Who ran a worse campaign Hillary Clinton or George Mcgovern

[Da2017]

Losing to a buffoon is embarrassing. McGovern lost to a seasoned politician.

[CapoteMonster]

Hillary. McGovern had a lot more things beyond his control that hampered him. Thomas Eagleton's illness and the party leadership sabotaging him at the convention cost him at least 7-10 points in the popular vote.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Clinton.

Losing when you had limited support from within your own party, a VP fiasco, were going against a popular incumbent, had to fight a narrative that you were an extremist is not the same as losing when you were all but coronated into the position.

[This account no longer in use.]

Hillary. McGovern had a lot more things beyond his control that hampered him. Thomas Eagleton's death and the party leadership sabotaging him at the convention cost him at least 7-10 points in the popular vote.

Eagleton didn't die until 35 years after the election.

Anyways, McGovern had the Eagleton incident, Nixon's manipulation, having to oppose Nixon in the first place, and a lack of support from his party weighing down his campaign. There was no reason Clinton should have lost.

[Technocracy Timmy]

There was no reason Clinton should have lost.

The fundamentals were there for a GOP victory in 2016. The Democrats were able to keep the election itself close because the GOP nominated a man with sky high unfavorables.

[uti2]

There was no reason Clinton should have lost.

The fundamentals were there for a GOP victory in 2016. The Democrats were able to keep the election itself close because the GOP nominated a man with sky high unfavorables.

Her unfavorables were also about on par with Jeb and Cruz, of course, coincidentally, those were the 3 candidates with the most media exposure on the GOP side.....

You also need to remember that conventionally the VP is nominated following the incumbent, do you see Biden having any trouble? If anything, there was a special situation (with the DNC/Obama's assistance) that allowed Hillary to capture the nomination.

Is this about that cycle theory? I.E. Wilson/Nixon -> FDR/Reagan? To be honest, Bill has a lot of parallels with Nixon. Bill, Nixon, Wilson were all elected when the coalitions of the dominant opposition parties imploded and third parties were formed to reflect those coalition break-ups. TR, Wallace and Perot.

On the other hand, FDR, Reagan and Obama were all elected during economic crises and during periods of political polarization where the parties had all unified around their respective candidates.

[Technocracy Timmy]

There was no reason Clinton should have lost.

The fundamentals were there for a GOP victory in 2016. The Democrats were able to keep the election itself close because the GOP nominated a man with sky high unfavorables.

Her unfavorables were also about on par with Jeb and Cruz, of course, coincidentally, those were the 3 candidates with the most media exposure on the GOP side.....

You also need to remember that conventionally the VP is nominated following the incumbent, do you see Biden having any trouble? If anything, there was a special situation (with the DNC/Obama's assistance) that allowed Hillary to capture the nomination.

Is this about that cycle theory? I.E. Wilson/Nixon -> FDR/Reagan? To be honest, Bill has a lot of parallels with Nixon. Bill, Nixon, Wilson were all elected when the coalitions of the dominant opposition parties imploded and third parties were formed to reflect those coalition break-ups. TR, Wallace and Perot.

On the other hand, FDR, Reagan and Obama were all elected during economic crises and during periods of political polarization where the parties had all unified around their respective candidates.

I was referring to the fact that we had had 8 years of one Party in the White House and also because every close election since 1980 has been won out by the Republican candidate. Even Obama was neck and neck with McCain in 2008 until the financial crisis hit. This is because we're still living in a Reagan alignment and that coalition will continue to edge out close victories for the GOP until there's a Democratic realignment.

Barack Obama quite possibly had the potential to be a transformative figure in the same vein as Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but whether by circumstances beyond his control or his own decisions, he wasn't. Those two Presidents completely reconfigured the macroeconomy in a way that Obama did not and possibly could not (we decided to bail out the system rather than reconfigure it). Reagan and Roosevelt forced the opposition Party to moderate in order to compete in their new respective eras, both men saw their Vice Presidents succeed them, and both men created a new way of thinking about politics and the economy. Obama did not accomplish any of those things and should therefore be characterized more as a Wilson/Nixon figure.

