Which play it safe candidate has gone on to win the GE?

[crazytown]

Not Adlai Stevenson
Not VP Hubert Humphrey
Not VP Walter Mondale
Not Michael Dukakis
Not VP Al Gore
Not John Kerry

(Gore (and probably Kerry) won but it was close enough to steal
Insurgent George McGovern crashed out on his VP choice)

Special attention should be given to VP Mondale. A Vice President four years out of office, running against an aged President, promising a return to normalcy after a Republican ‘revolution’, entrenched as front runner while the President was unpopular. The participants and economic conditions are not comparable, but it’s a warning.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. How would you define a "play it safe" candidate?

[crazytown]

2. Mainstream establishment

Insurgents: RFK 1968, Hart 1984, Gore 1988, Dean 2004.

[hedda_foil]

4. Sorry, but Dean was NOT the establishment choice. Kerry was.

[crazytown]

7. cf - compared with

Hart was NOT establishment in 1984, nor was Gore in 1988 or Dean in 2004. Kerry the establishment favorite didn’t do well enough to win.

[hedda_foil]

20. Ok. Gotcha. And I fully agree with your point that the establishment Democratic choice loses.

When we're lucky the voters don't support the establishment candidate in the primary. If they nominate that candidate, we lose or fail to win by a wide enough margin to overwhelm Republican dirty tricks. I'm very much afraid that we're being set up for it to happen again next year.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

34. And what does "mainstream establishment" mean? Career politician? Government employee?

Bernie has been a member of Congress since 1990 and was the mayor of Burlington, VT since 1981, and had been running for some office or the other since the early '70s (about as long as Biden has been in politics); I don't know how much more "establishment" you can get than 40+ years in elective office. Before being elected to the Senate but after she was a Republican, Warren was the Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury to set up the new CFPB agency. Harris and Klobuchar were prosecutors - working for The Man! Booker and Buttigieg are/were mayors. Inslee was a Congressman and is now a governor. Castro was the Secretary of HUD. O'Rourke was also a Congressman. Etc., etc., etc. Every last one of them is a member of the "establishment," or they wouldn't have made it in politics at all.

And when you drill down there's not a dime's worth of difference among them with respect to policy ideas - which is why it's been hard, so far, for many of them to break out of the pack. Some are advocating for Medicare for all, while others want to fix the ACA first, but they all want some form of universal health care. Some want free college for everybody while others are looking at subsidies or relief from student loans, but they all want to give everyone access to higher education. And so forth. But if Trump wins again there might not be Medicare for anybody, and we can forget about any kind of help for students. Or for anybody else, for that matter.

"Establishment" and "safe" are irrelevant terms; just tell me who can beat Trump because that's the only thing that matters. If it's Sanders or Warren, fine; if it's Biden, that's fine, too. But that won't be determined by sticking a meaningless label on anybody.

[crazytown]

37. Safe / Establishment a relative terms

You have to make comparisons.

Humphrey v McCarthy = Humphrey
Mondale vs Hart = Mondale
Dukakis vs Gore = Dukakis
Gore vs Bradley = Gore
Kerry vs Dean = Kerry

It’s safe to assume that a VP is establishment.

Look, Democratsincebirth has convinced me that the premise may be correct but the conclusion is wrong. If a sitting President has an approval of 50% plus then they get re-elected, and that’s right.

Electability can’t be ignored. McCarthy was not electable, neither was Sanders IMO.

[Thekaspervote]

3. If you look further into the hx of their presidential runs, they didn't win for other reasons

[crazytown]

5. It's a warning not a prescription

The parallels are there, the situation are not comparable. Nothing compares to now.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. Most of them lost to incumbents with greater than 50% approval ratings.

[shenmue]

6. Jimmy Carter

[crazytown]

8. Point taken.

An insurgent from the South. Love that man.

[shenmue]

29. Thanks

[Clarity2]

9. In addition to other arguments

Different time, different era, different circumstances.
We’ve never in modern day times had a sitting president who was an asset of a foreign adversary
and having to now look at candidates under a very fine microscope.

Apples and oranges.

[crazytown]

10. 1983 - Reagan was going to blow up the world.

I remember how desperate Democrats were to get him out.

It’s a warning not a prescription.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. We were coming out of a major recession and GDP grew by 4.6% in 83 and 7.2% in 1984.

By the time the election was held his approval rating was 61%.

