Why the losers lost the POTUS elections.

[Silverhair]

I am going to start with 1972 POTUS election.

Mcgovern - Promised a $1,000.00 a year to everybody. That branded him as a nutcase. He wanted to reduce the military by 1/3 during the cold war while we were fighting a war. The other stuff hurt him, and Nixon certainly did some dirty tricks, but those two issues were soundly rejected by the public.

Ford - Tainted by Watergate, poor economy, inflation a problem. Carter was running as an outsider, promised to reorganize the gov't as he had done in Georgia.

Carter - HORRIBLE ECONOMY. The Iranian thing, and the large number of countries that had become part of the Soviet Empire hurt him too, but the bad economy was enough by itself to do him in. All Reagan had to do was reassure the voters that he would not blow up the world and they would vote against Carter. Carter had 17% inflation and 9% unemployment.

Mondale - Promised a general tax increase. He said that more than once as one poster said. He said it again in the debates. Also I think the VP selection hurt him. He didn't choose Ferraro because she was the best qualified but because she was a woman. It was seen as a political stunt and backfired badly.

Dukikas - Pledge of Alliagence problems hurt him. Fumbled the rape question in the debate. Photo op on the tank was stupid. Convict screw up came back to haunt him as "soft on crime." (Why did his furlough program grant furloughs to lifers anyway?) Bush promised not to raise taxes and Duke wouldn't make the same promise.

Bush v.1 - Broke promise on taxes. Fought war but didn't solve the problem. Weak economy. Perot didn't help him any but didn't cost him the election either. Clinton ran a great campaign. Hillary made some gaffes, but they weren't critical.

Dole - Sacrificial lamb. Reps figured no one could beat Clinton, so Dole took the bullet. He was retiring anyway. He probably already had the Viagra spot lined up before the election. (Last sentence not to be taken seriously.)

Gore - Damn!!! Gore really did win, but by a squeaker of squeakers. We lost a critical number of votes in Florida to that screwed up ballot. That would have been enough to make the difference. However - GORE SHOULD HAVE WON IN A LANDSLIDE!!!!! He blew what should have been a cakewalk. Good economy, country at peace, and he represented the Party that was in power for that. In the debates he acted like a child when he needed to be presidental. He didn't articulate a vision. He was always reinventing himself. Gore blew it because he was Gore.

What's my point? No need for any conspiracy theories on any of this. As long as we whine, blame our loses on being cheated or on dirty tricks, or on negative ads by the Reps, we will keep on losing. We have the issues to win with. But we have to realize that a POTUS election is the most hardball of hardball contests, nor would I change that. If our candidate can't win in that kind of hardball, what will happen in global hardballs where he represents the country?

Stop blaming the opposition for our loses. If we lost, then we need to get smarter and tougher and WIN the next one, instead of crying about the past ones.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. You seem pretty knowledgable as far as the history goes

so answer me this- who's the best Dem we should nominate?
And you can prognosticate on different scenarios re: Iraq, economy, etc...

[Silverhair]

2. I'll try.

The history is from memory. I use the title Silverhair for a reason. I can go back further than 72, (I helped the local JFK office in 60. Before that I wasn't interested in politics.)but 72 is a signifigant turning point in American politics, so that's why I started there.

Predicting the future is always chancy, because we tend to make linear projections in a non linear world. Here goes, but I reserve the right to change my mind as the crystal ball clears up.

I think Clark will be our best chance, but he is handicapped by his late entry and lack of political experience. He is going to have to learn real fast. He is getting a lot of help from the Clintons but that cuts both ways. It helps and hurts at the same time. I had thought that Hillary would make a last minute entry to "save the day". (I'm sorry. I don't like Hillary, and I think she would go down in flames, big time. She has needlessly antagonized too many people.)

The economy has grown for three quarters in a row. The leading indicators are still strongly up. Employment normally is a lagging indicator in the economic cycle. If normal trends hold, (Big if.) then Bush will have a robust economy at election time.

Nation Security. This, I think, will be the number one issue. People are very aware that Islamic fundamentalist hate us and have hated us ever since they took over Iran. We were called "The Great Satan" by them. They hate the entire West, because of our materialism. Islam calls for a lot of sacrifice of earthly pleasures, and the West, and in particular America, are the greatest providers of such pleasures. We tempt them away from the path of purity. Communism, while atheist, was austere and so was "The Lesser Satan." (Instead of bombs I wonder what would happen if we dropped Playboy & Cosmo magazines?) After the WTC, people are going to want the country protected. Since 72 Democrats have been viewed as soft on national security. Afganistan & Iraq may not be total sucesses but Joe & Jane Average will say that at least he is doing something more that pinprick missle strikes.

Iraq specifically - Very hard to say. Bush is trying to set up some kind of gov't there and get their own police and army functioning, so that he can start pulling out. This is now a sort of civil war. The people definately don't want the Baathist back, (Exept Saddam's tribe.) but the radical Islamist don't like us either. Complaining that we never should have gone to war won't help us. Like C M Braun said, (Paraphrase) "We are there now and we have to complete what we started." If Bush can get any kind of non-Baathist gov't going over there, and hand off the problem (Or at least most of it.) to them, then he comes out ahead. The Baathists have to be afraid of any new gov't because then it will be pay-back time. I am afraid that we have made civil war possible.

Patriot Act - Unless we can show Joe Average how he personally is being hurt in his regular life, he won't care. Griping about his library records being available to the feds won't help as he won't care. Joe Average is not going to care about Arab-Americans being asked some questions as the attacks are coming from Arabs. Joe Average doesn't even know the provisions of the act.

CIAgate - A non story now. Unless something explosive breaks in this, it's old news.

Deficit - With a strongly growing economy the deficit will shrink, losing it's impact as an issue.

Things don't look good for us in 2004, but it is still a year away and a lot can happen in a year. But we have to quite whining, quit worrying over theories of ancient conspiracies, and GET TO WORK.


About conspiracy theories: If the Reps were really so powerful as to be able to pull off all those conspiracies, then they would have so much power that we couldn't win anything, so there would be no use trying.

Well, that's how the crystal ball sees it. It could well be wrong.