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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow many DUers are old enough to have experienced our bad losses?
How many DUers are old enough to remember the terrible defeat by Nixon in '68? This was the only time I recall a third party taking electoral votes.
Who is old enough to NEVER forget the horrible defeat of McGovern by Nixon in '72? That was a landslide that made me afraid to ever admit I was a Democrat in my local school.
Who remembers the beautiful win by the moderate peanut farmer in '76? Or his crushing defeat at the hands of a B-movie actor in '80 because of a challenge from the left in the primaries?
Who remembers what is possibly the worst landslide suffered by post-war Democrats in '84?
Or the horrible landslide against Dukakis in '88?
Then we won with Clinton, who took a different tack.
We nearly won with Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 taking the same tack.
Then Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
Are you starting to see the pattern and what many of us who are smart enough to remember electoral history see?
All of our horrible losses since World War II came from our most liberal candidates or abandonment by the left wing of the party, while all of our wins came from our most centrist candidates.
Politics is the art of the possible, and accepting somebody who is not the most liberal potential candidate at the presidential level can lead to the possible becoming what was impossible when they started their terms.
I give you marriage equality as an example of the impossible becoming possible.
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MiniMe
(21,716 posts)Jimmy Carter in '76 was my first vote. We won that one. Then we went through RayGun and Poppy before we won again with Clinton.
ProfessorGAC
(65,057 posts)I turned old enough to vote in 1974. So, Carter was my first prez vote.
Gothmog
(145,291 posts)I also remember these elections
FSogol
(45,488 posts)
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Jimmy Carter didn't lose the election "because of a challenge from the left in the primaries." He lost because the Republicans committed treason.
The left wing didn't abandon the party when we ran centrist, but the centrists did when we ran progressives. Barack Obama won, twice, not because he campaigned on a centrist track. He won because he campaigned on a progressive platform. That he failed to govern as a progressive does not change that fact.
Caretha
(2,737 posts)
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Who is old enough to NEVER forget the horrible defeat of McGovern by Nixon in '72? That was a landslide that made me afraid to ever admit I was a Democrat in my local school. I campaigned for McGovern, as I have for every Democratic candidate since, and I am proud of it. Nixon was able to crush McGovern largely because the corporate media served as his organ, being afraid to expose or counter the Republican Administration's lies, race-baiting and dirty tricks until after the '72 election was over.
Who remembers the beautiful win by the moderate peanut farmer in '76? Or his crushing defeat at the hands of a B-movie actor in '80 because of a challenge from the left in the primaries? Carter's policies were not that different from Teddy Kennedy's. He was elected by a united Democratic Party, despite the inroads into the moderate-center vote of third-party candidate, John Anderson. The '80 election was held hostage by the major media's obsessions with the Iran hostages, and by the phony "Iranian oil shortage" which saw crude oil supplies on hand in the U.S. actually higher than the year before. The oil companies had shut down much of the country's refineries and were withholding retail deliveries, driving up prices and creating a political crisis for Carter, who took some bad advise (from center-right aides, such as Sec. Schlessinger) and didn't impose available federal emergency powers to force the companies to move sufficient refined product to retailers. Again, the major media did it's part to whip up public hysteria and hoarding behavior.
Who remembers what is possibly the worst landslide suffered by post-war Democrats in '84? Mondale was a bland, centrist candidate (by standards of the day) and a poor campaigner. The Democratic Party was sinking into a funk and losing its commitment to New Deal liberalism. The base was uninspired. 2016 could see a repeat of that malaise.
Or the horrible landslide against Dukakis in '88? Dukakis was a worse campaigner who couldn't effectively communicate and suffered from a staff who couldn't keep him focused.
Then we won with Clinton, who took a different tack. Bill Clinton won largely because Bush, Sr. was a terrible, patrician campaigner who made people's hair stand up on the back of their necks. That includes red necks who instinctively distrusted him. Clinton had genuine populist personal appeal, which counted for more of his popularity in the South than policy differences.
We nearly won with Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 taking the same tack. The legitimacy of the 2000 election is in doubt, and the GOP again got away with dirty tricks in FL. Kerry suffered from the same patrician bearing as Bush, Sr, and lacked populist appeal.
Then Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012. Barack Obama was the progressive left candidate. He won two elections. Hillary was and is the candidate of the hawkish, establishment-centrist right. She went on to preside over a State Department which in concert with the CIA (along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and France) that systematically regime changed most of the Mideast, leading to the morphing of al-Qaeda into a Sunni regional militia we know today as ISIS. Obama ended up firing CIA Director Petraeus and graciously accepting Secretary Clinton's resignation.
Calista241
(5,586 posts)Perot took nearly 19% of the vote, and Clinton won the election with a plurality of 43%.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Carter not because he was a centrist - we thought of him as honest. After Nixon we wanted nothing to do with dishonesty. And yes when he lost to raygun it was treason. A dirty trick that kept the Iran hostages captive until rayguns inauguration day.
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)Peacetrain
(22,877 posts)you are right of course..but trust me.. grab a cup of coffee.. its about to get goofy.. 
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Oh well.
I know all too well how that feels.
randys1
(16,286 posts)Dont get me wrong, you wont be able to keep me away from voting on election day for the Dem no matter who it is.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)And people pointing out historical facts contrary to the OP's propagandic purpose are not being goofy.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)We had so many good men running:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_1992
Jerry Brown
Eugene McCarthy
Bob Kerrey
Tom Harkin
Paul Tsongas
And who got the nod? Fucking the worst of the bunch, IMHO.
It's one thing to lose to a Republican, and another to lose the primary to someone who isn't particularly a Progressive.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)In fact, every last one of them would have been defeated horribly at the hands of Bush in '92, IMO.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)What did some cat from Arkansas have that Jerry Brown didn't have?
Rich friends?
Frances
(8,545 posts)and I have great respect for him
But when Brown ran for President, the label "Governor Moonbeam" is what I knew about Jerry Brown. I would have voted for him had he won the nomination, but I am certain he would have lost the general election.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)True, the moonbeam moniker stuck, but that would have been manageable.
I worked for him but I was a student and I've forgotten any details about his withdrawal.
The media seemed to latch on to Clinton. Not surprised, he was camera friendly and charismatic and his wife sat on a powerful corporate board.
The media is a corporate animal, very powerful.
Remember what they did with Howard Dean's scream?
Hekate
(90,705 posts)Kind of like Gov. Dean's "Scream" -- the story got repeated endlessly and the mocking name stuck.
The funny thing is, I liked Mike Royko's columns. Many years later Royko wrote that he had been wrong to call Brown that.
But it was too late for presidential ambitions, and was a severe blow to Jerry Brown's political career. Took him a long time to come back to where he is now. I truly admire the man for having stuck to his vision of public service over his lifetime.
ProfessorGAC
(65,057 posts)In his columns, he was an equal opportunity critic. But, in speaking engagements he was critical of the Chicago machine but equally critical of all things Republican in Illinois.
Hekate
(90,705 posts)The landlady got whatever paper it was. I've never been to Chicago, but I liked him.
Sometimes one or two lines from a good columnist will stick with you forever. After the Jonestown Massacre, Royko revealed how many of the children were actually foster children, and commented: The State is a careless mother.
ProfessorGAC
(65,057 posts)I liked him a great deal too. I actually changed papers here when he switched from the Sun Times to the Trib.
Hekate
(90,705 posts)Just got to reminiscing there.
randys1
(16,286 posts)certainly when compared to any republican.
I get why there is so much arguing over who the Dem candidate should be for 2016, what I dont get is how anyone could not support that person no matter who it is once the decision is made, given the situation and alternatives.
In the real world it appears Liz has agreed not to run, I am guessing that based on some meeting she had with Hillary and her actions.
In the real world Bernie is the 2016 version of Jerry Brown, for me anyway, and while I would absolutely love it if he were our next president, he has to decide to announce and in which party, first.
I think if he ran it would be very positive for whoever the ultimate candidate ends up being, because the people are hungry for the Bernie message, and if he runs against Hillary she will have to adopt some of it.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)And then all bets are off.
That's why it is so important to look at a candidate's history and voting record, and not so much what they say they're going to do once elected.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)Hekate
(90,705 posts)ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)LITTLE ROCK — The night Bill Clinton was elected president, the 27-story Worthen Bank building lit up the skyline here with red, white and blue lights spelling out his first name.
The bank had good reason to crow.
Worthen is partly owned by the Stephens family, one of the richest in America. And the Stephens family, headed by oilman and investment banker Jackson Stephens, and its businesses did more than anyone to bankroll Clinton's political ascendancy.
Early in the game, the Stephenses raised $100,000 in Arkansas to get Clinton's candidacy up and running. Then last spring, when Clinton was trailing both George Bush and Ross Perot, Worthen Bank supplied the cash- starved campaign with a $3.5 million line of credit.
http://articles.philly.com/1993-01-17/news/25959645_1_worthen-bank-stephens-family-bill-clinton
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)the combined baggage, legitimate or not, of those candiates would have required a fleet of 747s to carry around the country. Clinton was a relative newcomer whose baggage at the time amounted to some bimbos and the draft issue. AND he was a masterful politician. In hindsight maybe it should have been Jerry Brown, but at the time he had a mountain of California crap to get past. Again, rightly or wrongly.
Both Brown and Clinton are crazy smart, but Clinton hides it. Brown is not the guy people want to have a beer with, which, as we know, is important in Presidential politics.
Personally, I'd have a beer with either of them, but that's just me.
