Dukakis. I know it's the unpopular answer, but Dukakis had a much better environment to win in than she did. The eight year curse should have prevented Bush from winning just as it prevented Clinton in 2016.
Differences between 1988 and 2016:
- The country was in better shape in 1988 than in 2016
- Reagan was more popular than Obama
- The 1980s were one of the last polarizing decades ever
- Nope, about the same actually, the only difference is that Dukakis wasn't willing to go the MAGA route and point out the troubles in rural areas as Trump did. He should've won West Virginia by Trump's margins, flipped the Dakotas, Montana, California, Pennsylvania, Missouri, New Mexico, Illinois, and Maryland given those optics. Even Mondale had more guts on that, which is precisely why the Midwest, Northeast, and
even California by a smidge moved left in 1984. Makes it both very depressing and wrenching at the naivety of Miracle Mike for not going hard. Hillary and Gore both did, and were only denied the benefits at the last second by outside Republicans [Comey or the SCOTUS Justices respectively].
- They were about tied towards the end sure you could argue [I often have] that Obama's boost was more artificial...but all the same, neither were as popular as Bill was at the tip end of term. And yet, Bush pushed through, Gore and Hillary didn't. Conversely, LBJ's approvals were in the dumps, but Humphrey almost made it.
- The 80's were obviously a reawakening of the polarizing trend borne of The Civil Rights Movement, which Watergate briefly tamped down. If the decade appears less so, that's just a greater condemnation of the trend afterwards...I mean "liberal" wasn't an acceptable outright insult until the 80's.
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