Unusual Presidential Elections

[zorkpolitics]

There were clearly multiple reasons:
1) McGovern was too radical/liberal for the times
2) He made a huge mistake by selecting Tom Eagleton as his VP, then discovered he had gone through electroshock, said he'd stand behind him 1000%, then dumped him a few days later.
3) proposed massive social spending programs that would have required tax increases.

I was a student in Boston then and spent election day getting voters to the polls in Maine, I remember the shock of the election being called for Nixon almost immediately after the polls closed in the east.

Now why did MA go for McGovern?  The Liberal Kenedy legacy, in those days when canvassing door to door it was incredably common to go into any blue collar home and see two pictures side by side: Jesus and JFK.  Moreover the 200,000 studnts in Boston plus the 80 colleges bring an additonal liberal edge to the state.  MA remains highly democratic it had the third highest Gore margin in 2000 (after DC and RI)

[zorkpolitics]

Two comments on 1948
1) When Truman proposed Civil Rights it was an incredibly anti-political move, a Gallop Poll after his announcement of support for a comprehensive Civil Rights Legislation was opposed by 91% of the American Public, that included nearly 50% of the minority population!
2)  Truman won by running a campaign of exaggeration verging on demagoguery.  He painted Dewey as anti-working man, anti-farmer, anti-elderly, anti-New deal, and pro-rich fat cats,  when in fact Dewey was a liberal Republican.  Dewey refused to partake of this "class warfare" preferring to promise to improve the economy to benefit everyone.  Truman's fiery attacks (shall we say Dean-like?) hit a responsive nerve leading to his victory.  Though he won by  2 million votes, a shift of 12,000 votes in CA and OH would have thrown the election into the House.

See Truman -- by David McCullough