[crazytown]

19. And Trump is 41% when the economy is at an all time high.

I know. I’m commenting on the logic of choosing the safe mainstream candidate, particularly one whose attraction is a return to normalcy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. Exactly. Respectfully, that's why the comparison to Reagan falls apart.

Reagan's approval was correlated with the economy. We were mired in a recession at this point in Reagan's presidency and his low approval numbers reflected that. When the economy improved Reagan's approval ratings improved with it which is what you would expect. Trump is getting no credit for a good economy. I would argue it is doing about as well as the economy Obama bequeathed him but that's incidental. If the economy stays "good" and he gets the credit for it we're in a lot of trouble, regardless of who our nominee is.


I will make it simple. If the incumbent has an approval rating of 50% on election day he or she likely wins, regardless of his or her opponent.

[crazytown]

27. I concede your point.

Makes sense to me. Thanks.

[marylandblue]

30. Sure, but Biden backers have also dismissed every argument based on Trump being unique

and therefore Biden's long record as an establishment figure makes him vulnerable.

Instead they just say that a bunch of blue collar guys in the rust belt will vote for an old blue collar guy because... reasons.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. "Special attention should be given to VP Mondale."

Ronald Reagan was around 61% approval in November of 1984.

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/presidential-approval/

which is unsurprisingly just two points higher than the percentage of the vote he received in the election.

Mondale got every vote available from voters who disapproved of Reagan's job and then some*


If Donald Trump is at at 61% approval in 2020 he's on his way to a landslide but it is infinitely more likely than not he will remain mired in the low forties.



BTW Reagan reached 65% approval in your graph. Trump has never reached 47%. His approval rating is static.


Ditto for Kerry.

[crazytown]

14. The Parallels with Mondale are there

especially if Joe runs a return to normalcy campaign.

The differences are more important. Mondale was VP of an unpopular Administration. Mondale was hopelessly stodgy and Trump is unpopular at the height of an economic boom.

It’s a warning. Democrats were desperate to get Reagan out in 1984 - just as desperate as now, and chose the last Admin’s VP.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. Reagan's approval was at 61% in November of 1984.

Has any president lost a re-election bid with such a high approval rating?

Has any president lost a re-election bid with an approval rating over fifty?

[crazytown]

25. Yes I agree

But some of that popularity was a failure to reverse the Republican election campaign. If Mario Cuomo had been the nominee, I doubt Reagan would have finished up with those numbers.

No Cuomo has never going to run. It’s a thought experiment.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. I think you mean Mario Cuomo. Andrew would have been 27.

Might as well throw this in. Nixon sold himself in 68 as being the calm candidate.

[crazytown]

28. Damn you're fast.

I fixed it to Mario about two minutes after posting.

IMO the ‘Tale of Two Cities’ is a tour de force of progressive politics. Did you notice Obama cited the shining city on the hill without qualification in his 2016 address to the DNC?

[marylandblue]

31. We only have the information we have today

not the information we will have the day after the election when we are trying to figure out why we won or lost.

And based on the information we have today, it simply too early to say that Biden, and only Biden, can beat Trump.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

35. It is not my position that only Biden can beat Trump.

It is my position that comparisons between Reagan and Trump are facile. Even the graph in the original posts shows Reagan's approval was much higher at different points than Trump's ever was.

[marylandblue]

36. Well fair enough, but in that sense, no two elections are alike

I'm finding Pro-Biden arguments even more facile than that. Some are pointing to polls show Biden leading Trump today, and arguing that therefore Biden is the best choice. That's a pretty facile argument for a guy who starts off with the highest name recognition but only entered the race 2 days ago.

You think maybe we could wait a few more days before declaring him President-elect?

[crazytown]

39. Confession: I supported Hart.

He ran on new ideas, Mondale on a return to normalcy and union endorsements.

Ofcourse Biden is a better candidate than Mondale. I stand by the parallels but not the conclusion.

[marylandblue]

43. I liked Hart too. I hated Mondale. My confession: I voted for Reagan.

My first election and the last time I voted Republican.

The world I grew up in, the 1970s, was my "normal." High inflation, high taxes, high unemployment, corruption, and ineffective government. I wasn't going back to that.

It wasn't that I couldn't see the problems with Reagan. It was that the Democrats weren't offering anything better.

