This is indirectly about Rick Perry, of course: given that it’s July and he’s still deciding whether to jump in, I’m wondering what the track record is of candidates who waited this long to become an active candidate for the nomination.
By ‘entered the nomination race’ and ‘become an active candidate,’ I mean doing the things candidates do, even if they haven’t necessarily declared yet: forming an exploratory committee or other legal doohickey that allows them to raise money for forming a de facto campaign staff and whatnot, making multiple public appearances in early primary states, that sort of thing.
By ‘strongly contended,’ let’s say either winning or finishing a strong second in a marquee pre-Super Tuesday primary or caucus, or doing well enough on Super Tuesday to boost the candidate’s fundraising and popular support to a level where s/he was the frontrunner, or could clearly compete the rest of the way.
By ‘recent,’ let’s say 1988-present.
And one final word: this thread is strictly about this one aspect of political horse-race analysis. To the extent that the OP’s opinion matters in such things, this thread is NOT a forum for debating political issues. Let’s stay on topic, please.
In 1968, RFK didn’t get in until after the NH Primary forced LBJ out of the running, and he’d have gotten the nomination of the Democrat Party if Sirhan hadn’t killed him. (Ah, the “Religion of Peace” strikes again.)
In 1976, Ronald Reagan got in fairly late, but had an incumbant president looking over his shoulder.
While you have cases where you knew who the candidates were going to be fairly far out (2000, we knew it would be Bush v. Gore, and it was) most people aren’t thinking about it this far out.
Keep in mind, at this point in 2007, everyone assumed Hillary had the Democratic nomination locked up, while Obama was running behind her and Edwards. Everyone assumed Guiliani would be the Republican nominee, while McCain was written off as dead.
Because the method and style of presidential campaigns has changed. Hell, it used to be that presidential candidates didn’t even go to the convention; it would seem that they wanted it too much.
Sirhan is Christian.
That’s true. Yet every single one of them were performing actions that made it clear they were running for President. As much as I hate the length of campaigns these days, it is a fact that they are longer than they were in the 60s and 70s.
Why can’t you ever just go along with the flow of a thread, instead of insisting on somehow finding a way of shoehorning your fetishes into every thread you enter?
You might want to brush up on your political science history if you don’t immediately know why any nomination process up to 1980 has very little bearing on the modern process. That was the last time there was any serious dissent from the major candidate going into the convention, i.e., Ted Kennedy of the Democrats. These days, the whole idea for both parties is to present a united front at the time of the convention, which means things need to be hammered out earlier.
An example of a guy who entered the race fairly late by contemporary standards but failed was Fred Thompson in the 2008 cycle. Per Wikipedia, he formed an exploratory committee on June 1, 2007, which raised a reasonable amount of money over the summer, but he wasn’t particularly active as a campaigner until after he declared on September 5, 2007. His best finishes were third in Iowa and South Carolina, after which he dropped out.
I’ve made this argument before, but I don’t think RFK really had much of a chance at the time, even if he wasn’t shot. He had, for how late he came in, done really well in the primaries, but this was before the reforms of the McGovern-Fraser Committee, and in the Democratic Party, only like 13 states held primaries, and most of the delegates were chosen by party leaders, and Humphrey, who hadn’t even competed in the primaries, had managed to get the support of the party establishment. RFK’s only chance of getting the nomination was to win the remaining primaries by large margins, and then try to make some sort of moral argument to the party leadership that that gave him the legitimacy to become the nominee. The thing is, this is the exact argument in the actual 1968 that Gene McCarthy tried to make, and it didn’t work. I can’t see that RFK would have had any more luck.
Bill Clinton didn’t declare his candidacy until October of 1991. In comparison, Tsongas declared in June of 1991, the first to do so, and Jerry Brown declared in September.
Robert Kennedy was counting on the fact that the rules were different for him. And he was probably right. If he looked like he had a decent chance, a lot of Humphrey’s delegates would have jumped ship for another Kennedy. Ted Kennedy was counting on the same thing in 1980 but the times had changed.
