Best presidential candidate never to win the presidency?

[begin_within]

In all of American history, among presidential candidates who never won the office, which would have been the best as President?

[The Straight Story]

1. Dan Quayle!

:rofl: He always reminded me of Damien from the Omen movies.

[blondeatlast]

2. Mo Udall, IMHO. I'm a big fan--and he came from my state of Arizona. nt

[BeatleBoot]

17. I supported him in the Primary.

I was in 6th grade and it was my first presidential election that I worked.

Then, of course, worked for Jimmy in the General.

[slampoet]

3. Jerry Brown 1992. He would have been perfect to oversee the Dot.com boom

[WillyT]

8. We Tried... Boy Did We Try...

:shrug:

[Sanity Claws]

19. Linda Ronstadt would have been first lady (Maybe)

Were those two really a couple? I know they appeared together but I was too young back then to try to figure out the nature of their relationship.

[WillyT]

28. Think About It This Way...

He ran for the presidency as a bachelor. That, in and of itself, was groundbreaking.

Imagine somebody running for president as an Atheist, a gay person...

We are closer (Barack Obama), but still years away.

:shrug:

[Sanity Claws]

30. Is Brown gay?

[WillyT]

63. No... I'm Just Stating The Fact That...

for years and years, certain things had to be true for someone to gain elective office.

Generally... white, male, married, straight, Protestant.

We've been knocking those down for some time now, but our work is far from finished.

:shrug:

[karynnj]

57. Bob Kerrey running at the same time was also a bachelor at the time

[Clintonista2]

80. Groundbreaking?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

91. Same here.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. Henry Wallace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace

[Richard Steele]

5. Dennis Kucinich, hands down, no doubt in my mind. nm

[flvegan]

23. Seconded. Without even having to think about it.

[tango-tee]

69. Agreed!

[sabrina 1]

72. I agree ~ n/t

[AnArmyVeteran]

84. Dennis has guts! Something most of today's so-called 'leaders' DO NOT HAVE!

[AnArmyVeteran]

85. Bobby Kennedy would have been the best of all time.

[NorthCarolina]

86. Couldn't agree more. eom

[WeDidIt]

87. Couldn't disagree more n/t

[L0oniX]

99. +++

[ZombieHorde]

6. I don't know very many failed Presidential candidates, but I will go with

Kucinich.

[pinboy3niner]

7. Ted Kennedy! nt

[Birthmark]

9. Gary Hart

[PurityOfEssence]

73. I still think he had a shot in '84, but the Democratic Party fixed it with the superdelegates

Imagine what things could be like now.

[blue sky at night]

10. in light of recent events this is a no-brainer........

Al Gore...think about what might have been, and how many would still be with us.

[HuckleB]

56. Whoops.

I agree, but I didn't mean to post here.

[undeterred]

11. John Kerry, Al Gore

We were robbed.

[laughingliberal]

12. Al Gore. Actually won but was prevented from assuming the office. nt

[Sanity Claws]

26. I agree

Gore would have been a good president

[Pab Sungenis]

13. Henry Clay.

He just had the misfortune to run at all the wrong times: against the ridiculously popular Andrew Jackson, then after the country was sick of the Whigs after John Tyler's "accidental" presidency.

Bob LaFollette and Henry Wallace also deserve mention.

[Ishoutandscream2]

61. Agreed about Clay. I was thinking way back as well

He always seemed to run into another war hero type as well.

[rug]

14. Stevenson.

[Greyhound]

48. I knew somebody would have to know about or remember him. Can you imagine how

different history would have been had he won 52(?)?
:kick: & R

[Arugula Latte]

52. Stevenson was my first thought, too.

[Martin Eden]

100. A Stevenson supporter held a sign that read: ALL THINKING PEOPLE WILL VOTE FOR STEVENSON

Stevenson turned to a colleague and said "That's not enough. We need a majority."

More true today than ever!

[Ardent15]

15. No one here has said Bobby Kennedy?

:shrug:

[hootinholler]

34. That's who I was looking for in the list. n/t

[Dr Morbius]

35. Bobby Kennedy, without doubt.

[tabasco]

16. George McGovern & Hubert Humphrey

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

18. Alfred E. Newman

God, I'm old.