[crazytown]

45. 60% voted Reagan

Mondale was back to Carter. Like you, people did not want the Carter economy back. Biden is offering back to Obama - that’s a whole different ballgame.

[marylandblue]

46. True that back to Obama is not as bad as back to Carter, but

it depends a lot on where you stood. Obama's economy was fine for me, so is Trump's for that matter. The Obama recovery was uneven. Some people never recovered from 2008. Trump didn't help them. So now what?

[crazytown]

47. This

I think this is really important to understand, because we need to make sure we don't -- that strategically as a party that we don't come to be viewed as the defenders of a system that is letting people down. And we wouldn't be here if the economic and political system hadn't failed people ...

The system needs to be changed profoundly. I guess that's my point. We can't just nibble around the edges and expect people to be happy with us. Now, I've got a slightly different account than my competitors do about how best to do it, but the fundamental lesson is that our economic and political system has been letting people down I would say for my entire lifetime.

- Pete Buttigieg

An off the cuff answer, saying it better than speech writers. Politicians watched the heartland rust and did little. Pockets of misery disfigure the nation.

It Pete or Elizabeth. The question is, can they get there?

[OhZone]

12. Depends on definition -

On the other side of the coin, you could ask, which far left radical candidate went on to win the general.

I would say none, ever. I guess you could say FDR maybe, but I don't think he would have been so far left if he didn't have to be to save the country. That was an evolution, I think.

We really are a centrist country. Unless there is a depression, we don't move in leaps I don't think.

But compared to today's GOP, even centrists seems pretty out there.

Also - this isn't the same climate we used to have.

** The idea a safe, normal candidate has me energized and excited to vote!! **

[crazytown]

16. Hart, Gore (1988) and Dean were not far left

But they were perceived as new. RFK? can still bring tears to my eyes.

[OhZone]

18. RFK was before my time, of course -

But my political mentor, Uncle Nick, feels the same way as you, I think. I've seen him choke up about the 60s, and the losses of great people.

[marylandblue]

41. Almost by definition, every democracy is a centrist country.

To get the majority vote, you can't go too far off from what most people think. Sometimes there are major shifts. In 1932, people shifted left and elected FDR. In 1980, they were ready for a shift right and voted for Reagan. At this time I believe we are poised for a shift back to the left.

Both of those shifts were preceded by economic instability. We are going through economic instability right now, but it's hidden because our usual measures - GDP and unemployment rate are not capturing it. Now it's about income inequality. The economy is growing, but the gains mostly go to the top.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. " Not Adlai Stevenson..."

Ike just came off winning WW ll in 52 and was at 70% approval when he ran for re-election in 56:





Adlai Stevenson received 42% of the vote in 56%. He actually convinced about 20% of voters who approved of the job Eisenhower did to vote for him.


Ike could have run as the nominee of either party and won in 52.

[dalton99a]

22. FWIW there was a woman

[crazytown]

23. It's worth a lot to me.

I supported Hart, but Mondale wasn’t doomed. Gosh how I wanted that ticket to win.

[yaesu]

32. This election we are facing a diabolical criminal element the likes of which has never been seen

in the history of the US. All the norms are out the window, have no idea hows its going to play out, the division is probably as bad as we have seen since the Civil War.

[crazytown]

38. In 1983 the concern was the President

would spark a nuclear war.

[marylandblue]

40. Sure, but that doesn't mean the "safe" candidate is the answer.

If we are looking to the Civil War as a precedent the nation went with a whole new political party led by a state legislator and failed senate candidate.

Why did they go with the new and untested? They did it because he said that 70 years of kicking the slavery can down the road had to end. Something the establishment of his day refused to see.

Today we have the new slavery -income inequality. It's been increasing for 40 years and it can't go on any longer. Either we we will redistribute the wealth, or most of us will become wage slaves.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

33. True...but never saw the folksy warmth that Biden has

[treestar]

42. Other than Bernie

Who are you referring to? Who was more progressive than Kerry that would have won had we not played it safe? Who was it in Gore’s case?

[crazytown]

44. Not Bernie nope.

And Hillary was not offering a safe return to normalcy.

Mondale vs Hart = Mondale
Dukakis vs Gore = Dukakis
Gore vs Bradley = Gore
Kerry vs Dean = Kerry

IMO Sanders would have been slaughtered in the General. Hart, Gore 88, Bradley and Dean were mainstream politically, but represented change in the Democratic Party.