush




12. Clinton

[Progressive Pessimist]

Rank them by how well they did given the circumstances

In order from best to worst, in 3 tiers (those in the middle tier I think are very similar in quality, and I did my best to rank them).
Top tier:
Ford 1976: he came from 33 points behind to 1 point ahead per Gallup the weekend before the election. He ran an honorable Presidency and campaign, and Carter, in accepting victory, rightly praised Ford for doing much to heal the nation after Watergate.

Kerry 2004: he almost unseated an incumbent President in the first post-9/11 Presidential election. He built coalitions well, did well among young people (a harbinger of what was to come), and turned out his base. He did make a couple of gaffes: In addition to being "for" something before he was against it, he commented in Columbus that "there's nothing like some good ol' Buckeye football." Bush, of course, pounced on this remark the next day in Ann Arbor. It's amazing Kerry came as close as he did.

Gore 2000: after 8 years of Lewisnky-scandal-plagued Clinton, voters were ready for a change; that's what motivated his pick of Lieberman (though as Monday morning quarterbacks we can say he should have picked Shaheen or Graham). I did not expect Gore to win the PV.
***
Middle tier:
Romney 2012: obviously his "binders full of women" and "47%" comments hurt him, but he ran an honorable campaign at a time when many voters simply did not see a reason to change course.

Mondale 1984: perhaps the most doomed campaign in modern history; after the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, and after voting out incumbents in two consecutive elections, voters were not going to have their 5th President in a bit more than a decade. Mondale fought hard, throwing everything at Reagan including the kitchen sink (nothing stuck, because Reagan was the Teflon President). He kept his composure till the very end, and accepted defeat gracefully (if tearfully).

Carter 1980: his bad luck (stagflation, the Iran hostage crisis, his rift with Sen. Edward Kennedy) did not keep him from running a solid campaign. In particular, in one debate, he hit Reagan hard for not answering a question about what he would do about the Iran crisis. 1980 just was not his year.

McGovern 1972: what can one say about an inferior nominee, coming out of a hacked process that saw Edmund Muskie in tears? In addition to building on anti-war, anti-draft sentiment among young people, he had to appeal to farmers, workers, and newly empowered ethnic minorities. He simply couldn't do it all.

Dole 1996: at a time when many still questioned President Bill Clinton's honesty and integrity, Dole ran a rather lackluster campaign.

Bush 1992: seemed clueless, as if his incumbency and experience would carry the day in a year that the book "America: What Went Wrong?" was a best-seller. His "back nine" quip ("Most of my supporters are on the back nine or at their daughter's coming out parties") showed many how out of touch he was. At the end he seemed strident and angry ("Someone who carjacks someone should go to jail until they're so old they can't drive" at a time when a wave of carjackings was sweeping the nation, showed his frustration).

McCain 2008: His pick of Sarah Palin was a terrible choice (Monday morning quarterback here). Maybe Tim Pawlenty would have been better?
***
Bottom Tier:
Dukakis 1988: His technocratic, unfeeling answer to Brit Hume's pointed death penalty question, and of course, his famous tank ride, helped Bush become the first sitting VP to be elected President since 1836 (not that Bush's campaign was much better).

Clinton 2016: We all know the story. Her nomination was inevitable and she almost lost it. Her election was inevitable too, until it wasn't.

She objectively did not almost lose the nomination.

[Pericles]

1. Ford 1976
2.  Dole 1996(nothing really memorable either way about this campaign)
3. McCain 2008
4. Kerry 2004
5. Romney 2012
6.  Carter 1980
7. Clinton 2016
8. Gore 2000
9.  Bush 1992
10. Mondale 1984
11. Dukakis 1988
12. McGovern 1972

[morgankingsley]

How is McGovern not last place

[Kodak]

How is McGovern not last place

McGovern consistently lost to Nixon in a landslide in polls and ended up losing by the same margin the earlist polls predicted, so his campaign wasn’t so much awful as it was ineffective at changing minds, similar to Dole in 1996 and Clinton in 2016 but with a much lower ceiling.

Carter and Dukakis managed to lose comfortably after leading in early polls, which arguably makes them worse, although Carter’s loss was mainly caused by Iran and not his campaign.

[Use Your Illusion]

Re-created footage of the Dukakis campaign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDbEX666G3Y

And it's a damn shame. I can't say I knew the guy but he's struck me as one of the most noble, upstanding and compassionate people I have ever seen challenge for the highest office of the land. His last minute ad where he opened up about his family being affected by violence and saying "The Republicans are lying about me" tells everything we need to know about his lack of aggressiveness against a man who could've been soundly defeated

[dw93]

1. Ford 1976
2. Kerry 2004
3. Gore 2000
4. McCain 2008
5. Dole 1996
6. Mondale 1984
7. Carter 1980
8. Romney 2012
9. Bush 1992
11. McGovern 1972
12. Dukakis 1988
13. Clinton 2016

[OSR stands with Israel]

How is McGovern not last place

McGovern consistently lost to Nixon in a landslide in polls and ended up losing by the same margin the earlist polls predicted, so his campaign wasn’t so much awful as it was ineffective at changing minds, similar to Dole in 1996 and Clinton in 2016 but with a much lower ceiling.

