How did Gore not win comfortably?

[Mr. Morden]

One thing you have to keep in mind is that there actually isn't that much evidence that an incumbent's popularity / unpopularity transfers over *that much* to the chosen successor within his own party.  Eisenhower was pretty popular in 1960, but JFK still beat Nixon, LBJ was pretty unpopular in 1968, but Nixon only just barely beat Humphrey, Bush and Gore basically fought to a draw in 2000, despite Clinton being fairly popular, Obama beat McCain by "only" 7 points, despite historically low job approval ratings for Bush.

Bottom line, the voters don't necessarily all see the incumbent party nominee as being a potential "third term" for the incumbent president.  Elections with no incumbent president running always seem to be closer than you would "expect" if the voters actually thought that way.

[Mr. Morden]

One thing you have to keep in mind is that there actually isn't that much evidence that an incumbent's popularity / unpopularity transfers over *that much* to the chosen successor within his own party.  Eisenhower was pretty popular in 1960, but JFK still beat Nixon, LBJ was pretty unpopular in 1968, but Nixon only just barely beat Humphrey, Bush and Gore basically fought to a draw in 2000, despite Clinton being fairly popular, Obama beat McCain by "only" 7 points, despite historically low job approval ratings for Bush.

Bottom line, the voters don't necessarily all see the incumbent party nominee as being a potential "third term" for the incumbent president.  Elections with no incumbent president running always seem to be closer than you would "expect" if the voters actually thought that way.

But look at every example you gave. Weren't we just getting over a recession in 1960? Things weren't that great. Things got closer in 1968 (despite LBJ's horrific ratings) because the war was starting to look a little better. By today's standards, a seven point win (even when you consider how terrible the President's ratings were) is about as big of a win as you can hope for running in an open race.

I'm not trying to say that Gore should have won by a bigger margin just because Clinton was still popular. Take a look at how things were economically. Take a look at how things were around the world.

Who says that the guy running to replace the incumbent president automatically gets credit or blame for everything that's going on around the world?  I agree that there's a correlation between the popularity of the *incumbent president himself* and what's going on around the world, but who says that that transfers over to his presumed successor?  Don't you first have to demonstrate that such a relationship exists, before I have to refute that it exists in any particular circumstance?

[Mr. Morden]

Who says that the guy running to replace the incumbent president automatically gets credit or blame for everything that's going on around the world?

Look at the results of elections like 1968, 1988 and 2008.

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Being the Vice President (as was the case in 1968 and 1988) for eight years isn't enough?

My point is that you're starting with the assumption that the rules for presidential elections with no incumbent are basically the same as the rules for presidential elections *with* an incumbent, and I question whether that's true.

In 2008, people were saying "Well yeah, Obama had a decent margin of victory, but, given how terribly unpopular Bush was, one might expect that the Democratic candidate would win by double digits."  In 2000, people said, "Why didn't Gore handily defeat Bush, given how popular Clinton was?"  In 1968 (I wasn't alive back then, so I don't know what people said, but let's suppose....) people might have said, "Wow, given how unpopular Johnson is, I wouldn't have expected this election to be so incredibly close."  In 1960, people might have said "Wow, given Ike's ~60% approval ratings, how the heck did JFK win?"

Those are statements that people might make if their assumption was that the popularity of the incumbent president or the popularity of the incumbent party is the main determinant of who wins the election.  But since this logic seems to fail in a substantial fraction of the elections with no incumbent president on the ballot, maybe the whole premise is flawed?  Maybe we shouldn't take things like the incumbent president's popularity of right track/wrong track numbers or what have you, and use that as the baseline expectation for who's going to win the election?  Maybe, when there's no incumbent on the ballot, the voters' perception of the candidates' personal qualities or the shrewdness of the campaigns or something like that should set our baseline expectations for the election, while voters' opinion as to how well things are going in the country are actually more of a secondary factor??

You might not think this is a logical way for the voters to operate.  I'm just suggesting, maybe it's more accurate than the more traditional paradigm.

[Mr. Morden]

Eisenhower's approval ratings on personality were practically through the roof. It was his job approval rating that was slowly but surely dropping.

But they were still in the 60% range on election day according to this:

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-presapp0605-31.html

[Mr. Morden]

Maybe we shouldn't take things like the incumbent president's popularity of right track/wrong track numbers or what have you, and use that as the baseline expectation for who's going to win the election?  Maybe, when there's no incumbent on the ballot, the voters' perception of the candidates' personal qualities or the shrewdness of the campaigns or something like that should set our baseline expectations for the election, while voters' opinion as to how well things are going in the country are actually more of a secondary factor??

But we're not just talking about the President's popularity; it's about the climate in the country. Feel free to criticize how much effect an incumbent President has during an open race but you can't just dismiss the fact that the late 90s and into 2000 were "the good times."

Wouldn't "the climate of the country" have more of an impact on the incumbent president's approval ratings than it would on the veep, or any potential successor?  That is, you can say "well things weren't actually all that good in 1960".  Really?  Then why was Ike so popular?  The president's job approval ratings seem to track a lot better with the mood of the country than does his potential successor's success at the polls.

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But here's the thing: There are only so many examples in history of a presidential election in which one of the major party candidates was the sitting vice president.  You can say "Well, the baseline assumption should be that if people are happy with the sitting president or the direction of the country or what have you, then the sitting veep will do really well.  If not, then he'll do poorly."  But then, you have counterexamples like 2000, so you have to construct new rules to account for the exceptions ("Well, OK, it doesn't work if people are *too* happy.  Then it can go the opposite way.")

Since there are so few such elections to consider to begin with, and you're already carving out exceptions, maybe the whole premise is wrong?  Maybe voters simply *don't* view elections without incumbent presidents running as a referendum on the direction of the country.  (Or rather, many of them do, but not nearly as many as is commonly believed.  I've kind of been exaggerating my own opinion on this a little for the sake of being provocative.)