Is it possible that the US will have a presidential election decided in a 1984, 1972, or 1964 type landslide election?
I don’t think so. I think an election like 2008 is about as much of a landslide as the US is likely to see for the foreseeable future. If Obama wins reelection, he probably won’t take Indiana and North Carolina again.
Let’s say Palin gets the nomination. I still think she’d take the Deep South as well as most of the Mountain West. I can’t simply see any Democrat taking any of the solid Republican states such as AL,MS,UT,SC,AK,UT, and ID.
On the other hand, I don’t see any Republican taking the large states of NY and CA. I also can’t see any Republican winning OR/WA or most of the Northeastern states.
To single this one out: Why not? Giuliani and Schwarzenegger, both Republicans, were at one time pretty popular in those particular states.
I can think of several scenarios in which a landslide could be possible:
A candidate who, like Eisenhower in 1952, is extremely popular and respected by the American people, is persuaded to run by one of the parties.
Shortly before the general election, something happens or is revealed showing one of the two major candidates to be unsavory or unfit to lead.
The country is in the midst of a crisis which the vast majority of the American people believe is being handled well by the current leadership (think FDR in WWII).
It seems, currently in the US, that the political landscape is divided roughly evenly* between conservatives and liberals. As a result the fight is ultimately over the comparatively small middle of “moderates/independents”.
Considering that group is likely to not landslide one way or the other I doubt we will see a landslide win in the foreseeable future.
But hey…ya never know and anything is possible.
[sub]*The polls I have seen on this are frankly hard to decipher. Polls can be found that show a distinct advantage one way or another. However, at the end of the day presidential elections have been fairly close…especially Bush/Gore…so it seems there is a rough balance here and elections are decided not by landslide but by small margins.[/sub]
Scenarios that lead to a landslide aren’t usually foreseeable. They’re often unexpected, like war, famine, economic collapse, etc.
It won’t happen every time, but “ever” is a long time.
Throw in a semiviable 3rd party/independent candidate into the mix and you could end up with a landslide in the Electoral College. The 3rd candidate could split the vote in alot of Red/Blue states causing the Democrat/Republican to unexpectedly gain a plurality and take all of that state’s electoral votes.
Or a sitting POTUS could be assainated in an election year and have the new POTUS (ex VP) exploit his memory for all it’s worth will the nation’s still in mourning and the opposition is also suddenly falling all over itself to praise the late President.
These specific folks have already said they won’t run, but I suspect Colin Powell or Condaleeza Rice would have a good chance at a landslide…
I remember after Desert Storm when Colin Powell was touted as a presidential prospect, even though nobody seemed to know anything about his politics. It was one of the most abysmal instances of mass idiocy in living memory. And does anyone know more about his politics now?!