[On the Road]

21. Oh, I Remember When He Ran!

although, in a certain sense, he did sort of win last time:



Although Alfred E. has tended to play both sides. The issue that was released immediately after the 1960 election (printed before the results were known) had two "covers" -- one printed upside down on the back, just to cover all the bases:

[pinboy3niner]

53. Thanks for the graphics

Our Hero, backed by the writing staff, probably WOULD have been better than some we've seen in the Oval Office who were, in some respects, more cartoonish than Alfred E. I have in mind, particularly, a recent two-term example...

[On the Road]

68. That Staff of Writers

imbued a whole generation of young adolescents with good old New York Jewish liberal social attitudes without their ever realizing it.

[begin_within]

82. That's funny! thanks

[ThomThom]

93. I thought George junior looked like Alfred

It turned out they were both a joke.
I'm old too, read that magazine all the time. Spy vs Spy is still true today.

[JackRiddler]

20. Eugene Debs

Do I get a prize?

[av8rdave]

22. I was a Paul Tsongas supporter in the day...

[karynnj]

59. My first choice in 1992

[av8rdave]

106. Mine as well

Another case of "just think where we would be now had he won."


I miss him.

[nevergiveup]

24. Harold Stassen

He ran for the presidency 9 times. I like stick-to-it-ness in my presidential candidates.

[Gaedel]

92. If you want a Republican.......

George Romney was a good man. Not to fond of his son though.......

[saltpoint]

25. Many good choices made already in this thread.

If primary candidates for the presidency are included, Mo Udall and Robert F. Kennedy certainly deserve consideration.

I'm not counting Gore and Kerry because IMO they won their respective elections. The man who cheated them rates below Harding, Nixon, Buchanan, Pierce, and quite a few others.

Barry Commoner and LaDonna Harris ran a fiercely issues-focused campaign in 1980. They deserve a nod.

Birch Bayh would have made an excellent president as well.

Stevenson -- certainly -- in and of himself and even moreso given how much he might have positively changed the political landscape in the country. There is the (fairly) famous account of an admiring voter telling candidate Stevenson that he had "the support of every thinking person in the country," to which Stevenson was reported to have replied, "That's not nearly enough. I need a majority."

[KG]

27. Pat Paulson

"I belong to the Straight Talking American Government Party, or STAG Party for short."

[pinboy3niner]

33. Poor guy had too much charisma; his speeches were too electrifying

:rofl:

[Richard Steele]

43. My laughing just woke the guy upstairs & I kinda peed myself a little- I hope you're happy!

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
Oh, holy shit was that a funny post! :thumbsup:

[Ishoutandscream2]

62. LOL!!! Forgot about Pat

[csziggy]

74. THE PAULSEN DYNASTY CONTINUES……

September 20th, 2008
Looks like Pat’s son, Monty Paulsen, is gearing up for a 2012 run for the White House. Here he hits the campaign trail to find the pulse of American voters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_jMYKbrnZU&

http://www.paulsen.com/pat/?p=67

[pinboy3niner]

78. WOO HOO!

Monty taking the pulse of America was cute (though his dad's pulse still hasn't changed from when he was alive).

My only confusion: Are BOTH Paulsens running in '12? That would make it a really tough choice come election day. (And does that mean Pat automatically wins all the dead voters?)

Thanks for the links. :)

[Synicus Maximus]

102. He gets my vote

[regnaD kciN]

29. McGovern, without a doubt...

...he would have preserved the core Democratic liberalism of the New Deal and the Great Society, while drawing us away from the reflexive anti-Communism that led to debacles like Vietnam. Plus, he was a genuinely nice, decent, thoughtful man without a trace of egotism.

I've often thought that the '72 election was the clearest contest between Good and Evil in American history...and Evil won by a landslide. :-(

[jwirr]

42. George McGovern, RFK and Al Gore.

[Lorien]

46. +1. nt

[Brickbat]

31. Eugene Debs.

I'm just sayin'.

[Ardent15]

32. Can't forget Joe Walsh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Walsh#1980_Presidential_Candidacy

[begin_within]

79. That reminds me,

I've been wondering how life has been to Joe Walsh since "Life's Been Good To Me So Far."

