Unluckiest U.S. politicians

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Teddy Kennedy, had it not been for Chapaquitic and his brain cancer he would of maybe saved the House in 2010 or been prez. There would have been no Scott Brown definitely.

[barfbag]

Teddy Kennedy, had it not been for Chapaquitic and his brain cancer he would of maybe saved the House in 2010 or been prez. There would have been no Scott Brown definitely.

You make it sound as if Chapaquitic was a problem for him more than it was for the girl he killed. What he did was wrong. You act as if Ted Kennedy didn't deserve everything regarding the situation.

[LeBron]

Lincoln Chafee - Was a very popular incumbent, yet failed to win re-election in 2006 as a Republican over Democratic Attorney General, Sheldon Whitehouse in Rhode Island. The odd thing was with that race, if it hadn't been for the Democratic wave and the Bush screw-up, he would have easily won re-election. He voted against the war in Iraq and didn't even associate himself with Frist's caucus, but still failed with a +60% approval just for being a Republican. Not only does that hurt just based off of party affiliation, but now he's having to step down as Rhode Island Governor next year because he didn't align himself with the Republican or Democratic Party in time. Poor guy really can't catch a break.

Walter Mondale - Has officially lost elections, national or statewide, in all 50 states. For one thing, he resigned as a Minnesota Senator to become Vice President only for that to last 4 years when him and Carter lost to Reagan/Bush in 1980. He of course then lost in a landslide to President Ronald Reagan in 1984 only carrying his homestate of Minnesota by about 4,000 votes (plus DC). Years later then, he ran for the same U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota he had held previously in 2002 and ended up losing there to Republican Norm Coleman thus ending his unlucky career.

Woodrow Wilson - After the 1912 election, nothing really went his way. Isolationism was a great policy and all, but he allowed Germany to sink so many of our ships and failed to negotiate peace talks. Then after declaring war which he really didn't want to do to begin with, he got even more hate from citizens of German, Austrian-Hungarian, Bulgarian or Turkish descent and also in part due to the 18th Amendment, his party lost control of Congress to the Republicans which really changed the outcome of what could have been Wilson's greatest U.S. accomplishment. Congress went against his proposal at the Treaty of Versailles for a League of Nations and President Wilson ended up getting paralyzed from campaigning across the country to hard for it which ended his political career and never got to run again in 1920.  

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Woodrow Wilson - After the 1912 election, nothing really went his way. Isolationism was a great policy and all, but he allowed Germany to sink so many of our ships and failed to negotiate peace talks. Then after declaring war which he really didn't want to do to begin with, he got even more hate from citizens of German, Austrian-Hungarian, Bulgarian or Turkish descent and also in part due to the 18th Amendment, his party lost control of Congress to the Republicans which really changed the outcome of what could have been Wilson's greatest U.S. accomplishment. Congress went against his proposal at the Treaty of Versailles for a League of Nations and President Wilson ended up getting paralyzed from campaigning across the country to hard for it which ended his political career and never got to run again in 1920.  

Wilson was no isolationist.  He was an Anglophile who was dealing with a traditionally isolationist public but who was consistently as pro-Entente as he could get away with.  His sham neutrality is what allowed him to eventually draw the United States into the war when it became clear that without American troops and money, the Entente would lose the war.

If anything, Wilson should be considered one of the luckier U.S. politicians.  Without the Republican infighting in 1912, he never would have gotten to be president.  Without the European fighting in 1916, it is doubtful he could have ever gotten reelected.

[LeBron]

Woodrow Wilson - After the 1912 election, nothing really went his way. Isolationism was a great policy and all, but he allowed Germany to sink so many of our ships and failed to negotiate peace talks. Then after declaring war which he really didn't want to do to begin with, he got even more hate from citizens of German, Austrian-Hungarian, Bulgarian or Turkish descent and also in part due to the 18th Amendment, his party lost control of Congress to the Republicans which really changed the outcome of what could have been Wilson's greatest U.S. accomplishment. Congress went against his proposal at the Treaty of Versailles for a League of Nations and President Wilson ended up getting paralyzed from campaigning across the country to hard for it which ended his political career and never got to run again in 1920.  