Panich52
(5,829 posts)
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)which was later done by a News outlet that showed Gore would have won FL if recounted
former9thward
(32,016 posts)The ballots were recounted by news organizations and Bush won in FL. The report was released in November, 2001.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12623-2001Nov11.html
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)A recount was necessary but Gore's choice to do a selective recount was what caused the issue to begin with. The SCOTUS caught Gore with his hand in the cookie jar.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)The Florida State Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount. That should have settled it. However, Cheney's duck-hunting buddy on the US Supreme Court, as well as other highly partisan members, including one Sandra Day O'Connor who was unabashedly horrified at the thought of a Gore win, decided otherwise.
Basing the Bush vs. Gore decision on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which has absolutely nothing to do with presidential elections, and then claiming that that decision was good for that one time only, was total bullshit.
By the way, O'Connor admitted-- much too late-- that the US Supreme Court should have let the Florida State Supreme Court decision stand.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)FL had a set date to send delegates and ratify the result.
Gore got caught trying to get counties to recount that were (potentially) favorable to him. Al Franken showed how to win a very close election. Statewide recount. No questions. Set up the variables, and start counting.
It seems we're in more agreement than we sound, Sandra Day O'Conner even admitted the SCOTUS should've stayed out of it. Had the SCOTUS sent it back to the FL Supreme Court handle it, it would've gone differently.
I don't agree with the decision, mind you, I think it was contorted logic to force an unclear result, which the dissenters noted. I'm just saying if Al Gore did the Al Franken approach, it would've been different. He's the least culpable in that mess, imo.
We're talking more than two months after the election until the electors were decided. Gore's people fucked up bad by originally getting a sub-result.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)If you want to talk about "hands in the cookie jar":
1) Bush's brother was governor of Florida, and before the election had more than 50,000 voters expunged from the voting rolls for no justifiable reason.
2) Bush's campaign co-chair in Florida was in charge of counting the freaking votes in the state. She set arbitrary deadlines and threw roadblocks at the Gore campaign.
3) The state legislature, which was controlled by Republicans, announced that they would give their state's votes to Bush, no matter how the actual election results turned out.
4) Judge N. Sanders Sauls told the Gore campaign to send 3 truckloads of ballots to Tallahassee, which they did, after 3 days of delays. But when the ballots finally did arrive, Sauls refused to look at them.
5) The counting at Miami-Dade was disrupted by a gang of Republican operatives, which should have been a Federal crime.
6) The Florida State Supreme Court ruled that the votes had to be recounted manually. That ruling would have overturned any prior legislative action to simply give the electoral votes to Bush.
7) Cheney's duck-hunting buddy on the US Supreme Court agreed to take Bush vs. Gore, even though he should have recused himself because of conflict of interest.
So don't try to give me this bullshit about Gore having his hand in the cookie jar!
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Everything else follows. Gore won the news media recount (without spoiled ballots because some people voted for him and wrote his name in). Gore lost every other scenario that doesn't have him recounting every single ballot with those conditions (no ballots spoiled if they write in "Al Gore" .
This never happened, as history showed. Al Franken learned from Al Gore's mistake early on. He sought a statewide recount immediately and even took it to the courts. He and his competitor set out standards for ballots which observers from both parties would follow.
I'm sorry, but I refuse to absolve Gore and his team from the debacle. I place him least culpable, that's about it. That he didn't create a shadow government in light of Bush's illegal coup made me even more upset about it.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)Gore did not come up with that on his own.. Do a little research, it will make you a bit wiser.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)We had terrible riots in Los Angeles that year. Do you remember that?
Bush I also had the dullest, least attractive personality of any president in my lifetime. Nixon was a jerk. Reagan was a fool. But Bush I was a ninny. When traveling, was reputed to be unsure about what country he was in. I read in a foreign newspaper that a reporter overheard Bush ask what country he was in. Bush I was not much brighter than Bush II. Good social connections, little intelligence. He was more style than substance.
former9thward
(32,016 posts)Nothing more or less.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)since OPEC raised oil prices and Reagan cut taxes for the rich while raising the payroll taxes. The economy was terrible. Perot offered what his voters thought were solutions. Perot opposed "free" trade. He has been proved right on some issues. We have lost a lot of jobs to Mexico and other countries.
former9thward
(32,016 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)again. We need to break from the dominance of corporate candidates. That is why I support either Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Bush I was an uninspiring leader who in 1992 was presiding over a bad economy and spent the 1992 Republican National Convention going on and on about his family. He was so out of touch about the economy that he thought $19 was a reasonable price for a loaf of bread.
former9thward
(32,016 posts)President Bush says it is not true that he is out of touch with regular Americans. And to prove it, he guessed right yesterday on the price of a loaf of bread.
In an interview conducted here with WFAA-TV of Dallas, Bush was asked whether he knew what bread cost.
"In Dallas? No, I don't,'' he confessed, but then ventured a guess.
"I'd say . . . it would cost you about a buck a loaf . How close is it?'' he asked the interviewer.
Bush was visibly relieved to hear he was in the ballpark.
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=89861
Although in Bush's defense why should he know the price of bread? I don't know it, haven't bought it in who knows how many years. I would not expect Obama to know it either. He has not been food shopping in at least 6 years, maybe a lot more.
I do agree he did not run a good campaign in 1992 and the physical difference between him and Clinton made a big difference just as it did in 2008 between Obama and McCain.
CANDO
(2,068 posts)Standing in absolute awe of a supermarket checkout scanner at a campaign stop. That moment did him in more than anything else. It made tens of millions of people think to themselves...."this guy doesn't buy food like the rest of us, he has the servants do it."
newthinking
(3,982 posts)economical/energy crisis and basically the democrats did a terrible job of explaining what was going on.
Reagan then brought in the lie that we can all be rich and money money money and elections were very influenced by Republican money "gospel".
But now times are changing and people no longer believe that bullshit.
We are caught in a trap and not recognizing the changing face of the country. At this time in history strong populism is a winning argument, that is if the party really believes in it and the public believes they mean it.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)state for the horrible condition that a moderate Republican had left us in.
Jerry Brown is a hero here in California. A true liberal who knows when to compromise and when to hold fast. He raised taxes most of all on the rich but on all of us and got us to vote to raise those taxes ourselves. I wish he could run for president.
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)the nation laughing at California. Most of the people I know felt bad about the state of your state. We knew that as soon as Brown was elected as Governor, that he would turn CA around.
My good friends and I have never, ever put a state down because we know that it could happen to any state in the union. Here on DU, people tend to put certain states down, for example, Texas. They'll say things like, "What do you expect, it's Texas." They never realize that if it happened in Texas, it could happen anywhere, and it usually does.
Yes, I live in Texas but people don't realize that votes are stolen to favor repugs. It's an ongoing thing.
pamela
(3,469 posts)I wasn't even old enough to vote but I was a huge Jerry Brown supporter. Still am. One of my prized possessions is a Brown button, actually a brown button. There was a batch of Brown for president buttons that were defective-no printing, just a solid brown button-but we all took them and wore them anyway. Great conversation starters. Probably the most effective campaign button ever because everyone would ask about it.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)I was in a reception line at a Democratic function in 1992. Got to meet Governor Clinton, Senator Gore, Tipper Gore, and future President Hillary Clinton.
I knew at the meeting that Bill would save us from four more mediocre Bush years.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards stayed stagnant and SUVS became popular under Bubba's watch.
I don't think a former Walmart board member ever becoming president is very funny, either.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 18, 2015, 01:14 AM - Edit history (1)
As a progressive legacy, they are pretty damn good.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Frances
(8,545 posts)There is absolutely no way McCarthy would have been elected President.
I liked the man, but I am definitely not your average voter.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Jerry Brown, my governor now and then, did not inspire Democrats to vote for him. Clinton won more votes in the primary than all challengers put together.
The Death of Kennedy and the nasty dynamic between McCarthy and Kennedy screwed McCarthy. Kennedy's delegates did not align with any one candidate, but many of them detested McCarthy. But McCarthy never even cam close to Humphrey's delegate total. Only 14 states at the time held primaries, and though Humphrey won the popular vote in those states, he was never close to Humphrey, who had more than twice McCarthy's delegates when Kennedy died, and won the nomination with almost three times his delegates.
I do find it interesting that the left wing of the Democratic Party doesn't do well in Presidential Politics, much like the Republican Party whose far right wing makes a lot of noise but doesn't win the primaries.
It appears that Americans prefer center left ot center right Presidents.
Vattel
(9,289 posts)
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,790 posts)He was the proverbial perpetual candidate.
Tsongas was perceived as Dukakis, redux.
Brown (for whom I voted in the primaries) you might recall ran on, among other things, a modified flat tax. Tom Selleck (noted conservative) actually contributed to Brown's campaign.
Nobody was beating Clinton. He and Hillary were viewed as a young, smart couple that represented the 40 something baby boomers. He was a stark contrast to the old men that had been in Washington for the past 12 years, and unlike his last three predecessors as nominee, he had a clue how to campaign.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)The team up of Nader/SCOTUS in 2000 and the failure of Obama voters to support Obama in a Census year are the greatest disasters for America to date.
treestar
(82,383 posts)I remember Dad campaigning for Humprhey ad a local politician and threatening to move to Canada if Tricky Dick won.
Every kid in my class wore a Nixon or McGovern button. I remember my McGovern button.
I stayed up late at night to follow until the results of that election. I remember "Carter elected." I was elated.
Or the horrible landslide against Dukakis in '88?
I remember that too.