Carter and Dukakis managed to lose comfortably after leading in early polls, which arguably makes them worse, although Carter’s loss was mainly caused by Iran and not his campaign.

For Carter he only lead until May though(and it was clearly falling every month before that):




I would say his early lead was based more on the Rally Round the Flag effect than anything and once that started to disappear his lead in polls started to fall and by May the Iran issue turned against him.



For Dukakis he lost his lead once the RNC ended I believe .

[pops]

Ran good campaigns:
Mitt Romney (2012)
John Kerry (2004)

Ran average campaigns:
John McCain (2008)
George H.W. Bush (1992)
Bob Dole (1996)
George McGovern (1972)
Gerald Ford (1976)

Ran bad campaigns:
Al Gore (2000)
Walter Mondale (1984)
Hillary Clinton (2016)

Living disasters:
Jimmy Carter (1984)
Ross Perot (1996)
John Anderson (1980)
Mike Dukakis (1988)

Literally dropped out while leading in the polls:
Ross Perot (1992)

[CookieDamage]

Clinton 2016: We all know the story. Her nomination was inevitable and she almost lost it. Her election was inevitable too, until it wasn't.

Serious question: Why do y'all peddle this borderline lie?

[Fuzzy Bear]

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.  

[SingingAnalyst]

Clinton 2016: We all know the story. Her nomination was inevitable and she almost lost it. Her election was inevitable too, until it wasn't.

Serious question: Why do y'all peddle this borderline lie?

Cookiedamage, did you catch my question to your comment under the "Which likely Democratic nominees would do the worst+best against Trump?" thread? (about Harris/Brown vs. Brown/Harris).

Since your question is serious, I will attempt to answer it, even as I address what I believe to be false assumptions in the question. First of all, your question is addressed to "y'all" (plural). I am one person; I make up my own mind based on the facts I have available, to the best of my ability. Second, I am not "peddling" (or selling) anything (though I cannot speak for anyone else who might be included in "y'all"). I see Atlas as nothing if not an intellectual challenge; when I reply to a post, it is not as someone who is all-knowing or infallible, but rather as a reasonably informed citizen seeking to become more informed. My opinions are my opinions; nothing more. And, with the exception of a few core values, they are malleable.

Finally, and most seriously, I do not consider the statement that Clinton's nomination "was inevitable" and she "almost lost it" to be a "borderline lie". A false statement is not necessarily a lie; it could result simply from incomplete information (in which case kindly informing me of where I am wrong is the approach I would appreciate; "lie", to me, implies intent to deceive). Even so, I would push back against the idea that the assertions are false. I heard the phrase "aura of inevitability" more than once applied to Clinton (I don't recall from which sources; perhaps I should have rejected these sources as unreliable). Sanders was considered in 2015 to be a socialist crank who would crash and burn, not someone who would win states as diverse as Vermont, Minnesota, Michigan, and West Virginia. If not for superdelegates, the race would have truly been down-to-the wire, and indeed it nearly was until June 7 when California voted.

I hope this helps.

[OSR stands with Israel]

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. 

[Fuzzy Bear]

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.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Clinton 2016: We all know the story. Her nomination was inevitable and she almost lost it. Her election was inevitable too, until it wasn't.

Serious question: Why do y'all peddle this borderline lie?

People seem to hate Clinton so much that they will revise history to rationalize it and make her out to look worse at any possible opportunity.

[OSR stands with Israel]

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 .

[Fuzzy Bear]

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.

[SingingAnalyst]

Clinton 2016: We all know the story. Her nomination was inevitable and she almost lost it. Her election was inevitable too, until it wasn't.

Serious question: Why do y'all peddle this borderline lie?

People seem to hate Clinton so much that they will revise history to rationalize it and make her out to look worse at any possible opportunity.

For the record, I do not hate Hillary Clinton. If I did, I would not have bought her book, and I almost certainly would have voted Trump, rather than Johnson as IRL.

Most of the discussion in the media, IIRC, during the 2016 campaign centered on whether Clinton would win by a little or a lot. Clinton was running against an opponent whom many viewed as a buffoon (or worse). None of 538's five predictions had Trump winning more than 45% of the PV. Serious discussions took place on this Forum to the effect that Indiana and Missouri were in play. Perhaps this says more about the shortcomings of polling than it does about Clinton's campaign. Now, Atlas is littered with posts about how Clinton did worse in such-and-such county than any Dem since 1984, or 1972, or 1924, or what have you. That does not strike me as the result of a stellar campaign. Again, that may say more about the American people than it does about her (though the same argument could be made for 1972: shouldn't Americans have believed McGovern when he called Nixon "the most morally corrupt President in American history"? It would have spared us the resignation of a sitting President). Hindsight is 20-20.

On a personal note, of the nine Presidential elections I have participated in, 2016 is the only one in which I was truly shocked (and upset) at the result.

I may reconsider my placing her in last place, at some point.

[SingingAnalyst]

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.  

Excellent list, and quite a bit different from mine! I like that, though.

One minor edit to your section on Mondale: Mondale was under intense pressure to nominate a woman, and at that time there were no female governors and, IIRC, both female Senators were Republicans. He may have done the best he could, though, in hindsight, Dianne Feinstein may have been a better choice.

I agree that Mondale's devastating loss was demoralizing to Democrats.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/03/us/mondale-s-tough-choice.html