Wilson was no isolationist.  He was an Anglophile who was dealing with a traditionally isolationist public but who was consistently as pro-Entente as he could get away with.  His sham neutrality is what allowed him to eventually draw the United States into the war when it became clear that without American troops and money, the Entente would lose the war.

If anything, Wilson should be considered one of the luckier U.S. politicians.  Without the Republican infighting in 1912, he never would have gotten to be president.  Without the European fighting in 1916, it is doubtful he could have ever gotten reelected.

Notice I said "after the 1912 election" because yeah, he did get lucky in that sense. Roosevelt had a lot of support in the northeast (especially New York) plus out west (Oregon, Montana, Nevada etc.) and if it hadn't been for Taft being in the way, Wilson wouldn't have won in the landslide that he did and for all we know, Roosevelt could have pulled out a victory over Wilson with a united Republican Party pulling out victories in the solid North at the time.

As for 1916, Wilson wouldn't have won if it wasn't for his pacifist, but pro-Allies, policy. Although his neutrality clearly failed, he still barely won with "He kept us out of war" and "Peace without victory" and gained large public appeal for it. If Wilson had declared war on Germany before the election, Wilson most likely would have lost California's 13 electoral votes which would have given Hughes the win. So I'll agree with you partially that his early career as Princeton President, Governor of New Jersey, the 1912 election, "New Freedom", or the Federal Reserve was pretty good, but after 1914, everything went downhill from his first wife's death to passing the "Political Suicide Amendment" to the Democrats losing control of Congress to nearly losing his life!

[Yank2133]

Bobby Kennedy-Win the California primary and maybe building up some momentum....then get shot off five minutes later.

[Beet]

Teddy Kennedy, had it not been for Chapaquitic and his brain cancer he would of maybe saved the House in 2010 or been prez. There would have been no Scott Brown definitely.

You make it sound as if Chapaquitic was a problem for him more than it was for the girl he killed. What he did was wrong. You act as if Ted Kennedy didn't deserve everything regarding the situation.

That's true. You gotta admit that the Kennedys are an unlucky family, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_curse

[StateBoiler]

Woodrow Wilson's vice president Thomas Marshall? Wilson should've been removed from office on medical grounds. He was intentionally disallowed from even seeing Wilson in person until Wilson's last day in office.

[Mordecai]

No love for Jimmy Carter? A lot of the failings attributed to him were the direct result of administrations that came before him. Whoever won in 1976 was going to lose in 1980.

Special mention to George W. Bush as well, for 9/11 and the burst of the housing bubble as well as the Great Recession.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While Jimmy had some bad luck, he contributed to a lot of it himself.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Elihu Harris.

Let's see. It's 1999. You're a black man and former Oakland mayor who gets the Democratic nomination for Oakland's State Assembly district. Should be the easiest win ever. What happens? You get defeated by the Green party candidate you outspent 16-1 because you're apparently racist against blacks.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

William Henry Harrison wasn't so lucky.

[SWE]

Herbert Hoover

Bob Dole and Henry Clay also come to mind, shafted by their party when they were sure to win, and then receiving the nomination when they had no chance

[The Dowager Mod]

Although he had a stellar career Clay failed to achieve his ultimate goal, because of unlucky timing mostly.

[Mechaman]

I know this is months later, but I just have to comment now considering the bastardization of history in AdamFitzgerald's posts that are just bizarre beyond all intentions.  I mean yeah, I look at the poster name I guess I shouldn't be so shocked to see such an utter extreme distortion of reality, but there is just so much wrong with this post I have to comment.
And again, considering the source, I must say it's absolutely impressive how much wrong it is compared to the normal post.

Let's give some credit where credit is due.  You (AdamFitzgerald) at least acknowledges that Wilson has a "pacifist, but pro-Allies, policy".  However, while this does recognize the basic fact that said policy was indeed biased, I question the bias of someone who uses "pacifist" instead of "neutral" in regards to World War I.  A foreign policy is not by any means "pacifist" if it includes such blatant favoritism towards any side during such a violent conflict.  Then again, I think it would be even dishonest to categorize it as "neutral", even though that is what the establishment media sold it as at the time.