I was so happy after the 92 election. Had worked on a Senate campaign then too.
Then Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
Are you starting to see the pattern and what many of us who are smart enough to remember electoral history see?
All of our horrible losses since World War II came from our most liberal candidates or abandonment by the left wing of the party, while all of our wins came from our most centrist candidates.
Politics is the art of the possible, and accepting somebody who is not the most liberal potential candidate at the presidential level can lead to the possible becoming what was impossible when they started their terms.
I've never had a problem with the candidates. Every one was someone I wanted to win.
HERVEPA
(6,107 posts)
forest444
(5,902 posts)But I recently found one, and Carter/Mondale pin (both in good condition), in a rummage shop.
Paid one dollar each. Was a great day.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Very simple design, I recall.
HERVEPA
(6,107 posts)Hekate
(90,705 posts)Somehow, though, the Laws of Nature don't give a damn if you believe in them or not; gravity, measles virus, whatever. They just keep operating.
Politics can be like that too. The failure to educate oneself about past history dooms one to repeat it over and over.
enough
(13,259 posts)Adlai Stevenson lost to Eisenhower in 1952. I was in second grade.
RoverSuswade
(641 posts)I guess "us kids" were into politics in Junior High!!!!
I also remember my Grandparents coming home and telling me they voted for Dewey in 1948 (but Truman won).
ANOIS
(112 posts)That's when we got our first tv. My mother said it was just for the conventions, but of course we kept it. I remember the smokiness in the convention hall.
I've been staying up & watching coverage of election nite ever since.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Too bad the two party system has continued to use fear to prevent people for voting for the candidates that they feel represent them.
It's not too late to abandon fear.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Good luck with that.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)We sit here and mock tea baggers and all that, but there are movements to try to get around the status quo holding us in thrall.
We mock them because they are not us.
Well, from my POV, they are more us than the 1% are.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)That opens up the fucking floodgates and I am just not willing to go there.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Constitutionally and ethically, I see no rational defense for the idea that there should be a mechanism to discuss these things and to return the power of self-determination to the populace.
longship
(40,416 posts)If people do not understand that a constitutional convention would be an utter disaster under current political conditions, I don't know what to say.
It is not a tough call, my friend. No to a constitutional convention. Not only no, HELL NO,
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)a convention and with today's GOP-held states, we'd end up with a combination of The Handmaid's Tale and The Hunger Games.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)The GOP's manuals for tomorrow's America
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Because in my view just about the only somewhat realistic way to change it is to hold a convention. But I realized how risky that is.
Or as a Hillary supporter, maybe you like the corporate dominance in our politics?
What do you think about Citizens United?
Do you like the fact that Hillary has collected so much corporate money and is therefore indebted to the corporate class and represents their interests more than ours?
Or do you somehow believe that Hillary can take Wall Street and corporate money and not feel indebted to them, not repay them with her policies and actions?
How do you stand on these issues?
it's one thing to say you like Hillary. But how do you deal with the corporate government she stands for and represents?
grasswire
(50,130 posts)surprise, surprise
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)My biggest issue is taking the long view to moving this nation to the left. We can move to a very liberal nation, but it will take decades. The Right wing started after their defeat in 1964 and it took them until now to get us where we currently are.
We're getting close to us being too late for the next ten years, though. The worst thing about the left is they tend to attract voters for president with little care for the bottom level races, and this is a major problem because local and state level elections are far more important in the long term.
The Republicans are way ahead of us in this. They control too many states and the party that controls the states, controls the Congressional delegation. Absolute control of the Congressional delegation comes once every decade, and 2020 is our next big shot. We need to set ourselves up next year, and GROW in 2018 in order to make 2020 anything near what we need for a major shift to the left.
Until we move things leftward at the lower levels, it is impossible to have a president more liberal than Barack Obama. Since he's the most liberal president in my lifetime, that says a lot.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)But I agree it would not get rid of the two party system without an overhaul of the electoral college.
Terra Alta
(5,158 posts)I was just seven years old at the time, but I remember being so upset about it I was in tears.
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)and cried for a few days it felt awful we knew it was 12 years of eroding FDR and LBJ's poverty stances. It felt like the end of the world to me it at that young age. I was even more upset in 2000 I am still not over it. I feel like Jebby is going to be the king it scares the hell out of me. I hope he is not the nominee. I don't think I can handle another Bush.
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)Nixon resigning and President Ford being sworn in. I was 7 when President Carter was elected we helped our parent do lit drops during his Campaign. We went to the Inauguration. 80 was a horrible year as was 84 & 88 I worked on both Clinton Campaigns doing calls putting up signs. I met Tipper Gore. 2000 is still hard to even think about. I worked really hard on the Gore campaign I was at HQ when they announced for Bush it was a horrible moment. Then hope for a recount. I have to say it was one of biggest letdowns to say the least. The Supreme Court decision was a travesty in my opinion. I have to say 08 and 12 were the most exciting campaigns I ever worked on everyone I talked to in 08 was pumped up. I would call people and they had so much love for President Obama those were special times. 12 was the last campaign my dad ever saw we met the President in Athens Ohio. My dad died in March of 2013. My Mom died in July 2013 she was too ill to go to Athens but she worked her tail off on the phone. So 12 will always be bittersweet to me.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Carter did not lose because he faced a challenge from Kennedy.
I was proud to have voted for McGovern and never felt the slightest need to hide that fact.
What I was ashamed of was the full scale retreat of the Democratic Party from its core New Deal principles, a retreat that started with Carter and culminated with Clinton. We now have a Democratic president who could openly admire the right wing Raw Deal of Ronald Reagan as a good thing for America.
I look at how the right dealt with their devastating defeat in 1964. They didn't give up. They went back to work. 16 years later they took over the country and ended the New Deal.
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...Teddy's challenge was a result of Carter's already-existing unpopularity, it didn't cause it.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)Mr. Carter told Stahl, "The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed." Mr. Carter contends Kennedy did it out of spite to deprive his rival of a major domestic policy success. Mr. Carter declared, "It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill." In a journal entry included his new book, "White House Diary," Carter noted, "Kennedy continuing his irresponsible and abusive attitude, immediately condemning our health plan."
Of course, Kennedy had his own say about his chilly relationship with Carter in his memoir, "True Compass." Kennedy said it was Mr. Carter who "slowed things down." He noted, "If we had passed comprehensive national health insurance together it would have been a huge victory for Carter."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/time-has-not-cooled-jimmy-carter-ted-kennedy-feud/
appalachiablue
(41,140 posts)dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)The entire OP is a complete re-write of a history I am indeed old enough to remember. History is a battle-ground, as they say. Everyone likes to blame the left, but the real problem was the Democratic Party went corporate starting in '76 or so, and has been spinning away from the interests of anyone but the 1% ever since.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)You'll get a Republican elected, or someone will shoot a puppy, or something.
JHB
(37,160 posts)..."Desert One", and leaves out the "Ed Koch Democrats" who though the Camp David accords were a raw deal for Israel and hated Carter with a passion -- who voted for either Reagan or Anderson so as not to vote for Carter -- but mentions Kennedy is grinding an axe.
Carter's poll numbers dropped precipitously in April, after Desert One became a fiasco, and Republicans thumped the "weak Democrats" drum. Reagan didn't get the final uptick in the polls until the very end, just after it became clear that Carter's negotiations wouldn't pay off.
GP6971
(31,163 posts)JFK & LBJ. In today's environment, Ike in 56 would have been considered good
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Do you remember the thrill of Nixon's resultant victory?
Halcyon days, right?
GP6971
(31,163 posts)LBJ didn't run in 68.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Not attacking, BTW. Just leveraging off your post for the sake of the OP.
GP6971
(31,163 posts)By meaning the the base turning against LBJ, are you referring to HHH? Just asking.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)of which, BTW, I was a proud member - at the ripe old age of 14. LBJ was cowed to drop out by the din of the vocal minority. Had he held on, with a workable plan to leave Viet Nam, I expect we may have been spared the Nixon horror.
I was a stupid kid, but I (arguably) grew out of it. It's perturbing to see the unlearned lessons overtake this forum, as evinced by the OP.
GP6971
(31,163 posts)68 as a year sucked. Tet, Khe San, democratic national convention, MLK & RFK plus what has already been mentioned. It was a tough year and I think a lot of the politics of the time were given a back seat to the current events. Tricky Dick I'm sure took advantage of that.
We have a lot of young people at work and some, not most, are very curious about the 60s through the early 80s. They have a hard time comprehending how students took over college campuses protesting Vietnam, Kent State etc. I was in college at the time and saw it first hand.
On the positive side, my college cancelled finals in the spring of 68! And 69 for that matter.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The right were after him because of the Civil Rights Act, and the left because of the war.
He could not have won, he thought.
In 1968, the South voted against Democrats. Race lost that race. The Democratic stance on race discrimination also lost the races in 1980 and 1972. Carter did not lose the race issue in 1976 because he was from Georgia, a Southerner. Reagan played the race card against Carter as will as the hostage card in 1980 and won
So racism was a big factor, probably bigger than economic liberalism, in several of the losses that the OP discusses. I question whether Kerry really lost Ohio in 1968. And on September 11, 2001, the newspaper consortium that reviewed the alleged Gore loss in Florida came out with a report that showed how many votes Gore and Bush II would have received based on various methods for counting the votes. In all the methods that I would have thought reasonable and legal, Gore would have won. So there are grave questions as to whether Democrats actually lost in 2000 and 2004. Personally, I believe that Bush II's presidency was a fraud from start to finish.
