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Post by hi224 on May 6, 2017 6:44:44 GMT
herman cain done as well.
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Post by koskiewicz on May 17, 2017 0:38:28 GMT
Bulworth
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Post by telegonus on May 18, 2017 9:14:50 GMT
Seriously: Alton Parker in 1904 and John W. Davis in 1924. Both gentlemen were Democrats, with neither standing much of a chance against a popular Republican incumbent.
I thought that Hubert Humphrey was simply the wrong man for the Dems to have nominated in 1968, as he was too tied to the then too tarnished and unpopular Lyndon Johnson.
In recent years bad candidates abound, in some cases dreadful ones. We've moved into an anti-Washingon (as in D.C.) politics, the outsiders often make a big splash.
This happened last year with Donald Trump, whose campaign I thought was terrible; negative, demagogic, alienating. Yet now he's president. I didn't care for his campaign, nor do I care for his presidency, but it did work (the campaign, I mean).
Inasmuch as he dominated the 2016 presidential election and won I find it difficult to now, after the fact, say that Trump was a bad candidate.
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 18, 2017 14:30:45 GMT
That brain surgeon guy in the last election. What a space cadet!
Trump too.
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Post by hi224 on May 18, 2017 17:42:04 GMT
Seriously: Alton Parker in 1904 and John W. Davis in 1924. Both gentlemen were Democrats, with neither standing much of a chance against a popular Republican incumbent. I thought that Hubert Humphrey was simply the wrong man for the Dems to have nominated in 1968, as he was too tied to the then too tarnished and unpopular Lyndon Johnson. In recent years bad candidates abound, in some cases dreadful ones. We've moved into an anti-Washingon (as in D.C.) politics, the outsiders often make a big splash. This happened last year with Donald Trump, whose campaign I thought was terrible; negative, demagogic, alienating. Yet now he's president. I didn't care for his campaign, nor do I care for his presidency, but it did work (the campaign, I mean). Inasmuch as he dominated the 2016 presidential election and won I find it difficult to now, after the fact, say that Trump was a bad candidate. Yay someone gave me a real answer. |
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on May 19, 2017 20:08:54 GMT
Just going on a bad candidate, not their potential administration...
Wendell Wilkie in 1940. FDR could have been beaten in '40. The Isolationists weren't happy over the further involvement in the War. The Depression was still going on. And people were all for the "two term limit" I remember seeing a campaign button "No 3rd Term. Washington wouldn't, Grant couldn't, Roosevelt shouldn't." But the isolationists didn't like Wilkie and the Eastern Republicans torpedoed Bob Taft.
George McClellan in 1864. It was thought that Little Mac would bring in the soldier's vote, but he was yesterday's news. A War Democrat on a Peace platform. Couldn't win
Hillary Clinton in 2016. A potted plant should have trumped Trump.
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Post by telegonus on May 21, 2017 5:20:55 GMT
I hear ya' on Wendell Wilkie, and yet by all accounts he was a dynamic and popular candidate. People of my parents' generation remembered him well, even talked about him occasionally, as rather as I would imagine my generation remembers Gene McCarthy (albeit for different reasons, McCarthy, like Wilkie, was rather a one election cycle phenomenon, and phenomenon he was: a political superstar for a year).
For a man who'd never held public office Wilkie's hold on the imagination of the American people was strong. His book, One World, was a best seller. Even FDR liked him. But yes, Taft would have won the isolationist states and maybe even stolen some traditional Democratic voters,--Irish, some German Catholics--away from FDR, and there would probably have been a fair number of "split tickets" in states where the race would have been close.
But seriously, where the 1940 election was concerned, with the world war in Europe getting worse by the day, the coming of the draft, and I believe a slight uptick in the economy, not enough to say the Depression was over but the mood of the country was near post-Depression by the summer-fall of that year, could any candidate have beaten Roosevelt that November? The best chance for the Republicans would have been a three way election, a serious three way election, I mean, and that didn't materialize. I know that 20/20 hindsight is always perfect, but truly, I believe that FDR's third term was near preordained.