I could go on and on about the sham neutrality referenced by Ernest, but that's a topic for another day.  There is plenty of debatable points that could be made on both sides and I don't really consider the biased position of the aforementioned poster to be that shameful of an aberration of history to comment at length about.  Though I disagree, fundamentally, on what he views as the facts of the matter this is an issue that could be viewed in many different ways and I shall respect his opinion on it and will address it later as need be or demanded by another poster.  Unfortunately the character length is 11000 characters, so I will condense as need be.

What I can't put up with, what I can't respect, what is really grinding my gears is the utter insanity that is the rest of his post which seems to blame the victims of the Wilson regime for his problems.  That the victims of his repressive borderline tyrannical second term just hated him for no reason and that Wilson and crew did little to deserve such resentment.  German Americans were subjected to a period of intense discrimination and bigotry that warmongers, prohibitionists, and a wide assortment of other "noble" characters waged against an entire culture of America that included Prohibition, job discrimination, language restrictions in education, and again a wide variety of other prejudices.  South and Eastern European minorities, demonized as wholesale blood thirsty communistic anarchists, saw draconian actions taken against them as well that was by no means discouraged by the enlightened progressive Woodrow Wilson.  What you, good sir have done, is no different from KKK members who say that blacks deserved segregation.

Also further, I need to address the hypocrisy of Wilson in pursuing pro-British foreign policy.  When Wilson got us into World War I he made a guarantee to the Irish American community that he would bring up Irish Independence at any possible post war conference.  Now I know this is hard to comprehend for many of you, given that American history is written for and by the people who have no interest in sharing the story of the Irish, but British rule in that country while it wasn't Nazi rule or even Imperial German rule (who waged a number of genocides against African tribes), it was far from the enlightened freedomdonia that many Brittitania wonkers want you to believe.  British rule, up to the early 20th century, disenfranchised large portions of the native Irish population (especially unlanded Catholics) to the point that most political decisions made in Ireland were that on the whims of a small Anglican elite (some Irish, some English) that had every reason to support policies that further filled their coffers off of the labor of the poor and the oppressed of that country.  I do not see how anybody who claims to have a solid ideological ground based in social justice or equality or democracy could find a moral superiority to lending arms to a British Empire that enabled such a society to arise in Ireland that should go against any decent American sense of liberty and fairness.
And of course, this is without touching on the massive amounts of other injustices the British committed around the world at the time.  Hell, at least some of the Irish did have voting rights and they were recognized as British citizens.  You could not say the same about Africans or Indians, who did not enjoy any sort of real democracy rights or a say in how they were represented in the colonies.  That Wilson was so in favor of such an Empire while lamenting the horribleness of German Empire (which granted, was pretty goddamn awful) shows that he has a certain failure of morals in regards to his consistency of standing up for the oppressed and small nations of the world.  There weren't just two sides to it, believe it or not there was a clear third option in this conflict, one that made the most sense.  And that was, simply, to stay the hell out of it!
The League of Nations, as most objective observers would say, was a good idea.  Unfortunately, due to the mental malaise of Wilson as well as the bias of the WINNING! Allied representatives, it really turned into little more than an arrangement where the losers had to give up everything while the winners lost nothing.  Oppressed nations were given freedom, as long as that didn't inconvenience Allied Imperialists.  So yes, very good and well meaning in theory, in practice though it was quite horrible (especially given the implications of the "responsibility" of nations to intervene in conflicts of other nations).

I do not hesitate when I say that Woodrow Wilson's anti-civil liberties (and civil rights, if you consider his re-segregating of the US Federal Government) record exceeds that of George W Bush by a country mile and that he rivals Richard Nixon in terms of the extremism of his paranoia.  This isn't some Koch brothers Murray Rothbard Lew Rockwellerite libertarian view to have, it's objective history.  All of this might've been excusable if he had operated like he had up to 1919, but the appointment of A. Mitchell Palmer as Attorney General easily makes Wilson one of the worst leaders in western history.  But of course, many other red avatars will recognize his paranoia, his racism, and his imperialistic hypocrisy regarding Britain as just minor negatives compared to OMG PASSING THE INCOME TAX AMENDMENT, DIRECT ELECTIONS OF SENATORS, AND FEDERAL RESERVE OMG!!!!!!!!  Despite the fact that, as the esteemed moderator who has also addressed this before countless times, we would've had those things if Roosevelt or even Taft was elected.  And while he did sign Women's Voting Rights, I should note that many of the Republican opposition also supported it and that Wilson was practically harassed into signing it.  I won't even get started on Prohibition, which I think even you (though this is somewhat doubtful, given your posting history) would've been opposed to.