Make sure that the polls are carefully monitored and the votes counted, and liberal Democrats win.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)1968.
Republicans have won elections based on their racism. If we want to go back to the pre-Civil Rights era???? I don't.
Interestingly, Bill Clinton was from Arkansas, a sort of Southern state and won. Hillary is from Illinois and now from New York. She will not have Bill's advantage in the South.
It's Elizabeth Warren whose ties to Oklahoma and Texas and the slight Southern lilt in her voice that will win those Southerners who can be won.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)if you leave out the northwest corner.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, is really from Oklahoma and attended the U. of Texas. Her speech and demeanor will be more acceptable to Southerners.
Hillary is very Yankee. I've lived in both the North and the South.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Her candidacy in Arkansas would be a toss-up. She is a Yankee, but she was also First Lady of the state for 12 years. Also, she would probably do well in the not-so-Southern northwestern part of the state, which usually votes overwhelmingly for Republicans.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)and Humphrey came close to winning, so close that the final results didn't come in till the next afternoon. However, he refused to condemn the Vietnam War, and that lost him a lot of votes.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Nixon's newly revealed records show for certain that in 1968, as a presidential candidate, he ordered Anna Chennault, his liaison to the South Vietnam government, to persuade them refuse a cease-fire being brokered by President Lyndon Johnson.
Nixon's interference with these negotiations violated President John Adams's 1797 Logan Act, banning private citizens from intruding into official government negotiations with a foreign nation.
Published as the 40th Anniversary of Nixon's resignation approaches, Will's column confirms that Nixon feared public disclosure of his role in sabotaging the 1968 Vietnam peace talks. Will says Nixon established a "plumbers unit" to stop potential leaks of information that might damage him, including documentation he believed was held by the Brookings Institute, a liberal think tank. The Plumbers' later break-in at the Democratic National Committee led to the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down.
Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks was confirmed by transcripts of FBI wiretaps. On November 2, 1968, LBJ received an FBI report saying Chernnault told the South Vietnamese ambassador that "she had received a message from her boss: saying the Vietnamese should "hold on, we are gonna win."
And we can remember how Reagan's minions sabotaged any resolution of the Iranian hostage crises to throw the 1980 election.
But go ahead with your narrative, it seems to comfort you even though it ignores much ugly reality.
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)The new release of extended versions of Nixon's papers now confirms this long-standing belief, usually dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by Republican conservatives. Now it has been substantiated by none other than right-wing columnist George Will.
Nixon's newly revealed records show for certain that in 1968, as a presidential candidate, he ordered Anna Chennault, his liaison to the South Vietnam government, to persuade them refuse a cease-fire being brokered by President Lyndon Johnson.
Nixon's interference with these negotiations violated President John Adams's 1797 Logan Act, banning private citizens from intruding into official government negotiations with a foreign nation.
Published as the 40th Anniversary of Nixon's resignation approaches, Will's column confirms that Nixon feared public disclosure of his role in sabotaging the 1968 Vietnam peace talks. Will says Nixon established a "plumbers unit" to stop potential leaks of information that might damage him, including documentation he believed was held by the Brookings Institute, a liberal think tank. The Plumbers' later break-in at the Democratic National Committee led to the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down.
Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks was confirmed by transcripts of FBI wiretaps. On November 2, 1968, LBJ received an FBI report saying Chernnault told the South Vietnamese ambassador that "she had received a message from her boss: saying the Vietnamese should "hold on, we are gonna win."
As Will confirms, Vietnamese did "hold on," the war proceeded and Nixon did win, changing forever the face of American politics—with the shadow of treason permanently embedded in its DNA.
GP6971
(31,163 posts)to politicians. Probably can't nail them on treason per se, but we can sure nail them as being disloyal to this country.
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)Am familiar with it, but haven't heard it in a while. Always good to get a refresher !
blue neen
(12,321 posts)Loss after loss after loss....by murder, by riot police, by election, by everything you could imagine.
I was only 12 but can remember minute details. They're not pretty.
Midnight Writer
(21,768 posts)My mom, a very shy but very smart woman, drove me around our neighborhood late one night with a stack of Humphrey bumper stickers. She had me run out of the car and cover Nixon yard signs with Humphrey stickers (I was twelve years old and the youngest of seven).
This was so out of character for her, that nearly fifty years later, I marvel at it. So I began to watch the news and follow politics to see what she was so agitated about. It wasn't long until it was "crystal clear". Nixon was a deranged liar and crook who didn't give a damn about our country or our people, only the powers that kept him in office.
So against the herd of our small town conservative values, I became an anti-war activist and life-long liberal.
blue neen
(12,321 posts)
The things that went on that year really shaped how I felt politically, too. I can remember waking my mother up to tell that Bobby Kennedy had been killed. It felt so odd to be 12, yet feeling the sense of doom that morning.
Panich52
(5,829 posts)Carter had the temerity to actually tell the nation the truth (one memorable TV address) and they never forgave him. Add the religionists backing RR because Carter didn't turn the Oval Office into a chapel as they.d hoped a Southern Baptist would. Early in 80 I kbew if RR won nomination he'd win. Thought seriously about emigrating.
BTW, Nixon-McGovern was my 1st election, thanks to 18 yo getting vote.
Eaglton's troublesvwhich led to McG dumping him had an affect on that one, I think.
..
CrispyQ
(36,470 posts)Although I think Nixon was the one who implemented the 55 mph rule, Carter is the one who got saddled with it due to his conservation talk. Remember how quickly they took down the solar panels on the White House? And not one dem prez has bothered to put them back up.
I was a teen on the first Earth Day & I loved the concept. We always kept our thermostat turned down & wore sweatshirts in the house. Granted I didn't drive 55, but I was a young, immortal teen & 85 was more my speed.
Bongo Prophet
(2,650 posts)They didn't materialize on day 1 for sure, so some can complain about that I guess.
Not sure how long it took or when plans were first drawn up...but I remember hearing about during first term.
CrispyQ
(36,470 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Barry Goldwater visited my grade school. They gave away attrocious tasting orange soda in cans and called it "Goldwater."
My stepdad called him Barry Pisswater.
dissentient
(861 posts)there is a saying, "past performance does not necessarily predict future results"
You are assuming everything will always stay the same. And no liberal will ever have a chance. That idea just doesn't hold any water.
The one thing that is guaranteed in life is change.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Sit down, youngster!
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)dissentient
(861 posts)Excuse me, four times! Not too shabby, eh. I consider him a liberal.
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)so that will never happen again.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)FDR had a court that obstructed the new deal. It was his threat to pack the court that convinced that court to pull back a bit from their obstruction. The packing never happened.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)NAtional politics is so different from stat level or district level politics that the extremes on both sides can never win.
A Cruz is a foolish candidate from the GOP. He's so extreme he'd lose badly.
A Kucinich is a foolish candidate. He's so extreme he'd lose badly.
McGovern was extreme left. He lost badly.
Dukakis and Mondale were far enough left, they lost badly. There's jo way they could have won.
Bernie Sanders is a GREAT Senator from Vermont. He would lose badly in national electoral politics. He is too far to the left.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)does not. Also, Hillary does not have the southern twang in his voice that Bill did.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)center?
The poster is a right winger trying to drag the Democratic party right while white washing the radicals Reagan and Bush while pushing the TeaPubliKlans to new extremes.
The poster identifies Kucinich and Sanders as equivalent to the likes of Cruz and indicates Mondale and Dukakis aren't too far off and definitely in the "extreme", the framing effort is obvious. Normalize the like of Bush and paint anyone left of Reagan as fringe left in order to prop up the Turd Way.
A voice of reason my ass, a voice of regression, militarism, looting of the commons, the erosion of fundamental liberties, and global corporate domination is a whole lot more like it.
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)of 1980s Republicans. Perhaps if you weren't telling a pack of lies in your OP it would be more persuasive.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)1980s Democrats and Republicans were like.
eridani
(51,907 posts)ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)left liberals.
But the right wing of the party sure loves this story: "liberals can't win!"
and they'll make damn sure of it, too.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)the now-tombstoned poster who claimed to be an orphan barely surviving on a retail job who, in 2002, as I was planning a trip to Japan, sent me a PM telling me about the advantages and disadvantages of various Asian airlines.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)And when the left of the party started having successes again in the 80s in the reformed primary system from the 70s, they re-reformed it to make sure that wouldn't happen again. The specter of Jessie Jackson and his rainbow coalition was too much for them.
DUgosh
(3,056 posts)rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)poll after poll show people have more liberal ideas The problem is turnout
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)why weren't machines hacked then?
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)it's always possible the gains should've been larger in '08 but the illusion of democracy is also important. In 08 there would've been riots had Obama lost, because the Republicans were totally and completely hated by all except the very core of their base. Heck, even their base was becoming 'independents' as fast as they could. Anyway, it's not like Obama was going to hurt TPTB...the stock market usually does well under Democrats. So, there were gains to be made for them as well.
A bit tin foil hat-ish, maybe. Or maybe that's what they want you to think. 
It's too crazy, would never happen. Right?
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)also did just fine while the rest of the country had low turnout. We vote by mail. Both elections the entire West Coast did just fine. Something to consider.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)who lives in Canada and also votes on paper, I will NEVER understand voting machines.
CrispyQ
(36,470 posts)or the proles might revolt.
A lot of people didn't know about the SCOTUS coup of 2000 until Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11 movie came out. He opened so many eyes with that movie. I felt a change in my own community in the weeks following the release of that movie.