I haven't studied the 1864 election too closely. My sense is that McClellan was a sacrificial lamb. Truly, the Democrats were in a bad way. The war was unpopular but this was probably a not wanting to change horses in midstream election. The war turning heavily in favor of the Union by late summer, early fall probably put it over for Lincoln, but then I don't have the figures in front of me as to what the actual election results were.
As to Hillary, and as a registered Democrat, I must say that every time she opened her mouth on the election trail last year, especially during the debates, but even at the convention I was damn near throwing my shoe, sandal, whatever I was wearing, at the television screen: she was a train wreck. Especially irritating was her smug prediction of "we're going to put a woman in the White House this year" (etc.). People didn't want to hear that. Even women didn't want to hear that. Democrats especially wanted to hear and liked what Bernie was saying. I don't think I've seen a worse presidential candidate in my life from a likability standpoint. Walter Mondale was like Andrew Jackson by comparison, Gerry Ford, Adlai Stevenson.
One more bad candidate, from a practical standpoint: Barry Goldwater. Admittedly, Johnson was unbeatable in 1964 but the paranoia over Goldwater was toxic, and in that what may have been last presidential election in which coat-tails mattered, the Republican got buried that fall, and this dealt a massive blow to the party for a generation that I don't think it would have sustained with a candidate like Rockefeller or William Scranton on the G.O.P. ticket. A win for LBJ, for sure, and likely a big one but not the donnybrook the election was in, for instance, the state legislative district in my home state of Massachusetts in which my uncle's highly popular seven term state representative brother lost in a rural district that hadn't gone Democratic since the Civil War. I believe this was true also in much of New England and also in the upper Midwest, which was similar in having strong local Republican parties that got buried in November, 1964.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on May 21, 2017 8:40:52 GMT
I hear ya' on Wendell Wilkie, and yet by all accounts he was a dynamic and popular candidate. People of my parents' generation remembered him well, even talked about him occasionally, as rather as I would imagine my generation remembers Gene McCarthy (albeit for different reasons, McCarthy, like Wilkie, was rather a one election cycle phenomenon, and phenomenon he was: a political superstar for a year). For a man who'd never held public office Wilkie's hold on the imagination of the American people was strong. His book, One World, was a best seller. Even FDR liked him. But yes, Taft would have won the isolationist states and maybe even stolen some traditional Democratic voters,--Irish, some German Catholics--away from FDR, and there would probably have been a fair number of "split tickets" in states where the race would have been close. But seriously, where the 1940 election was concerned, with the world war in Europe getting worse by the day, the coming of the draft, and I believe a slight uptick in the economy, not enough to say the Depression was over but the mood of the country was near post-Depression by the summer-fall of that year, could any candidate have beaten Roosevelt that November? The best chance for the Republicans would have been a three way election, a serious three way election, I mean, and that didn't materialize. I know that 20/20 hindsight is always perfect, but truly, I believe that FDR's third term was near preordained. I haven't studied the 1864 election too closely. My sense is that McClellan was a sacrificial lamb. Truly, the Democrats were in a bad way. The war was unpopular but this was probably a not wanting to change horses in midstream election. The war turning heavily in favor of the Union by late summer, early fall probably put it over for Lincoln, but then I don't have the figures in front of me as to what the actual election results were. As to Hillary, and as a registered Democrat, I must say that every time she opened her mouth on the election trail last year, especially during the debates, but even at the convention I was damn near throwing my shoe, sandal, whatever I was wearing, at the television screen: she was a train wreck. Especially irritating was her smug prediction of "we're going to put a woman in the White House this year" (etc.). People didn't want to hear that. Even women didn't want to hear that. Democrats especially wanted to hear and liked what Bernie was saying. I don't think I've seen a worse presidential candidate in my life from a likability standpoint. Walter Mondale was like Andrew Jackson by comparison, Gerry Ford, Adlai Stevenson. One more bad candidate, from a practical standpoint: Barry Goldwater. Admittedly, Johnson was unbeatable in 1964 but the paranoia over Goldwater was toxic, and in that what may have been last presidential election in which coat-tails mattered, the Republican got buried that fall, and this dealt a massive blow to the party for a generation