Dupe - Please delete

[Poiuyt]

[WI_DEM]

1. Kennedy exhibited hope, yes, but he also was a strong cold warrior

who exploited a supposed missle gap with the Soviet Union as a major theme in the 1960 campaign. His inagural address was one of the most militant ever--"support any friend, oppose any foe..." JFK was every bit an authoritative as LBJ.

Why, despite Americans having generally liberal attitudes on many issues do so many Republicans win the WH?
1) 1968 was a reaction to Vietnam. It wasn't so much a endorsement of Nixon as a repudiation of the Johnson Administrations handling of that war.

2) 1972--Nixon had gone to the Soviet Union and China and had begun to "de-Americanize" the war, so he was able to blunt the peace canidacy of McGovern who lost some of the usual democratic vote because he was made out to be too far to the left.

3) 1976--Carter won (50-48) was a reaction to Watergate. The fact is that he ran a brilliant primary campaign, but not a very well executed general election. After the Dem convention Carter led in the polls by 25-points. Ford came close to winning it because of missteps that the more experienced Carter made.

4) 1980--reaction to the Iran Hostage crisis, yet, the election was considered close until the last weekend with Carter and Reagan essentially tied. In that last weekend Iran tangled the possiblity of releasing the hostages with various conditions which President Carter didn't accept. It brought the whole hostage crisis back to the forefront and overnight Carter's own polling went from an even race to ten points behind.

5) 1984--Reagan was a popular incumbent (unbelievable) and it's probably true that no democrat could have defeated him that year. Mondale, a good and able man, probably was not the best choice because the Carter Administration was still in disfavor at the time (it's reputation has grown more favorable over the years).

6) 1988--Dems again nominated another uninspired candidate in MA gov. Dukakis. Duke led by 17-points after Dem convention and then went on to run a terrible general election campaign allowing Bush I to win.

7) 1992--Clinton won because Bush I was considered out of touch with the problems of the country. Ross Perot also helped, but I think even in a two man race Clinton would have won.

8) 1996--Clinton was relected but was a minority president again (49%) thanks to Ross Perot. Dole was considered pretty old hat and his 40% of the vote was pretty anemic, but a slight improvement over old man Bush.

9) 2000--We actually did win this election, but we could have done better if Gore had not run away from the Clinton record and yes, Nader hurt in some key states. But it's also true that Gore didn't carry his homestate. Still despite this, the SC of USA is the reason we have Bush in the WH due to stopping the vote count in FL, a state Gore did win.

10) 2004--A good man, Kerry, ran a less than stellar general election campaign and let GOP attacks on his war record go on too long. Still he might have won the electoral vote (if not the popular vote) because it's clear today there was voter fraud in Ohio.