The next Democratic President will be the one to successfully reconfigure our macroeconomy and be that transformative President. The macroeconomic underpinnings that helped to cause the Great Recession and other economic side effects have gone mostly unaddressed. These underpinnings date all the way back to the 80's when the GOP had configured their neoliberal economic agenda and that hasn't shifted by and large since. And it's that agenda which will be completely unable to fix these economic problems. The next Democratic President who prioritizes a different kind of agenda than the neoliberal consensus to address and fix these macroeconomic problems (not just bailing out the system) will be the transformative president.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

I think I compared Trump to Nixon once.  That was stupid, Nixon was probably one of the smartest Presidents we've had.

[uti2]

There was no reason Clinton should have lost.

The fundamentals were there for a GOP victory in 2016. The Democrats were able to keep the election itself close because the GOP nominated a man with sky high unfavorables.

Her unfavorables were also about on par with Jeb and Cruz, of course, coincidentally, those were the 3 candidates with the most media exposure on the GOP side.....

You also need to remember that conventionally the VP is nominated following the incumbent, do you see Biden having any trouble? If anything, there was a special situation (with the DNC/Obama's assistance) that allowed Hillary to capture the nomination.

Is this about that cycle theory? I.E. Wilson/Nixon -> FDR/Reagan? To be honest, Bill has a lot of parallels with Nixon. Bill, Nixon, Wilson were all elected when the coalitions of the dominant opposition parties imploded and third parties were formed to reflect those coalition break-ups. TR, Wallace and Perot.

On the other hand, FDR, Reagan and Obama were all elected during economic crises and during periods of political polarization where the parties had all unified around their respective candidates.

I was referring to the fact that we had had 8 years of one Party in the White House and also because every close election since 1980 has been won out by the Republican candidate. Even Obama was neck and neck with McCain in 2008 until the financial crisis hit. This is because we're still living in a Reagan alignment and that coalition will continue to edge out close victories for the GOP until there's a Democratic realignment.

Barack Obama quite possibly had the potential to be a transformative figure in the same vein as Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but whether by circumstances beyond his control or his own decisions, he wasn't. Those two Presidents completely reconfigured the macroeconomy in a way that Obama did not and possibly could not (we decided to bail out the system rather than reconfigure it). Reagan and Roosevelt forced the opposition Party to moderate in order to compete in their new respective eras, both men saw their Vice Presidents succeed them, and both men created a new way of thinking about politics and the economy. Obama did not accomplish any of those things and should therefore be characterized more as a Wilson/Nixon figure.

The next Democratic President will be the one to successfully reconfigure our macroeconomy and be that transformative President. The macroeconomic underpinnings that helped to cause the Great Recession and other economic side effects have gone mostly unaddressed. These underpinnings date all the way back to the 80's when the GOP had configured their neoliberal economic agenda and that hasn't shifted by and large since. And it's that agenda which will be completely unable to fix these economic problems. The next Democratic President who prioritizes a different kind of agenda than the neoliberal consensus to address and fix these macroeconomic problems (not just bailing out the system) will be the transformative president.

And the point is that FDR/Reagan/Obama were all able to win landslides precisely due to the economic crises that hit. The opposition under FDR didn't really moderate, they were just electorally disenfranchised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_coalition

They only formally stayed with the Dems until the GOP adopted Perot's platform with the 'Contract with America' agenda. This is actually a parallel to the way in which Wilson adopted TR's platform, and Nixon's adoption of the 'Southern Strategy' to court Wallace voters.

With FDR/Reagan/Obama, the party coalitions for those candidates were already ossified.

There's a book called 'Three's a Crowd' that delves into what happened r.e. Perot.

The authors of that book had a similar lesson for the current election cycle:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0817-rapoport-stone-trump-perot-20150817-story.html

Basically, the suggestion was that following the 2016 GOP loss, as a result of a split caused by the third-party effect - Trump would force the GOP into embracing more cultural conservatism/nationalism.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Barack Obama did not win in a landslide either year. He got less electoral votes than Bill Clinton did in 1996 and while he did win by 7 percentage points as a result of the financial crisis hitting at the right time, that margin was promptly cut in half by 2012. Reagan won a slim majority of the electorate in 1980 but proceeded to win by a crushing 18 point popular vote margin in his reelection bid.

Reagan and Roosevelt both improved considerably in their reelection bids. FDR did eventually force the opposition Party to moderate in order to surivive (see Eisenhower campaigning explicitly on a platform to protect the New Deal). Until they decided to moderate, the GOP didn't get a trifecta back. Furthermore, Reagan got most of his agenda passed working with Democrats since Tip O'Neill was smart enough to recognize that the political atmosphere had changed and adapted accordingly.