that I don't think it would have sustained with a candidate like Rockefeller or William Scranton on the G.O.P. ticket. A win for LBJ, for sure, and likely a big one but not the donnybrook the election was in, for instance, the state legislative district in my home state of Massachusetts in which my uncle's highly popular seven term state representative brother lost in a rural district that hadn't gone Democratic since the Civil War. I believe this was true also in much of New England and also in the upper Midwest, which was similar in having strong local Republican parties that got buried in November, 1964. There was a movement to draft Charles Lindbergh to run as a Republican in 1940. He was a huge Isolationist (closet Nazi, according to some. He wasn't but he didn't HATE Hitler). Lindbergh refused, he hated public speaking. But Lindy might have won. There was book written a while ago (never read it) where Lindbergh won, stopped the Lend Lease and the Japanese embargoes on oil. No embargo, no Pearl Harbor. No Pearl Harbor, the US stays out of WWII until it was too late. Lincoln was in trouble at the beginning of 1864. The Radical Republicans, unhappy with the 'soft war", wanted to run John C. Fremont, as a 3rd party if they couldn't take the nomination. Cooler heads prevailed. McClellan was doing good for a while. The casualties list were getting bad and Grant was no closer to taking Richmond in '64 that Little Mac was in '62. But the big Union victories at Atlanta and Mobile Bay doomed the Democrats. The 1860 Democratic nominees were also bad. Stephen Douglas couldn't get a vote in the South, John Breckinridge couldn't get a vote in the North. It was actually two elections. Lincoln v. Douglas in the north, Breckinridge v. Constitution Union candidate John Bell in the south. Bell won more electoral votes than Douglas. Forgot about Goldwater. Nelson Rockefeller should have got the nomination but he got caught up in some extramarital shenanigans and Henry Cabot Lodge's two state campaign crippled him. The Republican tried to beg Nixon to come out and run. They wanted anyone but Goldwater. But he turned the Solid South Republican. Probably forever. |
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Post by hi224 on May 21, 2017 17:12:42 GMT
Ross Perot was pretty horrible.
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Post by telegonus on May 21, 2017 17:27:14 GMT
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I can't see Lindbergh running or winning, for most of the reasons you listed. Also, his tacit or, if you will, passive approval of the Third Reich via his admiration for the Luftwaffe if nor nothing else its efficiency, its superiority to anything we had at that time (circa 1937-38) would have come back to haunt him. Also, Lindy came out of the kidnapping case of his first born somewhat tarnished in the eyes of many. There are still lingering doubts and questions regarding his conduct during that period. People forget when discussing his potential candidacy for the presidency in 1940: Lindbergh had long since ceased to be Lucky Lindy.
Thanks for info on the 1860 and 1864 presidential elections. Verily, the Democrats ruled from Jackson through Buchanan, and the party itself grew huge and flabby, coming to mean very little by 1850. The Whigs began promisingly but even their name (as in against "King Andrew") limited them. Their fondness for nominating aging military heroes smacked of "us too-ism" in trying to be the anti-Jackson party with a Jackson of their own choosing. They lacked originality. The new Republican party drew from both the failing Whig party and disgruntled northern Democrats. The Civil War casualties on both sides were horrendous in 1864, but enough to defeat Lincoln? It was probably just a matter of time before the Union began kicking butt in Dixie, and so they did.
Agreed on Rockefeller, who actually, for those who remember, possessed some charisma. Scranton was bland by nature but Rocky would have been a firecracker in the general election had he won the G.O.P. nomination. It didn't help the party that the Republicans likely regarded LBJ as unbeatable, thus the near suicidal WTF nom for Goldwater. The election did help the party in the South, and Nixon built on that, however it would take decades for the South to move toward the G.O.P. at the local level. Bill Clinton, the Man From Arkansas, though popular initially as a good 'ol boy, also helped turn the tide in the 1994 mid-term election when many Southern Dems defected, giving the G.O.P. their first full congress, both house, in forty years.
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Post by vegalyra on May 23, 2017 18:38:20 GMT
The 1972 and 1984 Democrat candidates were absolutely atrocious. Granted, I don't think anyone could have beaten Nixon in '72 or Reagan in '84.
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Post by politicidal on May 25, 2017 1:24:19 GMT
In recent memory? For the Republicans, I'd say Michelle Bachmann and for Democrats Lincoln Chaffee. Perhaps once I read SHATTERED I'll change that to Hillary Clinton.
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