Bottom line: Had it been a two way race between Clinton and Dole, I think Bob Dole still loses. He did do pretty good under the circumstances and made it closer than people expected, but even in a two-way race I don't think he defeats an incumbant President. He was too old, too dull(yes Dole has a wonderful dry sense of humor but I'm pretty sure the MSM worked to bury it during the election season), too establishment, and too tied to a safe, rural midwestern electorate that was in the GOP's pocket no matter what. His choice of Jack Kemp for V.P. seemed like an excellnt pick at first (in fact many Republicans had "dreamed" of "rising star" Kemp going on to the Presidency since the Reagan years), but he too, fizzled, and lost a debate to Albore of all people. GOP Senators from "safe" states don't win, and Dem Senators from "safe" states don't win either. I'm sure you can hypothetically come up with a way Kerry won in 2004 if he had carried Ohio and done some other things differently, but the bottom line is, both he and Dole still lost.
If Fred Thompson put an end to this pattern he'd be the first Presidential candidate since Warren Harding to do so. Harding, incidentially, had the advantage of running against Woodrow Wilson fatigue and spent the entire campaign season shoring up votes with his "return to Normalcy" platform of throwing out the Dems. He had the wind at his back because people were sick and tired of Democrats after 8 years of Woody. This year, the GOP has the opposite problem, we have to win in spite of "Bush fatigue" after 8 years of "Republican" control of the white house.
I think it would've been higher than that. Perot could've played the statesman and did the right thing, but he chose not to.
"Bottom line: Had it been a two way race between Clinton and Dole, I think Bob Dole still loses. He did do pretty good under the circumstances and made it closer than people expected,"
I disagree. He underperformed what he should've. And while Dole didn't "open it up" on the campaign trail as he should've, it ultimately wasn't him that lost the election. Part of it was Perot, but the biggest part of all was he and Gingrich blinking in the face of the '95 Gov't shutdown. Clinton was toast after '94 and we were clearly in charge -- for a whole year, but after that, Clinton was in the driver's seat. We should've run him out of Washington on a rail like a low-rent Carter, but we failed to take out the trash. Even if we had gotten someone else to run other than Dole, the end result, given the dynamics, would've been precisely the same.
"His choice of Jack Kemp for V.P. seemed like an excellent pick at first (in fact many Republicans had "dreamed" of "rising star" Kemp going on to the Presidency since the Reagan years), but he too, fizzled, and lost a debate to Albore of all people."
Kemp's timidity and nicey-nice conduct against two ruthless campaigners was nothing short of embarrassing. He made Dan Quayle look as brutal as LBJ.
"GOP Senators from "safe" states don't win, and Dem Senators from "safe" states don't win either. I'm sure you can hypothetically come up with a way Kerry won in 2004 if he had carried Ohio and done some other things differently, but the bottom line is, both he and Dole still lost."
Kerry needed a Dem Sec of State in Ohio to aide and abet rodent fraud. They have one now. But again, let us not forget, most Presidents in the past century get reelected, and they were both challenging incumbents. The only ones who lost (who were able or willing to run a 2nd time) were because of only two reasons, a substantial 3rd party challenger preventing them from winning (Taft, 1912; Bush, 1992) or the economy (Hoover, 1928; Carter, 1980). I disregard Ford because he wasn't even able to win once (although had the election been held a month later, most pundits believe he would've prevailed, since he had already closed the wide gap by the election).
"If Fred Thompson put an end to this pattern he'd be the first Presidential candidate since Warren Harding to do so. Harding, incidentially, had the advantage of running against Woodrow Wilson fatigue and spent the entire campaign season shoring up votes with his "return to Normalcy" platform of throwing out the Dems. He had the wind at his back because people were sick and tired of Democrats after 8 years of Woody."
We almost dumped Wilson after a single term in 1916, as he barely won (and he outright lied about his position on the European War and getting America involved). Wilson wasn't even the President by the end of his 2nd term, his new wife was (after his stroke in 1919).
"This year, the GOP has the opposite problem, we have to win in spite of "Bush fatigue" after 8 years of "Republican" control of the white house."
Partly, yes, but having a rodent Congress with even larger disapproval numbers evens the score to a degree. Also, remember that Clinton fatigue should've resulted in a landslide win for Dubya in 2000, and that didn't happen, either. Going by the popular vote, you could say Clinton got a 3rd term. All Fred has to do is pull a Gore, albeit in the same states Dubya did, and he'll win, or he could simply duplicate Dubya for that matter and get fewer votes than Hillary and still win (and since the EV votes have changed from 2000, he'd win by a wider margin in the college).
The great thing about Fred, and why the media is so terrified of him that you see hit pieces daily about how "unimpressive/lackluster, etc" he is is because this is a candidate without any guile whatsoever. He is exactly who he appears to be. Honest. I think that will have enormous appeal to the public.