Also, I think TPTB realized that McCain was old & in poor health & even they didn't want Caribou Barbie at the helm.
Ultimately, TPTB choose our candidates for us, so whoever wins is still an acceptable choice for them. I don't think most of them care about social issues as long as the economic status quo is not challenged.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)They let the Republicans set the agenda and whimper into a corner if criticized. They advertise themselves as the unRepublicans, but they never come out and say exactly what they are for.
When I door knocked in 2004, people in Minneapolis were eager to get rid of Bush, and Minnesota did go for Kerry. But what did Kerry have to offer to people who didn't realize how bad Bush was? Nothing but a wooden personality and bunch of policy wonk papers.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)I'm older than dirt.
ProfessorGAC
(65,057 posts)Dirt is definitely at least a year older than you! Stickin' up for ya!
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)... I remember when sand was still whole boulders.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)as far as liberal candidates McGovern was the last true and well it didn't go well.
jimlup
(7,968 posts)Your avatar is though... I think she is risky in '16. I think any dem is risky in '16. The electorate is confused ...
I'd like to see an equivalent to Obama arise in '16 to unseat the preappointed queen of centrism.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)
rpannier
(24,329 posts)That the OP wrote Kennedy cost Carter the election in 1980, pretty much tells all you need to know... Doesn't have a clue
MADem
(135,425 posts)I had one of those bumper stickers!!!
The younger generation haven't experienced that kind of ass kicking. It does color one's perspective.
barbtries
(28,798 posts)and then some. 17 in 1972, disgusted that i could not vote.
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)because they either didn't fight back like MCGovern and Dukakis or because they had the personality of a slug like Gore and Kerry. Obama, Clinton and Carter won because they captured the national mood and people got behind them. Obama won because people wanted change from bush. Clinton won because he focused on the economy at a time when bush sr came off as uninterested. Cater won because people wanted an outsider who wasn't in D.C. during Vietnam and Watergate. Gore could've won if he ran as a successor to Clinton and actually had Bill campaign with him. Kerry just got out 9/11ed by bush. Humphrey took too long to show people he was his own man in 1968 when it came to Vietnam. This is why they lost not liberalism. Elections are about timing and issues. Obama ran as a left of center dem in 08 and won in a landslide. Hillary could do he same in 16 if she runs a a liberal.
rpannier
(24,329 posts)Kudos to you
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)And it's happening largely because of changes in attitudes among the general public. Some of those court decisions have been handed down by judges appointed by both Bushes. Painting it as a victory for electing centrist candidates is disingenuous.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Never mentions treasonous acts committed by both the Nixon and Reagan campaigns that secured the elections for the Republican candidates.
rpannier
(24,329 posts)But, Carter lost on his own
The meme that Kennedy cost him the election has been disproven so many times it's nauseating
Carter got thumped in every region, including the south.
His administration was viewed by most of the public as incompetent and always playing catch-up
His administration abandoned pro-Democracy demonstrators in South Korea, sided with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, even after it was shown that the Killing Fields had happened
His micromanaging of everything got to the point of ludicrous -- White House tennis courts
He didn't lose because of Ted Kennedy. He lost because of Jimmy Carter
aftab267
(5 posts)Your article is very nice. I like that.Thanks.
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)
Tsiyu
(18,186 posts)but we need fundamental change that only an outlier can provide. The younger generations are saddled with student debt, unable to move ahead or even think about raising families. Bitter? I would be.
Many people are really, really stuck in wage slavery, imprisonment and no access to treatment for all sorts of things.
It's easy to put your fingers in your ears and refuse to hear what's all around you, but the "centrists" got nothing for your illustrious method in 2014. People are so disgusted, exhausted, whatever, they have no faith in either party.
I hate it. But Democrats have to change with the times and fight for what they believe in. You may be living large in this economy, so what would you care? many are not. I'm glad for marriage equality. But it's no time to pat ourselves on the back, not with income inequality what it is today. Not with crooked Wall Street bankers going free while we incarcerate our future.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Tsiyu
(18,186 posts)
Skittles
(153,164 posts)everything from then on I remember clearly
starroute
(12,977 posts)The Republicans were able to run up a streak of presidential victories for three reasons.
The most important was the Civil Rights Act and Nixon's Southern Strategy that first slowly pried the South away from the Democrats and then cemented it firmly to the GOP. In 1976 and 1992, the Democrats were still able to win by running Southern moderates. But after Obama, that's never going to be possible again. The Democrats need a new coalition -- which largely means appealing to minorities and young people while regaining a working-class base, particularly in the Midwest. And that's not a centrist strategy.
The second was that the Republicans were able to come across as the Daddy party during the period of insecurity following the 1960s. But they've already blown that by selling out to the clown circus.
And the third was that the New Deal approach was wearing a bit thin in the knees and the last generation of New Deal liberals was timid and unappealing. But we're beyond that too.
So the real challenge is to establish a base among the newly disenfranchised. And that won't be done with a replay of late 20th century centrism.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)thats all one heard.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Instead, he was assassinated in a hotel kitchen and the Dems locked their anti-war Base out of their convention where the police beat the hell out of them in what can only be called a police riot.
Nixon capitalized on the images to run as the "Law and Order" guy while the "sensible" Dems ran a hawk with a stupid name.
rurallib
(62,416 posts)in those days the majority of delegates were still chosen in political back rooms. As VP, Humphrey would get the delegates that would have gone to Johnson in the old days of goodies flowing from Washington. In other words, Humphrey inherited the machine.
The only way Kennedy would have been nominated would have been if he had shown superior vote getting power in the primaries. IIRC, Kennedy hesitated to challenge Johnson in Vermont. McCarthy pulled the major upset there. From there McCarthy and Kennedy traded wins, with neither showing they were real tremendous vote getters.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)He did. He got California and that's the big enchilada. (It was Nixon's home state too.) This country would be a completely different place if Bobby had lived. For one thing, the moon missions wouldn't have been scrapped.
You have to remember that Nixon was elected by a landslide in both terms but after Watergate nobody would admit they voted for him. This was the time when America turned cynical about politics and the talking point of the time was "both sides are corrupt it's just that Nixon got caught". That's how a B movie cowboy from Nixon's party was able to get in. Everyone figured it didn't make any difference if it was a Republican or a Democrat. He would bring glamor back to the White House with Hollywood types coming to see their old friend "Dutch" and it would be Camelot II.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)please.
McGovern's the only one you could describe as left-liberal, mainly through his association with the Kennedy admin and his opposition to Vietnam.
And he lost because most of the Party didn't support him. what a surprise.
McGovern's nomination did not become assured until the first night of the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, where, following intricate parliamentary maneuverings led by campaign staffer Rick Stearns, a Humphrey credentials challenge regarding the California winner-take-all rules was defeated.[182][183]
Divisive arguments over the party platform then followed; what resulted was arguably the most liberal one of any major U.S. party.[184] On July 12, 1972, McGovern officially won the Democratic nomination. In doing so and in taking over the party's processes and platform, McGovern produced what The New York Times termed "a stunning sweep".[164]
The convention distractions led to a hurried process to pick a vice presidential running mate.[185] Turned down by his first choice, Ted Kennedy, as well as by several others, McGovern selected – with virtually no vetting – Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton.... It remains the only time major party vice-presidential nominee has been forced off the ticket.
Five prominent Democrats then publicly turned down McGovern's offer of the vice presidential slot: in sequence, Kennedy again, Abraham Ribicoff, Humphrey, Reubin Askew, and Muskie (Larry O'Brien was also approached but no offer made).[198] Finally, he named United States Ambassador to France Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy.
The McGovern Commission changes to the convention rules marginalized the influence of establishment Democratic Party figures, and McGovern struggled to get endorsements from figures such as former President Johnson and Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley.[204] The AFL–CIO remained neutral, after having always endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in the past. Some southern Democrats...switched their support to the incumbent President Nixon through a campaign effort called "Democrats for Nixon". Nixon outspent McGovern by more than two-to-one.
Nixon directly requested that his aides use government records to try to dig up dirt on McGovern and his top contributors.[208] McGovern was publicly attacked by Nixon surrogates[209] and was the target of various operations of the Nixon "dirty tricks" campaign.[210] The infamous Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in June 1972 was an alternate target after bugging McGovern's headquarters was explored.[210] The full dimensions of the subsequent Watergate scandal did not emerge during the election, however;
His allies were replaced in positions of power within the Democratic Party leadership, and the McGoverns did not get publicly introduced at party affairs they attended.[192] On January 20, 1973, a few hours after Richard Nixon was re-inaugurated, McGovern gave a speech at the Oxford Union that talked about the abuses of Nixon's presidency; it brought criticism, including from some Democrats, for being ill-mannered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#1972_presidential_campaign
The Party sold McGovern down the river, big-time. That democratic functionaries perpetuate the
explanation for McGovern's loss as him being 'too left' perpetuates the sell-out, down to the present-day.
McGovern's loss signaled the retreat from the post-war liberal order on the part of elites.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)thanks for filling in the details.
McGovern was one of the finest candidates we ever had, but he was screwed by his own party.
Remember that Carter got into trouble by not understanding which asses he had to kiss to get anything done in Washington.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)'72 dirty tricks and abandoned by Southern conservadems smarting over the VRA
'76 didn't really run as a moderate
'80 lost when he went moderate
'84 against nuclear buildup but for invading Nicaragua
'88 more dirty tricks: DLC created to get some of that sugar
'92 ran left, governed right
'00 Gore almost lost when he moved right, and he didn't lose
'04 Mr IWR?