[brewens]

36. Pat Paulson. More dope from Mexico! n/t

[BuelahWitch]

37. Howard Dean! n/t

[fadedrose]

45. For Howard, it's too early to say too late....hope springs eternal..

[XemaSab]

50. I can't believe this is post #37

This place is slipping. :P

[StevieM]

38. Hillary Clinton (eom)

[shraby]

39. Not a candidate, but Mario Cuomo would have been great!

[JI7]

40. John Kerry

[elleng]

41. Wes Clark

[Vickers]

76. +1

Not many bad choices listed so far, but Clark does it for me.

[elleng]

90. Waiting for him to appear on Fox News Sunday.

[fadedrose]

44. Adlai Stevenson

Was very disappointed when he lost. Spoke beautifully...

[ThomThom]

96. that election was probably stolen too

there always seems to be when republicans win

[Seneca]

47. Teddy Roosevelt*

* Yes, I realize he won the office in 1904, but I thought I would make the lone argument for his failed third party run, which is still to this day the most successful showing of a third party candidate in U.S. history.

In 1912, he ran under the banner of the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party, after quitting the increasingly conservative Republican Party. It surely would have been a different term or two than the ones he previously served.

[Lucian]

49. Dennis Kucinich.

[Lyric]

51. Eugene V. Debs

[xxqqqzme]

54. Al Gore

[alittlelark]

64. +1 My 1st thought.

[karynnj]

55. John Kerry

John Kerry, with all his foreign policy knowledge and his desire to turn America, whether it was 1971, and he was speaking of Vietnam, or the 80s speaking against the US backing every right wing coup in Latin America. Many Democratic leaders have sided with the Republicans on this. (forward to 2009 - and read this:

There is an anecdote circulating in Washington. It is about a meeting between the Colombian foreign minister Bermudez and the president of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, senator John Kerry. It was the dawn of the Obama administration. It was a rough meeting. Senator Kerry made clear to Bermudez that there was a new game in town and that scandals such as the euphemistically called false positives - the kidnapping and killing of almost 2000 innocent young men by members of the Army - would not be tolerated. Colombian officials present at the meeting paled, and Bermudez kept his gaze fixed at the floor. In Bogota, the perception is that with the Obama administration the mood in Washington changed dramatically. Gone were the days of great cultural and political tuning between Uribe and Bush. Gone the days in which glorious reports reached the desks of the State Department and the Pentagon. For Washington's changed attitude, in Colombia many blame the democrats and Obama himself.

Kerry is still working for that change and I hope he can persuade President Obama that it is the right way to go.

[HuckleB]

58. Al Gore.

[BlueMTexpat]

83. Without question.

If only because Gore's winning would have spared us all the Bush-Cheney years.

[Blue_In_AK]

60. I think John Kerry would have been a great president. n/t

[begin_within]

65. What about that man who ran in 2004, his web site was popular on DU?

African-American man, I forget his name now. He was a mascot of DU for a little while.

[flvegan]

67. It was 2008, and his name is Lee Mercer.

Jeb Bush was all up in his house with disease, IIRC.

[begin_within]

71. Thanks

[Bluebear]

66. Dr. Dean

[Renegades of Funk]

70. Don't be a hater

What about Ralph Nader?
I also wish RFK, Teddy, and Kucinich won.
Even though I am 18 I somehow feel a strong connection to RFK and he will always be #1 in my book.

[riverdale]

75. Every Man a King

Huey Long

[slampoet]

88. +1 If Huey Long had ever gotten close to being Prez. You wouldn't see this Oil Disaster

[Cleita]

77. Adlai Stevenson and Howard Dean are my two top picks.n/t

[Raine]

81. I agree

those were the two that came to my mind along with Gore who was cheated out of it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

89. Gene McCarthy

[JNelson6563]

94. Howard Dean.

:toast:

[Recursion]

95. Alexander Hamilton.

He was conservative, but I just like the guy.

[Generic Other]

97. As much as people want to hate him -- Ralph Nader belongs on the list

And I didn't vote for him, so back off.

[rvablue]

98. #1 Al Gore. #2 Hillary Clinton. #3 Howard Dean.

[mhatrw]

101. RFK, Adlai Stevenson, Howard Dean

[JackRiddler]

103. Thanks for this thread. You may have seen it inspired me to post a poll with more or less...

the same question.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8495951

More or less for entertainment purposes, since 10 choices are not enough to reflect the most interesting candidates who have stood for the office.

[NoPasaran]

104. Fred Halstead

[dajoki]

105. Robert F. Kennedy and Al Gore n/t