Food for thought: A Northeast liberal hasn't been elected President since 1960

[elcorazon]

This is a monumentally useless observation. When was the last time the nation elected a conservative from the Midwest or the Deep South? A liberal from the West Coast? Anyone at all from the Interior West?

yea. dumb thread

[RI]

These types of "facts" are beyond meaningless.

[they don't love you like i love you]

This is one of those things that can't really be relied on meaning much of anything, much like how we heard before Obama that no sitting Senator has been elected President since JFK as well.

[Orser67]

This question got me interested in how the different regions have done. Turns out the South has been dominant. Since 1945:

South: 7 victories (LBJ, Carter, Bush I, B. Clinton 2x, Bush II 2x), 3 losses (Carter, Bush, Gore)
West: 4 victories (Nixon 2x, Reagan 2x), 3 losses (Nixon, Goldwater, McCain)
Midwest: 5 victories (Truman, Eisenhower 2x, Obama 2x), 7 losses (Stevenson 2x, Humphrey, McGovern, Ford, Mondale, Dole)
Northeast: 2 victories (JFK and Trump), 5 losses (H. Clinton, Romney, Kerry, Dukakis, Dewey)

Moral of the story is, don't nominate someone from the Northeast, especially not from MA (I'm mostly joking, but it is interesting how poorly candidates from that state have done since JFK).

In fact, there hasn't been a nominee from PA since the last President to come from there, James Buchanan in 1856! (DDE considered Abilene, Kansas his hometown but they had the farm in Gettysburg.)

Winfield Scott Hancock (1880 Democratic nominee) was from PA, but I agree that the lack of Pennsylvania presidential candidates is odd.

[Barack Oganja]

Now this is the kind of analysis I was looking for

This question got me interested in how the different regions have done. Turns out the South has been dominant. Since 1945:

South: 7 victories (LBJ, Carter, Bush I, B. Clinton 2x, Bush II 2x), 3 losses (Carter, Bush, Gore)
West: 4 victories (Nixon 2x, Reagan 2x), 3 losses (Nixon, Goldwater, McCain)
Midwest: 5 victories (Truman, Eisenhower 2x, Obama 2x), 7 losses (Stevenson 2x, Humphrey, McGovern, Ford, Mondale, Dole)
Northeast: 2 victories (JFK and Trump), 5 losses (H. Clinton, Romney, Kerry, Dukakis, Dewey)

Moral of the story is, don't nominate someone from the Northeast, especially not from MA (I'm mostly joking, but it is interesting how poorly candidates from that state have done since JFK).

In fact, there hasn't been a nominee from PA since the last President to come from there, James Buchanan in 1856! (DDE considered Abilene, Kansas his hometown but they had the farm in Gettysburg.)

Winfield Scott Hancock (1880 Democratic nominee) was from PA, but I agree that the lack of Pennsylvania presidential candidates is odd.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I never really considered JFK a liberal but a moderate who threw out some liberal shop talk because of which party he was in.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

I never really considered JFK a liberal but a moderate who threw out some liberal shop talk because of which party he was in.

LOL what? JFK himself said that he was a "proud liberal". Moderate, where?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I never really considered JFK a liberal but a moderate who threw out some liberal shop talk because of which party he was in.

LOL what? JFK himself said that he was a "proud liberal". Moderate, where?

Of course he did, he needed to get the votes of liberals. And your claim about Reagan is beside the point. What does it mean? You might as well say we have no Republican presidents from Texas.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

I never really considered JFK a liberal but a moderate who threw out some liberal shop talk because of which party he was in.

LOL what? JFK himself said that he was a "proud liberal". Moderate, where?

Of course he did, he needed to get the votes of liberals. And your claim about Reagan is beside the point. What does it mean?

JFK was a liberal, that's not up for debate.

Also, I was just being technical when it came to Reagan. #DealWithIt.

[pbrower2a]

Defining the Northeast as states north and east of the Potomac...

electoral votes in the Northeast in 1960: 145.

electoral votes in the Northeast in 2016: 112.

This powerfully illustrates the decline of the influence of the Northeast in American politics and even cultural influence.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I never really considered JFK a liberal but a moderate who threw out some liberal shop talk because of which party he was in.

LOL what? JFK himself said that he was a "proud liberal". Moderate, where?

Of course he did, he needed to get the votes of liberals.

JFK was a liberal, that's not up for debate.

He certainly wasn't the most liberal contender for the nomination and he governed as a moderate. To say JFK wasn't a moderate is to basically deny that there is any such thing as a moderate in U.S. politics.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

There is such a small sample size involved that drawing a conclusion isn't really helpful.

[Mister Mets]

What's really weird is that since 1960, there have been four nominees from Massachusetts (Kennedy, Dukakis, Kerry, Romney), which is a smaller state than a lot of the big ones, and NONE from Pennsylvania or Ohio.  In fact, there hasn't been a nominee from PA since the last President to come from there, James Buchanan in 1856! (DDE considered Abilene, Kansas his hometown but they had the farm in Gettysburg.)

Florida, despite becoming more important in national politics, has not had any politicians from that state chosen as nominees either.

Part of it could be luck (same way we've ended up with three Presidents born in 1946.)

The New Hampshire primary does reward candidates from Massachusetts. Tsongas won his in 1992.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Good.