'08 ran left, governed right
this is the same BS we got when IWR was passed: "they're in tough districts and have to vote that way to win!" by 2006 IWR Yea voters lost seats at twice the rate as Nays--but of course that only proves the 3wayers' point that they were in tough districts! their plan's so brilliant that its failure counts twice as much in its favor as a victory! what a country!
this is like those chain letters where they flip the numbers so that NM and MS are giving the most money to Washington while MN and MA take the most
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I also remember way back to Kennedy's victory, and Johnson's victory.
All solid liberals on domestic issues. Johnson was especially liberal on domestic issues and surprisingly opposed to racism for a Texan. That is apparently because of his experience teachin Spanish-speaking children in a school in Texas when he was young.
I also remember McGovern's loss in 1972. In fact, I remember campaigning for McGovern that year. One of the events I remember was registering voters in a public library. And the lovely lady I sat next that day was none other than Jimmy Carter's mother. She told me about her wonderful son.
MohRokTah, Ms. Carter was working for McGovern whom you described as a liberal loser (you don't use those words but that is what I think you mean).
Nixon and Reagan used the race card to win their elections.
Carter was defeated by the economy, not by Reagan. And the economy was bad because OPEC raised petroleum prices and thus squeezed the American people at the gas pump.
Clinton presided over a pretty good economy that followed the recession in the Bush years and the inflation of the early Reagan years, but the bills he signed and his reappointments of Greenspan set the stage for a horrible economy during the Bush years. Bush tried to cover up just how bad the economy was by overheating it, especially the housing market, encouraging an unrealistic mortgage sector.
The recession of 2008 was the result. While Bush with his war, easing of taxes on the rich and goosing of the housing market was primarily at fault, Clinton set the stage for the 2008 crash and paved the way for Bush's mismanagement of the economy.
The reappointment of Greenspan by Clinton was an unforgivable mistake.
But then we add NAFTA, the Telecommunications Act (which practically silenced liberal -- or more accurately, rational -- thought on the TV and radio), the Defense of Marriage Act, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the setting up of the Iraq War, etc. and really, Clinton was about as close to being a Republican as a Democrat could be.
I for one do not want four more years of Clinton. The country does not deserve it. Sorry, MohRokTah. I remember way back further to you, back when our country was doing well, when we had a middle class that could own a house and a car on one income, when public schools were good, when college was affordable, when you made enough money to pay your doctor and health insurance was non-profit if needed at all, when working people belonged to unions. I'm not saying everything was better when we had liberal Democrats (and a liberal Republican -- Eisenhower) managing our economy, but it sure was better than it has been since the Republicans started winning with Nixon.
I'm liberal and I'm proud, and I will not vote for Hillary Clinton. She will repeat the mistakes of the Bill Clinton presidency. We don't need that.
herding cats
(19,564 posts)I've read about, but don't personally know about anything before that. I still hold my beliefs and opinions all the same. Just as those who predate me do.
You're making me feel as if I'm supposed to be grateful for living in the golden era of Democratic reign here. The problem with that is the Bush reign; the "war on terror" coupled with the Iraq war and the subsequent destabilize of the Middle East, and the Great Recession are getting in the way of my warm and fuzzies here. Most of my adult life has been under a Republican congress.
Imagine being me and seeing all I've lost in my adult life, many of my privacy rights I thought we're previously established keep being redefined by the far right, my womb is still a wedge issue, and Citizens United totally changed the playing field for big money in elections. Not to mention I'm supposed to assume a corporation is a person with the same rights as myself. Much of this effects both sides and how we view them.
I get what you're trying to say, but you need to address more of what we're actually trying to process when you attempt to talk to us. As it is now, you're just talking to, or around, a lot of people who do recall what you addressed in your OP.
People such as myself who are Democrats are still going to be worried, in spite of the gains to same sex equality, which we all thought should have taken place already. Yes, it's a massive step! Yet it's still a step the people you're addressing thinks is late coming. It's like reproductive rights, or racial issues, how is it we're still arguing something so basic and fundamental?
There's so many things missed in your OP. Life is complicated, we're complicated. Take some time and get to know us. I believe we have vast amounts of common ground. We just need to learn how to reach each other.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)Period.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)He lost because of high inflation and, most of all, the Iran hostage crisis, including the failed attempt to rescue the hostages that resulted in mangled helicopters and dead servicemen in that Iranian desert that was constantly being shown on TV.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)There is strong evidence that the Reagan camp made a secret deal with the Iranians not to release the hostages, even though Carter was negotiating through other Islamic countries and had secured back channels assurances that the hostages would not be harmed.
When he spoke at a college where I was teaching, he said that it was frustrating, because his advisors on Iranian culture had told him that only behind-the-scenes, mediated negotiations would be successful and that the "honor" code would require any further public threats or blustering to be met with violence or harm to the hostages.
In any case, the hostages were released the day Reagan was inaugurated. Funny thing, that.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)At the time, people were telling me it was done because "The Ayatollah was afraid of Reagan" or "It was Iran's slap-in-the-face to Carter", which sounded a little plausible. But then Reagan started giving Iran spare parts for its military equipment, and the whole sordid episode started to unfold.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)Surely you remember the way Mondale looked gleeful when he said "I'm going to raise your taxes." Practically the first thing out of his mouth after accepting the nomination. We political junkies remember that he added something like, "I'm telling you this. My opponent will raise taxes, too, but he won't tell you." But the news media just played the "I'm going to raise your taxes" part.
You mean the way Gore failed to distinguish himself from Bush (for the low-information voters) so thoroughly that, for the first time in my lifetime (and I remember all the elections back to 1960), one-third of the voters were undecided just before the election? You can blame Nader and the crooked Florida pols all you want, but neither would have been a factor if Gore hadn't acted like he was afraid to be too different from Bush. I've seen elections that were close going in. I've seen elections that looked like landslides for one party or the other going in. I have never before or since seen an election in which 1/ 3 of the voters couldn't tell the difference between the two candidates. That's the result of BAD campaigning.
Or maybe you mean Kerry, who came across as wooden and uninterested in winning in the election the two times I saw him in person? The guy whose website was drab and had position papers written by wordy policy wonks, as opposed to Bush's colorful and simple website?
If you're old enough to remember McGovern, you probably remember how he was portrayed as "the hippie candidate," never shown on TV without a crowd of young people around him. You should also remember that most people of our parents' generation were angry and/or bewildered by the sexual revolution and campaigns for racial equality. They truly believed that the nation was on the road to moral ruin, with "those kids," so having McGovern associated with youth was the kiss of death. Meanwhile, Nixon, a throwback to the 1950s, promised "law and order" and called the student protesters "bums." Literally. He probably won a few million older people's votes that day.
McGovern was the most liberal nominee of my lifetime, no question. Mondale and Dukakis were called "too liberal," but no one ever defined what that was supposed to mean, and being really dumb about publicity, the Dems didn't reclaim "liberal" as a badge of pride. They let the Republicans set the agenda and the vocabulary.
(My response to "too liberal" would have been. "Yes, I'm too liberal to see Social Security and Medicare weakened. I'm too liberal to go into unnecessary wars. I'm too liberal to favor fat cats over the little person. It's better to be too liberal than too conservative."
Or: "Do you live in a rural area and have electricity in your home? Thank a liberal. Do your grandparents have Social Security and Medicare? Thank a liberal."
You know, reclaim the label.
But that would spoil the charade in which the Republicans act like raving loonies and the mainstream Democrats grow more and more conservative and win elections only because the Republicans have gone off the deep end. No one is representing the people who are tired of kowtowing to the 1%, because the 1% buy the candidates and buy the media, and they don't want anyone who will rock the yachts.
That part about only conservative Democrats winning is true only because they're the only ones who get money from the big donors and favorable media attention.
lexington filly
(239 posts)regarding centrist democrats. I'm old enough to remember that today's "centrist Democrat" is policy-wise, the Republican of just a very few decades ago. And old enough to remember those liberals running apologetically rather than proudly and tall. And as a student of history, I personally think the American people today desperately want a Franklin (or even Teddy) Roosevelt much more than they want another BILL Clinton or John Kerry type. Your post seems to suggest I'd be better off forsaking my values in the voting booth and vote for a mysterious grab bag or pig in a poke Democrat while keeping my fingers crossed than insisting our Democratic Party candidates run on our Democratic principles.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)It's hard to find an ordinary person, conservative or liberal, who doesn't believe that the deck is stacked against the little person.
I used to live in an apartment complex in Portland that was home to a lot of wealthy and elderly Republicans. They were big donors to the R's, and in 1999, they told me that George W. Bush was going to be the nominee. All I knew of him was what Molly Ivins had written, so I asked, "Don't you have anyone better than that?"
"No," one woman insisted, "they had a breakfast meeting where they told us that Bush is going to be the nominee."
OK, so these were no fuzzy independents. In fact, one of them refused to speak to me after I wrote a letter to the paper supporting a Democratic candidate.
But even these Republicans were disturbed at the increasing corporatism in everyday life. They didn't like jobs being shipped overseas. They didn't like to see local businesses bought out by outside investors. They didn't like the way customer service had deteriorated.
Republicans appeal to the red states through SOCIAL conservatism. Democrats try to win on the basis of SOCIAL liberalism. Nobody but nobody appeals to ordinary people in terms of ECONOMIC liberalism.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)
alp227
(32,026 posts)Look how many Blue Dogs lost their seats in 2010 & 2014.