Obama has literally zero signs of being anything of a transformative or realigning President. His party got hit hard in the midterms (and unlike the Democrats under Reagan, the GOP refused to work with Obama and weren't punished by the electorate the way the GOP in the 30's were), the GOP didn't moderate at the congressional or state level to win back seats (if anything the Tea Party suggests they actually moved further right), he wasn't succeeded by a member of his own Party when he left office, his reelection bid saw his margin cut in half (unlike not only Roosevelt and Reagan, but also Bush II, Clinton, Nixon, Eisenhower, etc.)

Honestly this theory falls flat because Obama is not like Roosevelt or Reagan in his affect of American politics. At best he'll be a foreshadowing figure to the next transformative Democratic President the way Wilson was to Roosevelt or Nixon was to Reagan.

[uti2]

Barack Obama did not win in a landslide either year. He got less electoral votes than Bill Clinton did in 1996 and while he did win by 7 percentage points as a result of the financial crisis hitting at the right time, that margin was promptly cut in half by 2012. Reagan won a slim majority of the electorate in 1980 but proceeded to win by a crushing 18 point popular vote margin in his reelection bid.

Reagan and Roosevelt both improved considerably in their reelection bids. FDR did eventually force the opposition Party to moderate in order to surivive (see Eisenhower campaigning explicitly on a platform to protect the New Deal). Until they decided to moderate, the GOP didn't get a trifecta back. Furthermore, Reagan got most of his agenda passed working with Democrats since Tip O'Neill was smart enough to recognize that the political atmosphere had changed and adapted accordingly.

Obama has literally zero signs of being anything of a transformative or realigning President. His party got hit hard in the midterms (and unlike the Democrats under Reagan, the GOP refused to work with Obama and weren't punished by the electorate the way the GOP in the 30's were), the GOP didn't moderate at the congressional or state level to win back seats (if anything the Tea Party suggests they actually moved further right), he wasn't succeeded by a member of his own Party when he left office, his reelection bid saw his margin cut in half (unlike not only Roosevelt and Reagan, but also Bush II, Clinton, Nixon, Eisenhower, etc.)

Honestly this theory falls flat because Obama is not like Roosevelt or Reagan in his affect of American politics. At best he'll be a foreshadowing figure to the next transformative Democratic President the way Wilson was to Roosevelt or Nixon was to Reagan.

Here's the problem with comparing Obama to Wilson and Nixon. Fundamentally, the process by which Obama was initially brought into power is actually very similar to how FDR and Reagan came into power. Through unified party support, and the opposing party having to deal with an economic crisis. The processes by which Nixon and Wilson were brought into power were based on completely different dynamics. If not for TR, Taft would've won his reelection. Nixon and Clinton also won based on their opposition party coalitions imploding, with Wallace and Perot.

How do you reconcile those circumstances?

[Mr. Smith]

McGovern.

Clinton was pretty much in a Gerald Ford-esque situation, except instead of a pardon, the polarized electorate got huffy about emails. The whole of 2016 was pretty much in 1976 mode as soon as the clown car rolled out, possibly even as far back as 2014, which played out little differently from 1974 [even though once again, it shouldn't have].

People, especially Trumpists lurve them some persecution complex regarding the media, but they forget that the media didn't like Hillary either. It was pretty much a no-win situation of "well she sucks, but at least she's competent."

The polarized electorate clamoring for something were going to give ANY candidate at least 45%, and Trump got just above that and still lost the vote by 3 million.



Whereas McGovern could've lost by 9 points, if he didn't seriously f&*( up the Eagleton thing and maybe did a 50 state campaign.


I do think it can be agreed that both were better than Dukakis, who blew a 17+ lead.

[Technocracy Timmy]

How these men got to power isn't anywhere near as important as to what they actually did in the office, how the electorate responded to their policies while in office, and what their lasting impact was when leaving office. The answers to these three questions with Obama also show why the fundamentals in place pointed to a GOP victory in 2016.

Obama, by and large, tried to break the Reagan era consensus when he entered office but learned two years in that the American electorate wasn't ready for any kind of revolutionary change and a strong backlash proceeded from 2010-2016. The Reagan era has not run its course. Similarly, Nixon kowtowed to the FDR New Deal economic consensus while President and didn't enact the sweeping tax and regulatory reform that we saw with Reagan. Wilson's actions as President when it came to economic issues also paled in comparison to the New Deal reforms of the 30's and massive military buildup during WWII. All three men operated as Presidents who either accepted (or were forced to accept) their respective era's consensus. The electorate did not respond positively to when any of these Presidents tried to buck the longstanding political era that Americans had grown accustomed to.

