# George McGovern, Walter Mondale or Hillary Clinton? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 30, 2017, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560 "2017-04-30T06:28:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/21 "2017-05-01T02:59:51Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > They were all fine candidates and infinitely superior to the pieces of crap that they lost to. \*\*Sometimes \*\*the voters are dumb shits. It happened in 1972, 1980, 1984, 2000, 2004, and 2016. When the six election outcomes that you list _equal_ the instances where voters \*weren’t \*“dumb shits” (1976, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012), it’s more than just “sometimes,” and maybe it’s the “non-dumb-shit” side that needs to reconsider its electoral strategy. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/22 "2017-05-01T03:03:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > So the person who _won_ the popular vote by close to 3,000,000 votes was a worse candidate than two guys who each _lost_ the popular vote by around 17,000,000 votes? > > Not seeing it, sorry. McGovern and Mondale were running against incumbent presidents, usually a tall political task. Hillary was running against someone who had never held public or military office. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/23 "2017-05-01T03:05:37Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I reject your terminology. The goodness or badnesss of a candidate is a measure of how good or bad he or she is for the position. Ergo, the worst candidates in 1972, 1984, and 2016, were Nixon, Reagan, and Trump, respectively. McGovern, Mondale, and Clinton would have made excellent presidents. Except that’s not the OP’s question. He didn’t ask, “Who was the worst candidate in those three elections?” He said, “George McGovern, Walter Mondale or Hillary Clinton - \*\*\*Of the three, \*\*\*which was the worst candidate?” ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/24 "2017-05-01T03:45:13Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > It kind of amazes me that the Never-Hills don’t seem to CARE that most of the “political baggage” she had to carry was made up of lies and innuendo. They don’t care because she has a vagina, so they’ll eagerly eat up anything anyone comes up with to discredit her, whether it’s based in reality or not. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/25 "2017-05-01T12:53:57Z")
I’d say the worst candidate was Mondale, actually. Reagan was popular, but Mondale was not so far left or Reagan so popular that he couldn’t have done as well as Bob Dole did in 1996. Mondale should have won 10 states or so. Clinton is the most DISAPPOINTING candidate, certainly, although her 2008 run should have been warning enough that she was not very good at this. And frankly, what I’ve read about how she handles her inner circle tells me that she would have had major problems being President as well. Her competence may have been overrated. She has knowledge, and she’s strong, but competence doesn’t seem to really come from that in her case. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/26 "2017-05-01T13:45:12Z")
The comedian Mark Russell once spoke of Mondale’s “Norwegian charisma”, which he described as being “between that of a Presbyterian minister and a tree.” However, he was up against Reagan, the very popular and charismatic incumbent. Mondale’s predicament was not unlike Bob Dole’s race against Clinton. Neither ever had a chance. Hillary, on the other hand, ran against Trump. By any political calculus, she should have won. She didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/27 "2017-05-01T14:18:34Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > They don’t care because she has a vagina, so they’ll eagerly eat up anything anyone comes up with to discredit her, whether it’s based in reality or not. Plenty of them would have voted for Sarah Palin. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/28 "2017-05-01T14:38:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Plenty of them would have voted for Sarah Palin. Or Condi Rice, for that matter. As to the OP, I pick McGovern. Mostly because it would have been better for the country if he had won. Get out of Viet Nam sooner, avoid Watergate, muddle around thru the 70s and elect Reagan anyway. Realistically, neither Mondale nor McGovern had a chance. So it goes. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/29 "2017-05-01T14:49:35Z")
To use a sports analogy, McGovern and Mondale were the Broncos who got smashed 55-10 by the Niners in the Super Bowl; big underdogs who got walloped just as expected but still should have kept the score closer. Hillary was the 2007 heavily favored Patriots losing to the wild-card Giants. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/30 "2017-05-01T23:27:15Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I reject your terminology. The goodness or badnesss of a candidate is a measure of how good or bad he or she is for the position. Ergo, the worst candidates in 1972, 1984, and 2016, were Nixon, Reagan, and Trump, respectively. McGovern, Mondale, and Clinton would have made excellent presidents. > [@Velocity](#): > > Except that’s not the OP’s question. He didn’t ask, “Who was the worst candidate in those three elections?” He said, “George McGovern, Walter Mondale or Hillary Clinton - > \*\*\*Of the three, \*\*\*which was the worst candidate?” Heh. Fair enough. I have to admit that I don’t really have the analytical chops to assess which of the three would have come in third place in a presidential goodness contest with only the three of them as entries, had they all been elected President. Not a lot of interest, either, as it turns out, so, sorry for the threadshit, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/31 "2017-05-01T23:31:25Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > They were all fine candidates and infinitely superior to the pieces of crap that they lost to. Sometimes the voters are dumb shits. It happened in 1972, 1980, 1984, 2000, 2004, and 2016. And 1988 (stupid fuck couldn’t even raise a decent human being)… ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/32 "2017-05-02T01:17:20Z")