Maybe. I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened, but as unpopular as LBJ was among the college students and anti-war activists who made up McCarthy’s and Kennedy’s supporters, and as much as people blamed him for the Vietnam War, he still had a lot of support among the Democratic leadership, and he would have done his damnedest to keep Kennedy from getting the nomination.
Well, I guess I had the wrong idea about these boards.
I thought they were about discussion.
I think now that they are about liberals doing “self-affirmation”. “Obama’s a good President”. “Rick Perry isn’t getting in”. “That 9.2% isn’t a total career ending disaster.”
Maybe they should drop the name Straight Dope and go with the name “Happy Place”.
You make the mistake of thinking Fred Thompson was actually a serious candidate.
Fred Thompson was a stalking horse for his good buddy John McCain.
His whole purpose in the campaign was to keep hard right votes from coalescing around Mitt Romney while McCain and Guilliani fought it out for the Super-Tuesday moderates.
But then Mike Huckabee upset the apple cart by appealling to social conservatives without paying homage to economic conservatives.
Well, okay, assuming we aren’t talking about Wiki Vandalism here, I guess he was a Palestinian Christian and not a Palestinian Muslim…
So what?
That whole area of the world is pretty fouled up. Reminds me why I’m an agnostic.
You seem awfully focused on an aside than you are about the main point, that people have gotten into races late and made an impact.
but let’s talk about what you are really worried about. You are ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED Rick Perry could jump in and beat Obama. Actually, my cat could beat Obama at this point.
Which is horsecrap. No one is going to think much about who they are going to vote for until the primaries. All Perry has to do is win Iowa (doable) and make a strong showing in NH and he can be the instant frontrunner.
How was that comment relevant? Just had to attempt to get in a pointless, inaccurate, and irrelevant dig, didn’t you?
I am? Huh. If your cat could beat Obama, why should I care what Republican does it? Perry’s probably better than some. But, if he’s going to run, he needs to get started. It’s not 1968 anymore, nor even 1976. Times have changed.
You may be right about that. It’s possible that this country cares more about beating that socialist, Kenya-born, Mau-mau-bred, unemployment-encouraging darkie than they do about electing a President with a brain larger than a marble. It’s sad, but it’s possible.
I doubt it very much, but that’s what your argument boils down. Now that we’ve heard it, and dismissed it as “Only mathematically possible,” would you do us the kindness of not repeating it again? We’ve heard you. What part of “You’re boring” don’t you understand?
Nobody’s putting a gun to your head. I usually breeze past most of your posts because yours really are boring.
Also, beat that straw man really good, man. Keep attributing racial stuff to my argument I didn’t say, because you can’t face what I am saying.
I don’t think Obama was born in Kenya or studied Mau Mau. I think he’s an inept boob who doesn’t know what the eff he’s doing. So whatever Warm Body has a “R” after his name- even one that starts late- will probably beat him.
Omnipresent left-wing censorship is apparently deleting your great ideas before you even have them. Pernicious.
Wikipedia isn’t helping me find too many examples of serious candidates who entered the primary field late. In 1988, Gary Hart actually re-entereed the race in December '87 after a long layoff, ultimately winning no states, but he had his own particular monkey business at that time.
I don’t know, man. You seem focused on a throwaway line I admit was wrong. I mean, I don’t know how I could have drawn the conclusion that a man from the middle east commiting a cowardly act of violence was a Muslim…oh, wait, maybe it’s all those other cowardly acts of violence they’ve committed. :smack:
Actually, not really. Most people aren’t thinking about it right now, except for the junkies like ourselves.
You see, the thing is, I’m not happy about a lot of stuff going on in the GOP. I’m not happy that the religious nutters hold too much influence. I’m not happy that both parties are tools of the wealthy, and we’re just being played.
But at the end of the day, votes aren’t going to be cast for six months.