And it's not just because of "being too left" that the horrible losses happened. Dukakis: His biggest issues were his inability to articulate why he was against capital punishment (in his infamous answer to the question about executing a robber who raped his wife). And that tank photo. Kerry: He failed to push back against the Swift Boat smears. His attempt to be "the smart one" in contrast with Bush backfired, too. In contrast, Obama was a powerful speaker and had a marketable personality too, the reason why his "change" campaign exploited social media to recruit lots of millennial voters.
lexington filly
(239 posts)Hey, you made a great point. All those candidates allowed the other party to define them while Obama wouldn't stand for it.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)Resorting to lies to try to sell their rightward move? Hmmm, who else lies to try to move the country to the right?
oldandhappy
(6,719 posts)McGovern still stings.
villager
(26,001 posts)Reagan's backdoor arms deal with Iran over the hostages, and the rest, if we want to blame "the left" for illegal Republican election activities.
Also, the "art of the possible" should be never be confused with "the art of the repeated cave-in to special interests," but that's a discussion for another day...
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)But my folks were quite active in Democratic politics. I think they campaigned for Truman after they married.
They were delegates to the State Convention when I was a baby. The first campaign I was aware of was John F. Kennedy.
And about Goldwater I remember the slogan "In your heart you know he's right. In your head you know he's wrong" and "In your heart you know he's right. Far right."
Democratic humor.
There were
AuH20 stickers for the intelligentsia.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)That's one I remember from back then..
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,790 posts)Nixon/Humphrey was an odd election. Humphrey was the liberal's liberal, and Nixon was known for being a staunch anti-communist. However, Vietnam was the big issue of that election, and Nixon, with his secret plan to end the war, essentially ran as the "Dove" against Humphrey's apparent desire to continue the policies of the LBJ administration. The election was exceptionally close in the popular vote, but Humphrey's loss of the entire South to Wallace, and his failure to carry Illinois and New Jersey basically doomed him. Nixon's landslide in '72 was a result of a strong economy, mainstream exhaustion with opposition to the war (which was perceived as winding down), and white opposition to the spectre of forced school integration (read: bussing). Ted Kennedy might have been able to oppose Nixon, but Chappie hung around his neck like an albatross.
Carter had just about everything go wrong that could go wrong, short of war with Russia. His re-election was basically doomed when Desert One went south. Reagan was in the right place at the right time. Even if Carter had freed the hostages, I'm uncertain he could have survived double digit interest rates. I recall many Dems my folks knew switching to Anderson, and it's one of the few instances in which I think we'd have been better off if the sitting President had been primaried.
Mondale and Dukakis ran horrible campaigns. If Gary Hart had stayed out of trouble, he might have had a shot in '84. People forget that Reagan's popularity really wasn't solidified until late in '84, and Hart -- a younger and more vibrant man - would have posed a stark contrast to the aging Reagan.
My wife will tell anyone who will listen exactly when HW Bush lost the '92 election. Either late in '91 or early in '92, he and Barbara went out to a Giant grocery in suburban Maryland, and were awestruck over what they perceived as the "new" technology of bar code scanners. The news had fun with this, as bar code scanners had been in stores for nearly 10 years; however, Bush hadn't done routne things like shopping during the entire Reagan presidency. It was the first sure sign the public had that he was out of touch with the reality of American life. Odd when considering that about a year earlier, in the wake of Gulf War 1, he had huge approval ratings.
I support Hillary Clinton because of her leadership style; her foreign policy and Senate experience; and because she will have a far shorter "learning curve" upon moving into the White House. I also think she has the best shot of any Democrat of getting elected. This is not '08; there is not a groundswell of anti-war and anti-bank anger to buoy progressive candidates. On the contrary, as the economy improves, Americans are once again getting more concerned about terror than the economy. At best, I see Elizabeth Warren winning the Kerry states in a GE; at worst, I see a Dukakis-like beatdown. The knock on her from the right will be "Can you see her coming up with a plan to defeat ISIS?" The Indian princess thing will get beaten to death -- it would be ugly. Better that she should stay in the Senate. Maybe in 3.5 years, she should run for Mass Governor.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)Elections, imho, are more about demographics and actual geopolitical and economic conditions than this candidate or that candidate.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,790 posts)We always talk about Bush's theft (as we should). We don't often ask whether Gore could have run a better campaign. Were there better Veep choices at the time than Joe Lieberman? Could Al have done a better job defining his relationship with the then-being-impeached Bill Clinton?
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Hart ran in the '84 primary and lost to Mondale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Hart#1984_presidential_campaign
Had nothing to do with him not "staying out of trouble" at that point (although he may have run again in '88 and been a better candidate than Dukakis against Bush without the scandal).
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,790 posts)You are, of course, correct.
That said, I still think Hart would have fared better than Mondale.
RandiFan1290
(6,235 posts)You will have the perfect party once you purify them of the evil LIBERALS!!!11
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)The only way to get a more liberal president is to work from the bottom up. That was how the right wing was able to move the country to the right.
The most effective way to push everything to the left will be to win HUGE in 2020 at the state and local level.
Sancho
(9,070 posts)It's fine to imagine some ideal person to appear like magic, but having Jeb or Rand Paul in the White House would be worse than any Democrat.
charles d
(99 posts)And losing Bobby in 1968 was the worst. This would be a whole 'nother country now had he lived. He would've beaten Nixon by a light-year!
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I was born in the early 70's, so I remember the 80, 84, and 88 elections pretty well (72 and 76 I would have been too young). I became a Democrat long before I was old enough to vote. Of course in 2000 and 2004 I was old enough to vote.
I disagree that we have to compromise with a centrist candidate to win. Carter had a lot of things working against him, but he was still an awesome president. In terms of Mondale and Dukakis neither were good candidates. Gore had a couple of things working against him: 1) Not having Bill Clinton out there campaigning for him was a mistake; 2) Not being more enthusiastic; and 3) Karl Rove and his thugs rigging the election in Ohio and Florida. Of those four Gore should have won.
The problem is having someone who is charismatic and who brings excitement to the ticket. That is exactly what Obama did and he by the way IS a liberal.
People think Hillary Clinton is going to generate all this excitement the second time around, that it's going to be an easy landslide, and we are going to take a bunch of red states. That isn't what is going to happen. She ran a flawed campaign in 2008 and has been in politics for decades. Among Democrats (outside the DU fishbowl) there is not much excitement for her to run.
I'm as glad as anyone about marriage equality, but I also want to point out that Obama was not a "compromise candidate" he was an underdog running against a well-known entity. It was people like myself that busted their ass in the primary that got Obama as our nominee and eventually president.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)and yet I still think we can elect a better candidate than HRC.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Rather than accepting the fact that the centrists are lining up yet another poor candidate, then planning to whine when said poor candidate fails in the one job a candidate has - earning votes.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts) mcar
(42,334 posts)I do think people have forgotten these losses and the reasons for them.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Getting the excuses all lined up and ready to go, or re-casting the Democratic Party as a Third-Way, Centrist group from pretty much the start, and saying the Left never really belonged or fit in - or (lamely) trying to excoriate those who do not care for Hillary into, well, caring for her and saying oh, what the fuck was I thinking, all that lefty liberal shit - let's just me even more enthusiastic about whatever Jebbie brings to the campaign?
I give YOU the loss of millions of jobs, the ascendance of the 1%, and the coming TPP to finish us off. With war on the side.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)it is, saying liberal left doesn't sell. I'm old enough to remember & vote on a Liberal Party line in Ny State...its become a joke and a minor party it vanished long ago. The Javits & Kennedy among others, that ran on that line don't exist today. People consistantly bring up the speech JFK made about being a Liberal it was accepting the Liberal Party nomination...that was 1960. It now 55yrs later, the word liberal has been throughly excoriated on all winds of the compass. How did that happen??? They already figured out that Progressive is just another term..for liberal. The bashing comes from the media and its being left unanswered. There are no great sages out there giving orations any more.
"Liberal" was Archie Bunkered to death..and we sat back watching it happen.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Party and moved it to being Republican in nature, except for some low-cost social issues.
I admit it may be time to just either ignore politics completely, or move out of the country and just think about the weather, while I can.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)denigrating the value of civil rights. I mean I have spent the bulk of my life listening to straight people left, right and center oppose marriage equality for years. It was 'the ultimate wedge issue' and a 'hot button' and we were constantly urged to put it off until 'after the next election' or 'until all the old conservatives die off'. As recently as 2011, many on DU would lecture us that it was impossible to get marriage equality, 'don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good' they'd say 'only civil unions can be done'. It went on and on and on.
So it strains credulity to suddenly be informed that LGBT rights are 'easy to support, low cost, no one cares' after 40 years of hearing about poutrage, pony wanting and pragmatism. If these rights are so easy to support, why the fuck was it like pulling teeth to get that support? If it was a 'wedge issue' a few years ago and now so uncontroversial that it hardly merits mention, shouldn't we figure out how that huge sea change happened and then apply it to other issues?
It certainly did not go from 'hot button' to 'unimportant' by magic. Those of us who have worked for years on such issues know how it happened. Discounting our efforts and dismissing the difficulty of the victories and the value of the prize is not particularly persuasive.
It's a huge error, because LGBT and other minority voters are a large, large chuck of this Party's left wing. Suddenly you claim that issues of LGBT equality, racial parity and reproductive choice are not important nor controversial, just low cost bones to throw to idiots. People know better.
djean111
(14,255 posts)And that huge sea change? That was the people, as you point out, not the politicians. IMO, most politicians took the stance that ensured the most votes.
