What really happened in 1980

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

As opposed to Romney's platitudes? or the few details he has given... suggest a deeply contradictory agenda neither side of which he can afford. He tries to implement the Ryan Budget or even a watered-down version of it, he'll get massacred electorally... if he doesn't the bat-s**t wing will primary him in 2016.

I don't call him George H. W. Bush 2.0 for nothing...


I read the book of one of Carter's campaign strategists and what she says is that Carter was ahead, largely due to the very fractious GOP primary. Kennedy then started to make life difficult for him. The surge after the DNC was due to Carter getting Kennedy out of the way and Kennedy endorsing him. Reagan also got the surge for similar reasons.

I'm not going by the public polls, I'm going by the internal tracking the book spoke about. It says, but I am paraphrasing, at BEST, post-DNC, Carter was never better than within the margin of error against Reagan. His best numbers actually came 2-3 days before the Oct 28 debate. I put that down to incumbency, despite all the issues made of where the undecideds go, Carter was getting a late surge of undecided voters, which they put down to Reagan not entirely convincing them and Carter already being there. The power of incumbency is not to be underestimated and the onus is on the challenger to make the case...

Then the debate happened and the even tracking the campaign had saw it blow out to a 7 point Reagan lead in two days.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yes, but in that time, the convention still held time to be more than just a coronation.

I would say a 3% Carter lead would be within the MoE... that time was Carter's best post DNC polling period in the internals too. Considering Carter refused to debate both Reagan and Anderson, it wasn't until October 28 that Carter and Reagan actually faced off.... Carter failed, Reagan looked presidential... and the rest is history.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

When will people learn that history seldom repeats itself? The muses never have writer's block and never jump the shark. Some lessons of history mimic one another but they never repeat.

Some people need to find 'patterns'....