George McGovern, like Barry Goldwater, got his ass kicked. And like Goldwater, in the process of losing, he transformed his party completely. So, McGovern sowed the seeds for a liberal party even while he was getting stomped. In the long run, he won. The modern Democrats are McGovern’s party. Hillary and Mondale were losers WITHOUT a silver lining. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/33 "2017-05-02T13:13:21Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > She didn’t let people down. The people who decided to vote for Trump instead of her let people down. She let people down. She lost the election. Trump didn’t win it, she lost it. The entire election came down to half a dozen swing states that she spent less time in than she did in extremely safe states like California and New York. She is simply not a good candidate. She’s smart, knowledgeable and hard working but those traits are a dime a dozen in DC. Point to any positive trait she has and I can point to an army of career bureaucrats, lobbyists and DC lawyers who have more of it than her. The one thing that politicians offer that these bureaucrats, lobbyists and lawyers do not is the ability to get elected and implement these policies. This was a winnable election and she lost it. Trump was not some unstoppable candidate of destiny. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/34 "2017-05-02T13:33:02Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Hillary was doing fine until James Comey dropped a bomb on the election with a week and a half to go. And whose fault was that? Who was the one keeping private servers that created the hook for the investigation? This is not some simple mistake nor was ‘everyone doing it’ it was a deliberate attempt to maintain secrecy about your communications as a federal official. Was it also Comey’s fault when he effectively exonerated Hillary a few months before by saying that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges? Most people thought Hillary would win (predictions were something like 2::1 in her favor, but you are fooling yourself if you don’t think a shitload of people who voted for Hillary didn’t need a have to hold their nose while pulling that lever. > [@](#): > > And I continue to reject the notion that Trump was a bad candidate. Maybe everyone’s forgotten how he demolished a seemingly strong GOP field a year ago. Trump was a HORRIBLE candidate. If he was running against Biden or even Sanders, I think he would have lost. > [@](#): > > And as a candidate, he is well suited to work the weaknesses of our media, which during a campaign, covers the issues only in passing, giving the citizenry little idea of how their lives would be affected if one candidate or the other got to implement their platforms, but largely limits their coverage to peripheral scandals and faux-scandals where they can’t be accused of taking sides by reporting on them. > > Hillary took metric ton of hits in 2015 and 2016 - Benghazi, emails, more and more emails, her speeches, the Clinton Foundation…it just goes on and on, doesn’t it? And yet she had a solid lead all the way down the stretch, including the week and a half after the third and final debate, after which Trump had zero opportunity to change the dynamic of the race. > > I would fault her with only a couple of things: > > 1. She needed to drive home the point that if voters wanted her to do the things she promised she’d try to do, they needed to vote for Democrats for Congress too. If the Dems had won the voting for House of Representatives by two percentage points, it would have at least been a tossup as to whether Paul Ryan or Nancy Pelosi would have been Speaker. > > 2. In the debates, she really needed to make the point that Trump was basically a cargo cult - that behind everything he said he would do, there was no plan to make it happen, and no idea of even how to come up with a plan: no idea of how to come up with something better and cheaper than Obamacare, no idea of why we didn’t already have a border wall, and what to do about the obstacles; nothing you could look at and say, “this will or won’t work, and here’s why.” He was promising to cut runways in the jungle so that planes would magically appear and bring cargo. > > The media wasn’t going to tell people this; that would have been taking sides, apparently. So she needed to be the one to do it, and she needed to do it in the one setting where it would cut through the media clutter. > > BUT every campaign makes mistakes. The fact is, with two weeks to go, she was set to win comfortably, despite all the stuff that was thrown at her. > > So it’s Mondale or McGovern. Mondale was running against the most popular president in recent history, I don’t think he was beatable in 1984. I don’t know much about McGovern. Did he cheat during the primaries too? