Elections between two bad candidates
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  Elections between two bad candidates
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Author Topic: Elections between two bad candidates  (Read 15133 times)
CARLHAYDEN
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« Reply #25 on: May 03, 2006, 01:23:35 PM »

In my lifetime, I would have to say 1972 and 1976.

McGovern was nuts and Nixon was evil.

Carter and Ford (dumb and dumber).

The seventies were nightmare years.
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Lincoln Republican
Winfield
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« Reply #26 on: May 03, 2006, 02:49:27 PM »

I have to agree 1972 was definitely an electon between two bad candidates.

McGovern was a far left loonie whacko, and Nixon was already enmeshed in subverting the constitution and breaking his oath of office.

What a pathetic choice.
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Miamiu1027
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« Reply #27 on: May 03, 2006, 03:06:47 PM »

I reject the notion that McGovern was a "far left loonie whacko"
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Bugs
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« Reply #28 on: May 05, 2006, 03:26:30 PM »

1856, 1936, 1964 (far and away the worst), 1972 and 1976.
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Inmate Trump
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« Reply #29 on: May 06, 2006, 05:44:07 PM »

2004, 1948, 1908, 1876, 1872, 1856, 1828
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jokerman
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« Reply #30 on: May 09, 2006, 04:18:13 PM »

2004, 1988, 1984, 1972
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Soaring Eagle
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« Reply #31 on: May 09, 2006, 06:14:03 PM »

1964, 1972, 1988, and 2004, though Kerry was still far better than Dubya.
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Cubby
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« Reply #32 on: May 11, 2006, 04:52:00 AM »

I don't like how so many have listed 1964, I liked both candidates that year.

Aside from Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson was a good president.

Aside from appealing to racists (and he didn't openly appeal to them, they gravitated to him) Barry Goldwater was a good candidate who would have been a good president.

1964 is one of my favorite elections. I love looking at that sea of red counties Smiley

2 Bad Candidates Since 1900:

1908, 1920, 1928, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004 (although Gore and Kerry would have been good presidents)
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Miamiu1027
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« Reply #33 on: May 11, 2006, 02:23:36 PM »

Aside from Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson was a good president.

Aside from the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler was a good chancellor.

(the message is that the game isn't played that way.  LBJ is directly responsible for the 55000+ enslaved americans that came home in a bodybag)
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Q
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« Reply #34 on: May 11, 2006, 04:58:21 PM »

Only elections in which there were no good candidates on the ballot at all: 2004, 1964.

I would have voted for a third-party (for the time) candidate in 1924, 1912, 1892, 1848, and 1836.
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jokerman
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« Reply #35 on: May 12, 2006, 12:43:13 PM »

I would have thought you were much more likely to have voted third party in 96, for the gold democrats, than for Weaver's populist candidacy in 92, Q.
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Harry Hayfield
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« Reply #36 on: May 17, 2006, 01:23:10 AM »

In the best South Park traditions, every election since the introduction of the television camera?
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adam
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« Reply #37 on: May 27, 2006, 05:01:28 PM »

1932, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004
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Nym90
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« Reply #38 on: May 28, 2006, 11:36:18 PM »

1924 is the only one that really comes to mind, and even then, there was a good third party choice in LaFollette.

There were certainly some years, such as 1984, 1988 or 2004, in which the choices weren't stellar, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that they were bad.
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gorkay
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« Reply #39 on: October 27, 2006, 04:38:22 PM »

1924 was pretty bad if you exclude LaFollette. Other than that, 1852 and 1872 stand out. In 1852 you had Franklin Pierce, who turned out to be one of our worst Presidents, against Winfield Scott, who was a great general but absolutely unskilled as a politician, leading the last remnants of the Whig party. In 1872 you had Ulysses Grant, also a great general but perhaps our very worst President, against Horace Greeley, also totally unskilled in politics, a lifelong Republican nominated by the Democratic party because they couldn't find anyone better.
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #40 on: October 27, 2006, 05:09:08 PM »

1972 1988 1980 1976 2004

Those ones jump to mind.
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benconstine
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« Reply #41 on: August 25, 2007, 03:45:14 PM »

1848, 1852, 1856, 1868, 1872, 1920, 1928, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988
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NDN
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« Reply #42 on: August 26, 2007, 03:31:04 AM »

There's a lot of them, but the following modern ones really stick out in my mind:

1964, 1976, 1980, 1984, 2004

Especially the last two.
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gorkay
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« Reply #43 on: August 27, 2007, 04:25:44 PM »

There have been quite a few of them.

