Republican Campaigns

[Boris]

Bush 1992: F, I don't see how anyone can give it any other grade. Bush went from "politically invincible" to trailing Clinton by double digits within a year.

Dole 1996: I'll give him a D, but it was hard to make people care that year.

Bush 2000: Maybe a C, Monica Lewinsky really helped him out. Gore really outdid Bush in the last couple weeks of the campaign; Bush just got really lucky in the end.

Bush 2004: Bush really f'ed up Iraq with the WMD/terrorist ties controversy and got unlucky that troops started dying in uncomfortable numbers beginning in early 2004 (135 killed in April 2004) or so. Otherwise he would have won in a landslide. Tagging Kerry as a "flip-flopper" was brilliant and it stuck given his ineptitude to respond to attacks. Lousy debate performances but overall I'd give it a B. "Moral Values" turnout was excellent.

McCain 2008: Impressive job pulling himself back into relevancy by December 2007 but his nomination was kinda lucky with pluralities giving him marginal victories in NH, SC, FL before Super Tuesday. Had a hard time attracting media attention for obvious reasons from Super Tuesday to the RNC, but still managed to remain competitive with Obama until Sep. 15. After that, his campaign was really awful. Maybe a C- given the tough environment.