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/35 "2017-05-02T13:47:50Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I don’t recall anyone but dismissive Republicans saying Hillary should be nominated because it was “her turn.” Any Democrat could have thrown their hat in the ring, and the one who did, Gov. O’Malley, didn’t do well with the voters. Sanders, not being a member of the party, doesn’t have much room to bitch about the party not being supportive. People lined up to support her because they _thought_ she was going to win, not because she was _entitled_ to it. > > Hillary wasn’t my first choice in 2008 or 2016, but I blame her loss on the voters who didnt care how much damage Trump might do. It’s hard to win an election promising competence and progress when voters apparently to blow up our beloved country. I disagree. There was a sense of entitlement in 2008 and there was a sense of entitlement in 2016. I don’t know if it was just the attempt to create an aura of inevitability or what but the “ready for Hillary” crowd certainly seemed to deride the notion that anyone other than Hillary should be our candidate. Other more plausible candidates than O Malley were discouraged from running. > **[Clearing the Field for Clinton Was Democrats' Biggest Mistake in 2016 |...](https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/04/22/clearing-the-democratic-field-in-2016-was-a-terrible-mistake/)** > > More candidates would have lessened the infighting in the party. > **[Clinton quietly trying to discourage Biden from a 2016 bid](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/clinton-quietly-trying-discourage-biden-2016-bid)** > > In ways both subtle and blunt, Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is sending a message to Vice President Joe Biden about his potential presidential campaign: This won't be easy. Its hard to lose an election to someone who cheated during the primary and undercut a populist movement within the party to maintain the lead of an establishment candidate during a year when anti-establishment sentiments and grassroots populism are the defining characteristics of the election cycle. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/36 "2017-05-02T14:27:08Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And whose fault was that? Who was the one keeping private servers that created the hook for the investigation? This is not some simple mistake nor was ‘everyone doing it’ it was a deliberate attempt to maintain secrecy about your communications as a federal official. This. The people who are criticizing Comey are essentially saying that he should have kept quiet - at least, until after Election Day. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/37 "2017-05-02T16:51:20Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Hillary wasn’t my first choice in 2008 or 2016, but I blame her loss on the voters who didnt care how much damage Trump might do. It’s hard to win an election promising competence and progress when voters apparently to blow up our beloved country. I think to a large extent Clinton was a victim of her own success. With Republican obstruction leading to dysfunctional government, the country was in the mood for a protest vote. Since all the polls showed Clinton was likely to win, people felt safe to make a protest vote in favor of Trump, or to stay home and boycott the election. I think if the polls showed a closer race where every vote was needed to keep Trump from office then Hillary might have won. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/38 "2017-05-02T17:08:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Bringing up the Comey factor in the election is like Goliath saying, “The sun was in my eyes,” or Michigan blaming a bad officiating call for losing to Appalachian State. > > Goliath was supposed to \*crush \*David ‘Supposed to.’ There’s a term of art for you. Absolutely impossible to argue with, of course. Thing is, Trump wasn’t supposed to stand a chance of winning the nomination to begin with. Remember all those ‘ceilings’ in his support among Republicans? He was just the entertainment before they settled down to pick a ‘serious’ candidate like Jeb or L’il Marco. But Trump mowed through that field with surprising ease. Comparing him with Appy State is bullshit. Everybody underestimating someone doesn’t mean they should have been crushed. > [@](#): > > IIRC there was a survey done well over a year before the election pitting her against Trump in a hypothetical race and Hillary was projected to gain over 500 electoral votes. Yeah, and if there had been a Carter v. Ford survey over a year before the 1976 election, Gerald Ford would have won in a landslide. What of it? ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/39 "2017-05-02T17:08:50Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > cheated during the primary What the hell are you talking about? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560/40 "2017-05-02T17:12:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Hillary was the 2007 heavily favored Patriots losing to the wild-card Giants. Like I said, everybody underestimating someone doesn’t mean they should have been crushed. The Giants won because they were a much stronger team than people gave them credit for being. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-mcgovern-walter-mondale-or-hillary-clinton/785560.md?page=3)