What I am saying is that it is not right to say, oh, the TPP will mean bad things for the working class, but that is okay, because we got gay marriage. And THAT is a meme that is being pushed.
It should not be an either/or situation.
It should not be a Sophie's choice.
leveymg
(36,418 posts) 
marmar
(77,081 posts)....... a fine whine that doesn't get better with age.
This original post is rancid, but reading through some of the responses reminds me of why I love DU: A big pile of BS will be called out as such.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)work over decades by LGBT people. You and the rest of the straights gave nothing, it was taken by force and persuasion. And the LGBT voters are part of the liberal wing of the Party, the rights you now claim to be giving unto us were born in radicalism and revolution. For you to attempt to claim that is the result of centrism, when 'moderate Democrats' were the very last Democrats to finally get on board with equality is truly insulting.
'I give you'. Fuck that noise.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Not a second before.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)with the Tea-publicans these days?
Because clearly, you're looking for Hillary to articulate these policy positions once she hits the campaign trail. Or not?
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)I participated in them all, throughout the process.
CrispyQ
(36,470 posts)it wasn't because of a primary challenge by Kennedy.
What I remember is a democratic party that backed away from the word liberal when a two bit actor poked fun at the word. Instead, they tucked tail & ran. The dems should have stood proud & said, "Hell yes we're liberal & here's why," & then they should have recited the Joe Conservative essay. Instead, they hopped on the gravy train. Sure they're the party that throws more crumbs to the People, but they are still on the train & it isn't changing direction.
You don't mention so many other things that have influenced our elections, such as gerrymandering, money in politics, a compromised media with an agenda, black box voting.
And your comment about Gore & Kerry. We did win with Gore & Kerry but the dems didn't have the spine for a fight. Why look, there's Harry Reid right in front, the one with the glasses.
I miss unrec.
Chathamization
(1,638 posts)got an answer from the "we lost because McGovern was liberal" people. Nixon was able to derail Muskie's campaign during the primary, and was an incumbent president running for reelection with a pretty strong economy and praise for his China policy (and that's not to mention his dirty tricks, racist Dems abandoning the party, intra-party fighting that continued from '68, and what happened with Eagleton).
It seems like a lot of people who talk about remembering 1972 don't seem to remember it well at all.
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)I was 7; stuffing envelopes and dropping lit on doorsteps with my older brother. I've always been so very proud of that, especially the day after the election. 
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)They were loud, daily occurrences, all over the US. And Nixon's press conferences.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)And the OP of course refuses to engage any substantive critics.
How the mighty have fallen.
Evidently there is nowhere safe from right wing bullshit any more.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)A handful of mastubatory sub-threads with the usual "naive children" crap. But I notice most of the debunking is completely ignored by them.
They got nothing but propaganda that they wash, rinse and repeat.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Third Way DINOs trying to browbeat us "not so smart damn pesky lybrals" into once again surrender our dignity and integrity to support another fucking Republican in Democrat's clothing.
No thanks. Not interested in your phone blame game. BTW, I campaigned for Bobby Kennedy. So, give me a candidate that I don't have to hold my nose to vote for or lose my vote. It's that fucking simple.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)are those who would call a good Democrat a "DINO".
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)... standard for what is a "good Democrat'" and what is not.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)They have no clue what a real Democrat is.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Many Good Democrats don't agree with you.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Indeed. Ours (third grade) ran a mock poll. Nixon eked out a 13-2 win. And this was in Baltimore County! 
uponit7771
(90,346 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts) 
tabbycat31
(6,336 posts)(My first presidential vote was for Al Gore when I was 20).
BUt I'm old enough to have studied them. I've expressed this worry here before, but if we run a progressive like a Bernie Sanders (who represents his state well) I worry that he could go down in flames like a McGovern or Mondale and would rather take a chance with a moderate. (I'm all for progressives in places where they can win).
The real worry I have is that the GOP has pushed this country so far to the right that people think that a moderate Democrat is 'too liberal' (and I've heard this at the doors before). If the political scale is 0-100 with 0 being very conservative and 100 being very liberal, the right portrays a 55 as a liberal and 'be afraid.' Sad thing is it works.
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)Kennedy v Nixon in 1960. There have been good times, bad times and absolutely HORRENDOUS times.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Probably since World War II.
That's our current benchmark and is the best we can hope for until we make some real changes at the local and state level. Moving the country one direction or the other starts at the bottom and moves its way up.
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)he was reluctant to come out against the war and paid the price (and so did we) for that reluctance.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)McGovern certainly.
Mondale.
Dukakis.
Gore and Kerry would have been on similar ground to Obama, IMO.
If we can take the lesson the right taught us and go after the state legislatures and governorships, especially for 2020, we can move this country along and actually get somebody most on the left would agree is a very liberal president, possibly by 2028.
Every census year requires the highest efforts to insure we have the local grounds taken.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)I'm 52 years old and remember all of this and it didn't happen the way you say it did.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts) Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)The dreaded smiley face rolling on the floor laughing!!
I concede all.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)And thanks for keeping this kicked.
oldlib2
(39 posts)to remember Nixon running for vice president for Ike. I went to the Hollywood Bowl and listened to Meridith McKambridge, supporting Adili Stevenson for president. In 1956 the Democrats weren't running against Ike, he was too popular, but against Richard Nixon. I thought that we were rid of him when he lost to Kennedy, and I was surprised to see him resurface, and eventually win the presidency.
TBF
(32,062 posts)Serious question. 
I liked Jimmy Carter - I was young but I remember him. And I adored Teddy Kennedy but of course we couldn't have him (and he probably would've been shot like his brothers anyway).
Then we get Bill Clinton and he passes NAFTA and more importantly signs Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) - which repeals part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933.
Barack Obama gives it a try and barely manages to pass a version of healthcare that is straight out of the Heritage Foundation.
Right now our best bet is voting for a centrist so we can hopefully not be pulled into full out crazy land? I feel like either way we are on thin ice. ----> 
Vinca
(50,273 posts)I had little interest in politics until the Clinton years (although I was a big McGovern fan). I was probably as uninformed as the average tea bagger. Sometimes I wish I could stick my head back in the sand and turn into a dim bulb again.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)And it's even more advantageous to the status quo for people to fall into that.
The more people that educate themselves and vote, the more likely for the status quo to have its head turned around.
We can get there, but we have to begin within the framework of what we have and realize the challenge is always local. The single most important elections to participate in are the elections at the city council and county board level. They have a more direct impact on your daily life and everything gets driven upwards from there.
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)JFK? LBJ? Huge congressional majorities for 40 years by being the party of the people? Surrendering the country to the Repukes by adopting the Turd Way? Does any of this ring bells? If it does you're lying. If not, it confirms my belief that the BOG has completely decoupled from reality.
We need a Hippy Punching forum. So that the DINOs, BOG, and other Turd Way Dems can pretend their decimation of the party over the last 2 decades never happened, in peace.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Typical response of somebody with no argument.
TBF
(32,062 posts)in which I asked what do we do when our gains are actually losses. Why would you pose an OP if you don't want to answer questions or discuss your premise for the OP? All I have seen you do is mock others. Is that why you come to DU?
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)I cannot answer them all.
TBF
(32,062 posts)but mocking some and choosing to ignore the serious questions doesn't do much for your credibility.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)yeah, we voted for democrats who were just too liberal, dad gum it.
if we'd just voted for more repulo-dems, all would be well.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)Jesse Jackson in the primary. I of course campaigned my 
off for Michael Dukakis and cried when Bush I won. That was the dirtiest, campaign up until Bush II, Lee Atwater was awful but Rove was worse than him. Sometimes I wonder if Republican strategy is to outdo the hate and smears of the previous campaign?
fadedrose
(10,044 posts)is that when Carter won the nomination, and all the Democratic bigwigs were onstage during the applause, Ted Kennedy refused to shake the hand that Carter offered him because he wanted the nomination for himself.
Carter governed almost all by himself, having received token support from the Senate. There were other problems other than the hostages not being released - there were interest rates, energy shortages, etc. It seems we shot ourselves in the foot because of a divided party.
I remember Ted Kennedy becoming a superstar to the left after that loss, not before. There was no progressive left, just moderates.
I'd like to better remember the platforms these candidates stood on when Carter won the nomination...the South did not particularly care for the Kennedys so it was a map thing.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)I'm old enough to remember when many Democrats were rejoicing at the nomination of Ronald Reagan because they knew that no way would an extremist like Reagan win a general election.
I'm old enough to remember when ALL POLLS showed Carter and then Mondale absolutely trouncing Ronald Reagan in a general election.
I'm old enough to remember when being liberal was completely mainstream and what would now be considered centrist Democrat - according to President Obama - would have been to the right of most moderate Republicans of the time. And what is now mainstream Republican would have been considered by mainstream Republicans of the time as extremist right-wing kook.
I'm old enough to remember when "centrist Democrats" would run away and hide at the mere mention of marriage equality.
I'm old enough to remember that if timing and certain situations were only slightly different George McGovern could have been elected President. However I certainly don't remember "being afraid to ever admit I was a Democrat in my local school." I voted for McGovern on my 18th birthday - November 7, 1972 and it was my proudest vote and the last time I voted my conscience.
I'm old enough to know that without real fundamental changes to the economic order, the environmental policies and a curtailing of the current unsustainable global military empire - in other words staying on the centrist course is a path to self-delusion and self-destruction. We cannot save our country and the world is we stay on this path. That is beyond un-pragmatic. It is impossible.
