Most elections are decided on the fundamentals. If the economy is good, an incumbent will almost always win. If the public is in a change mood, the challenging party almost always wins.
But sometimes elections are pretty “fair” in that neither party has an overwhelming advantage and candidate selection can matter a great deal. So what elections where a party lost would a different candidate have made the difference? And which candidate would have been the better choice? It would have to be someone who actually had a shot at winning in the primary process, although I’d say it’s fair to count candidate who declined to run who could have done well or those who did run and died(RFK).
My own choices:
2000: Bush “won”, but I think John McCain was so hot with general election voters in 2000 that he would have smoked Gore.
2004: Joe Lieberman couldn’t have been painted as a weak flip flopper. Democrats might not have enjoyed having to make that choice, but voters really seemed to want to make a change in 2004 but didn’t see Kerry as a good alternative.
2016: Given how close the race was and the nature of Trump’s coalition, and the desire for change, I think Sanders beats him.
Honorable mention: 1988: not really applicable since I can’t see Jesse Jackson or Al Gore doing that well against Bush either, but if Gary Hart hadn’t been such an idiot…
Out of curiosity: given how close the race was and given that you think Sanders would’ve beaten Trump, do you think a Clinton/Sanders ticket would’ve won?
Oh my, all sorts of elections could have flipped, with a change of candidates. Even some of the ones that were slam dunks.
A candidates appeal and campaigning and speaking abilities affects every aspect of the campaign. One who handles adversity well, can deal with both real and “conjured” scandals, while one who is too stiff and postured can be knocked down by almost nothing.
I think it’s much easier to say which actual candidates did the most to undermine their own campaigns. That would include Gore, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, George Bush senior, and so on.
I have to think yes, this was a race where very small changes would make a difference. A minority VP candidate like Cory Booker might have also brought out more of the Obama coalition. Kaine was a very responsible choice on Clinton’s part. Tim Kaine could be President today without much of a learning curve. You can’t say that about Sanders or Booker and you certainly can’t say that about someone like Castro. So she did the right thing there, but it also painted the ticket as the ultimate establishment ticket in a change election.
Nixon was probably unstoppable, even had John F. himself risen from out of the grave and taken him on.
It’s funny, because I was a young lad, then, just beginning to pay attention to the world. In 1971, I think almost no one thought Nixon had much chance of winning a second term, given the way the war was bogging down, and in light of the fact that we had bombed Cambodia and Laos. Then there was the economy, which was sputtering along without any real conviction.
But by mid-1972, I don’t think anyone thought Nixon could lose. The trip to China, the SALT I treaties, and the announcement that no new draftees would be sent to Vietnam pretty much locked it up for him. He was seen as being quite effective, a real world leader. It’s incredibly ironic that this was happening at exactly the point in time he was creating his own downfall.
One also has to take into account who the decent options were. The Democratic field that year was absurd. But the top names: McGovern, Muskie, Wallace and Humphrey offered nothing substantial enough to overcome Nixon. I always think that wing-revolts in parties are an acknowledgement of the central strength of the opposition. McGovern won simply because being an unashamed liberal was the only way to truly distinguish himself from the President. But, of course, as Sen. Goldwater found out in '64, being an unashamed winger usually leaves you out in the cold in Nov. Would Muskie have done better, absent the snowflakes of Maine? Doubtful. And Humphrey had already lost to Nixon once; I don’t think he would have done anything had he won the nomination except prove that Adlai and William Jennings weren’t the only Democrats who could lose multiple races to the same man.
In 1968 Bobby Kennedy might have had more support than Humphrey ended up with. But Kennedy was also vulnerable in spots, and it’s hard to know whether he would have gained more votes from the anti-war movement that didn’t turn out for Humphrey, or lost more votes from blue-collar Democrats who thought Kennedy was an elitist who traded on the ghost of his brother. Of course, none of that mattered in the end.
A hypothetical Sanders/Trump race would result in a a Trump landslide with Sanders winning only a few states, mainly the West Coast and New England. Similar to the Michael Dukakis loss in 1988.
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