Talk Elections

Examples I can think of are Lewis Cass, Horace Greeley, Benjamin Harrison (1892), Alton Parker, William Howard Taft (1912), John Davis, Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, Hubert Humphrey, and George H.W. Bush (1992).  All of these are debatable (Davis, Landon, and Willkie are the most obvious), several were harmed by third party candidates, and most occured during large shifts in the composition of their party's "base," where one faction was directly opposed to the other.  H.W. is also the only recent one.  Is pissing off the "base" overrated?

McCain?

It's possible, but conventional wisdom is that Palin counteracted that.

I think Palin rallied the base, but she turned out to be a net-negative because independents and moderates were turned off by her.

Well yes, but this isn't what the thread is about.

I'd personally say that the only election that was very likely lost due to avoidable irritation of the base was 1940.

Nah. "NObama" was a sufficient reason to motivate the GOP base at that time.

You could say Al Smith, given that he certainly didn't appeal to the Democratic base (southern whites), and only won the Deep South "yellow dog" states.

Not really, since he was incredibly exciting to the larger component of the Democratic base (Catholics and immigrants).  Saying Al Smith didn't excite the base would be like saying George McGovern and Barry Goldwater didn't because they alienated labor and WASPs.

It depends how you define the base, because due to the nature of the US most candidates alienate and excite different sections of the base.

Who do you consider the base to be for 1940?  Is there another candidate who could have done better?

The two front-runners for the nomination, Robert Taft and Thomas Dewey (then an isolationist) would've both done far better than Willkie.  The base were the isolationist Midwestern conservatives.  In 1940, FDR had completely worn out his welcome with the 1938 recession, the court-packing attempt, running for an unprecedented third term, and trying to involve the US in World War II.  He was quite unpopular at the start of the campaign.  It was looking like isolationist Catholics would break strongly to the Republicans (they actually *did,* just not as strongly as they might've).  Nominating Willkie, a foreign policy interventionist who wasn't willing to strongly criticize Roosevelt's policies and who played into the Democrats' populist narrative of the Republicans being controlled by rich people (he being a wealthy utility executive), the GOP successfully and spectacularly threw an election that should've been theirs for the taking.

Barry Goldwater alienated WASPs? What do you think Orange County was at the time? :P

Northeastern WASPs obviously.

Jimmy Carter 1980 and Al Gore 2000.

H.W. Bush 1992, Dole 1996, Kerry 2004 and McCain 2008.

No I think the Dem Base liked Gore at the time. I think that was before the Dems moved really to the left on economic issues when Pelosi became House Minority Leader in 2003.

Gore had serious problems with large parts of the base in 2000, as illustrated by how well Nader did in college towns, on the West Coast, and in the Upper Midwest. It was almost certainly enough to swing a very close election, and it forced Gore to spend time and resources in states that should have been safe. Remember that back then Gore was seen as a much more moderate, centrist figure.

Yeah but Gore lost "centrist" political states though like Arkansas(back when it was competitive for the D's), Florida, Ohio, and West Virginia(also competitive for the D's back then.) Ok I'll give he lost Colorado another "centrist" state but it did have a big university town in "Boulder" like you said.

Mitt Romney or Barack Obama

The theme of 2000 election campaign coverage was Gore's problem with the base, but then he won on Election Day, surprising everyone, on high Dem turnout and GOTV.

Bush Sr suffered of course in retrospect, with his "no new taxes pledge"..........But it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I would think that a political scientist could answer the "Is it better to appeal to the center or the base?" question by looking at Senate or Gubernatorial elections.

Presidential elections are just too small a sample set.