This is best represented with Barack Obama who actively tried to push back against the 40th President's influence and while his charisma and superb campaigning talents saved himself in 2012, the period of 2010-2016 is pretty devastating for Democrats at the federal, state, and local level. His signature accomplishment of Obamacare isn't radical in the nature of this era at all: it kept the private market entirely in place with no public competition and was a carry over in many ways from past GOP plans going back to Nixon-Grassley/Gringrich-Heritage Foundation. And since it's become an entitlement program, it will largely stay in place because it's notoriously difficult to cut entitlement and large scale social programs that people actively rely on. You can see how revolutionary Ronald Reagan's tax and regulatory reform was at the time but he was also unable do away with entitlement and social programs beyond small cuts. For the rest of Obama's term, he was forced to operate under the confines of largely what the GOP wanted. Fiscal discipline with the sequestration, taxes kept at or below Clinton levels, etc. Beyond that, they were rewarded electorally for their obstruction of the President.

As I've stated earlier, Obama's impact is sorely lacking when put next to Reagan or Roosevelt. Like Nixon, and Wilson, Obama will be remembered not as a transformative President, but as a President who will foreshadow the next political era but who was ultimately confined by both the electorate and the political era he sought to change. That, and being the first African American president.

[uti2]

How these men got to power isn't anywhere near as important as to what they actually did in the office, how the electorate responded to their policies while in office, and what their lasting impact was when leaving office. The answers to these three questions with Obama also show why the fundamentals in place pointed to a GOP victory in 2016.

Obama, by and large, tried to break the Reagan era consensus when he entered office but learned two years in that the American electorate wasn't ready for any kind of revolutionary change and a strong backlash proceeded from 2010-2016. The Reagan era has not run its course. Similarly, Nixon kowtowed to the FDR New Deal economic consensus while President and didn't enact the sweeping tax and regulatory reform that we saw with Reagan. Wilson's actions as President when it came to economic issues also paled in comparison to the New Deal reforms of the 30's and massive military buildup during WWII. All three men operated as Presidents who either accepted (or were forced to accept) their respective era's consensus. The electorate did not respond positively to when any of these Presidents tried to buck the longstanding political era that Americans had grown accustomed to.

This is best represented with Barack Obama who actively tried to push back against the 40th President's influence and while his charisma and superb campaigning talents saved himself in 2012, the period of 2010-2016 is pretty devastating for Democrats at the federal, state, and local level. His signature accomplishment of Obamacare isn't radical in the nature of this era at all: it kept the private market entirely in place with no public competition and was a carry over in many ways from past GOP plans going back to Nixon-Grassley/Gringrich-Heritage Foundation. And since it's become an entitlement program, it will largely stay in place because it's notoriously difficult to cut entitlement and large scale social programs that people actively rely on. You can see how revolutionary Ronald Reagan's tax and regulatory reform was at the time but he was also unable do away with entitlement and social programs beyond small cuts. For the rest of Obama's term, he was forced to operate under the confines of largely what the GOP wanted. Fiscal discipline with the sequestration, taxes kept at or below Clinton levels, etc. Beyond that, they were rewarded electorally for their obstruction of the President.

As I've stated earlier, Obama's impact is sorely lacking when put next to Reagan or Roosevelt. Like Nixon, and Wilson, Obama will be remembered not as a transformative President, but as a President who will foreshadow the next political era but who was ultimately confined by both the electorate and the political era he sought to change. That, and being the first African American president.

This is one version of the cycle theory, but there can be another one, based on the third party activity.  Third party activity would act as a barometer to determine the mood of the electorate.

If you even want to go back to the 19th century, you had Tilden in 1876 who only conceded the election upon the Republican agreement that reconstruction would end. This was an issue that ultimately went back to 1860, and the resolution to the defining issue that caused the implosion of the Democratic party coalition in 1860.

FDR implemented an era of progressive politics, this was a resolution to Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 conflict.

Reagan implemented the Southern Strategy and fulfilled Dixecrat demands for 'law & order' and the drug war, and implemented a more aggressive foreign policy.