1812- Madison was a great man but a poor President, and Dewitt Clinton was no great shakes either.
1840- Van Buren was one of the most important people in the history of American politics, and one of the founders of the modern Democratic party, but not very good as a President. Harrison was so unqualified that his death after one month in office was probably just as well for the country (although it gave us Tyler as President, who may not have been much better).
1852- Franklin Pierce vs. Winfield Scott: two men with vastly different temperaments, yet each temperamentally unqualified for the Presidency.
1876- Perhaps the worst pair of major-party candidates in American history. Ulysses Grant, totally out of his element and blithely willing to be manipulated by the monied interests, versus Horace Greeley, running under the banner of the party he had spent a lifetime as a newspaper publisher reviling.
1920- Warren G. Harding, a fatuous nonentity advanced as Presidential candidate by a party cabal looking for a pliable puppet, versus James Cox, an honorable man but one woefully inexperienced in the rough and tumble of politics and painfully inept as a candidate. (The Vice-Presidential candidates were much better.)
1972- Richard Nixon, the prince of paranoia at his mendacious peak, against George McGovern, a walking caricature of bleeding-heart liberalism.
1980- Jimmy Carter, a great man but one who unwittingly found himself, as President, in the wrong job, vs. Ronald Reagan, perhaps the emptiest suit ever to be pumped full of ideological hot air and floated before the American public. Extra added attraction: John Anderson, a nondescript House careerist who allowed his ego to be inflated into the delusion that he was doing something noble by running as an independent.
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Daniel Adams
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« Reply #44 on: August 27, 2007, 05:10:05 PM »
« Edited: August 28, 2007, 07:37:05 PM by Daniel Adams »

1796: John Adams had become an increasingly aristocratic and partisan president. The Alien and Sedition Acts was a most blatant attempts at destroying the (Democratic-)Republican opposition. Jefferson is overrated in my opinion. He continued to pay tribute to three Barbary nations even after defeating the Tripoli pirates. The Embargo Act to defend harassment of US ships was a huge disaster which harmed the US more than it did the UK or France. For this election I would have preferred Alexander Hamilton's idea of electing the Federalist vice-presidential candidate, Charles Pinckney, to the presidency.

1872: One of the worst elections in history, candidates-wise. Grant's administration was exceedingly corrupt, but Greeley's "Liberal Republicans" were against civil rights for blacks and would have turned a blind eye towards Southern terrorist organizations such as the KKK. (Greeley originally supported equal rights, but now relinquished this position in exchange for Democratic support.) At least Grant offered some protection to blacks in the South, so I would've probably reluctantly voted for him.

1900: William McKinley was a true imperialist and advocated ridiculously high tarriffs. William Jennings Bryan was a populist who would've made a horrible president. And he was on the wrong side in the Scopes trial. 1896 also features these two bad choices, but at least there was a good third party candidate, Bourbon Democrat John McAuley Palmer.

1972: Richard Nixon was ruining his presidency by participating in the cover-up of Watergate, the sole reason I would not have voted for him. McGovern was worse, a "walking caricature of bleeding-heart liberalism" as gorkay aptly calls him. I would've voted for John Hospers, the Liberarian candidate.

The elections of 1840 and 1852 also had pretty bad major-party candidates yet there were Free Soil candidates in both these elections.

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gorkay
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« Reply #45 on: August 28, 2007, 09:14:07 AM »

In my last post I erroneously gave the date of the Grant-Greeley election as 1876, when of course it was 1872. My apologies.
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wdecker1
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« Reply #46 on: August 28, 2007, 11:45:11 PM »

1848, 1872, 1876, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1976, 1988, 2004
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Vice President Christian Man
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« Reply #47 on: January 11, 2022, 04:01:53 PM »
« Edited: January 11, 2022, 08:31:01 PM by The Jeffersonian Populist »

Without hindsight: 1864, 1888, 1892 (Excluding Weaver), 2004, 2016
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #48 on: January 11, 2022, 06:03:50 PM »

1844, 1852, 1856, 1920, 1924 [excluding LaFollette], 1928, 1960, 1972, 2000, 2016, 2020.
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TheReckoning
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« Reply #49 on: January 11, 2022, 06:32:17 PM »

It’s absolutely wild to see how Democrats, who now praise Carter used to recognize that his presidency wasn’t good.
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