But oh, how dare us!  Wilson was just a poor bullied man who was dealing with a lot of haters!

Two years from now you are going to realize how dumb your first post was, most likely.  Or you'll become Benconstine.

If anybody was unlucky, it wasn't Wilson, it was America.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

William O. Douglas.

The longest-serving Justice of the Supreme Court in American history actually considered his life a failure, because he never fulfilled his ambition of becoming President of the United States. In fact, up until almost his last decade on the bench, he was doing his best to get his dream job.

Back in late 1930s Douglas was already considered one of the top possibilities to be FDR's handpicked successor before he decided to run for third term. Douglas landed at the bench instead, thinking of this, for a long time, as a temporary job (ironic, considering he came to be one of the most influential Justices in history).

In 1944 he came within an inch of realizing his dream, when he was FDR's first preference for VP (and thus, would have become President in April 1945), but party bosses preferred Harry Truman.

In 1948, Truman actually offered him the vice presidential nomination, which Douglas refused, believing, as pretty much everyone else, Truman is going to lose. Probably a smart move, since I can't see Douglas having much chance at getting elected in '52. Before that, there's been a short-lived "draft Douglas" movement and the Justice himself briefly campaigned for the nod.

In 1960, he offered to resign from the Court to campaign for his friend LBJ hoping, that he would become his running-mate and possibly a successor.

In 1964 he once again had a very longshot hope of being Johnson's VP. When nothing came of this, he finally resigned himself.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Another unlucky example from the Supreme Court is Arthur Goldberg.

Tapped in 1962 for the bench by JFK, under whom he served as Secretary of Labor, Goldberg could have his seat for a long time (considering he died in 1990), but his tenure turned out to be brief, less than three years. In 1965, he was preassured by LBJ to step down in order to become Ambassador to the United Nations. Of course, LBJ wanted to have a seat open for his close friend Abe Fortas. (Interestingly, he forced another seat's opening in 1967, this time for Thurgood Marshall. He maneuvered Justice Tom Clark to retire by naming his son, Ramsey, as AG).

There was a golden opportunity in his sacrifice, as Johnson promised Goldberg to support him for President if he successfully negotiated an end to the Vietnam War. Though a very able Ambassador, Goldbert failed to do so and resigned in 1968, ending his presidential prospect.

He got another political chance in 1970, when nominated for Governor of New York against weakened Nelson Rockefeller. Despite being a frontrunner, he lost the election.


There's a third example of unfulfilled presidential prospects from the bench, Hugo Black, as he dreamed of being FDR's successor, though Hugo came to enjoy his new job quickly.

[Lincoln Republican]

Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War under James Garfield.

Robert Todd was 21 when his father was assassinated.

1881, only four months after becoming Secretary of War in the Garfield cabinet, Garfield invited Lincoln to go with him for a Presidential visit to New Jersey.  Before boarding the train, Garfield was shot,  with Lincoln there, and Garfield died shortly afterwards.

1901, in Buffalo, New York, Lincoln was invited to a meeting  by President William McKinley, where McKinley was shot and died a few days later.  Lincoln  was in the room at the time of the shooting.

Lincoln turned down all future Presidential invitations.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

What about Herbert Hoover?

[Fuzzy Says: "Abolish NPR!"]

Stephen A. Douglas would likely have been elected President if the Democratic Party hadn't split in two, and if John Bell hadn't run as a 3rd party candidate.  Douglas finished 2nd in the popular vote, but 4th in the electoral college, carrying only Missouri and (for reasons I don't understand) receiving 3 of New Jersey's 4 electoral votes.  He was gracious in defeat, and he may well have gone on to have been a conciliatory figure (possibly Lincoln's running mate in 1864 on the Party of the Union if the issue of the state of Lincoln's residence could have been resolved), but he died of typhoid fever in 1861.