So, going by that logic, Obama and his successor should've been the fulfillment of Perot's agenda, which would've been based on Perot-style centrism.

[Technocracy Timmy]

With the exception of TR's influence on FDR, those other two examples don't have much influence. Reagan never actually rolled back on desegregation to the extent Wallace wanted and instead pursued a policy in regards to civil rights issues, the drug war, and foreign policy that was very similar to Nixon's approach. Donald Trump cares nothing about the federal debt (and is likely to make it worse) which was one of Perot's signature campaign issues. In regards to trade, Trump did kill a trade deal that was unlikely to pass anyhow (and was likely more of a slight towards Obama if anything) but he's by and large governing like a standard Reagan Republican which is why even Mitch McConnell openly admitted that President Trump has essentially become a President Jeb Bush.

Also that cycle isn't coherent since the beneficiary Party isn't always the one to adapt said policies down the line:

1912: Third Party revolt benefits Democrat Wilson and later becomes Democrat FDR's policies. Works out.
1968: Third Party revolt benefits Republican Nixon and later becomes Republican Reagan's policies. Works out. (Although not entirely since Reagan's civil rights, drug war efforts, and foreign policy were more akin to Nixon than Wallace).
1992: Third Party revolt benefits Democrat Clinton (which it didn't-Perot drew from both Parties fairly equally by most accounts) and later becomes...Republican Trump's policies?) Here it skipped over Obama who should've adopted the policies of Perot in office according to this theory...but largely didn't. The GOP were the ones who forced him to pursue fiscal discipline when it came to the budget to deal with the national debt, and he tried ramming through a free trade deal near the end.

[Technocracy Timmy]

I'll stop here since it appears I'm derailing the thread

But the reason for my belief in the presidential cycle theory of FDR/Reagan-Carter/Trump is because I think realignments occur in large part due to macroeconomic trends. I explain a lot of my reasoning for this in detail here.

[Tekken_Guy]

Clinton. Her entire campaign was about attacking her opponent's character.

[Young Conservative]

Clearly Clinton, the worst major party nominee for President I have ever seen.

[Beet]

Clinton. Her entire campaign was about attacking her opponent's character.

So was Lyndon Johnson's 1964 campaign.

[libertpaulian]

Clinton. Her entire campaign was about attacking her opponent's character.

So was Lyndon Johnson's 1964 campaign.

The nation was still in mourning over JFK.  LBJ got some sympathy votes.

[Liberalrocks]

McGovern, a disaster convention and he never properly vetted his first VP pick Eagleton and had to replace him after huge controversy. A normal expected loss turned into a massive landslide.

[Alabama_Indy10]

Hillary, hands down. McGovern had to deal with many problems outside of his control (little support from party, VP fiasco). And he also faced an extremely talented opponent in Dick Nixon. Hillary completely abandoned working class America, believing she could win places like Wisconsin and Michigan because of the letter after her name. She instead tried to run up the score in places like Arizona, Georgia, NC. And while McGovern faced a seasoned politician. Hillary Clinton literally lost to a man stunnered by Stone Cold Steve Austin.

[Mr. Smith]

Clinton. Her entire campaign was about attacking her opponent's character.

So was Lyndon Johnson's 1964 campaign.

Uh no.

Bush '88 was though and he managed an 8 point win from a 17 point loss on it [not entirely though, Dukakis definitely screwed a few big things up arguably for this he is worse than EITHER options here]

[Nym90]

Well they were certainly both greatly harmed by their campaign headquarters/internal documents being hacked, so it's an apt comparison. The difference being that McGovern still would have lost anyway without Watergate. He probably would have done about as well as Mondale did in the popular vote at least, and maybe won one or two more states (Rhode Island, Minnesota). Whereas Clinton, in a world where Vladimir Putin chooses to do nothing to influence the election, wins at least Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and probably also Florida, and possibly North Carolina and Arizona.

[Alabama_Indy10]

Well they were certainly both greatly harmed by their campaign headquarters/internal documents being hacked, so it's an apt comparison. The difference being that McGovern still would have lost anyway without Watergate. He probably would have done about as well as Mondale did in the popular vote at least, and maybe won one or two more states (Rhode Island, Minnesota). Whereas Clinton, in a world where Vladimir Putin chooses to do nothing to influence the election, wins at least Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and probably also Florida, and possibly North Carolina and Arizona.

Lol. Of course it isn't Hillary's fault