The Unfortunate Hallmark of Democratic Presidential Candidates

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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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In 1960, Richard Nixon, then the Vice President, lost the election to John Kennedy by what amounted to 112,000 votes.  At the time, even though he had every right to contest the outcome, he neglected to do so say stating: “Our country cannot afford the agony of a Constitutional crisis.”  After his 1992 loss to Bill Clinton, an obscure ex-Governor from Arkansas, George H.W. Bush quietly retired to Texas.  Although a pariah in some GOP circles, he nevertheless remained low profile and refused many speaking engagements where he could have made money.

Now, contrast this with Democratic losers on the presidential campaign trail.  Ignoring the 1968 election where the Democrats were a fractured party and 1972 where they decided to double down on Leftist nonsense by choosing George McGovern, Democrats have been sore losers.  Even McGovern did not cry about his loss even after the man who defeated him was driven out of office by Watergate.

One supposes the trend started in 1980 when Reagan, often described as a grade-B actor from California (they often ignore he was also Governor of that state), defeated the sitting President, Jimmy Carter.  Carter had convinced many pollsters that he had the election won even though the economic Misery Index stood at 20%!  He had so convinced himself that he could defeat this silly actor from California that even after he left office, he remained in a state of shock.  Carter then broke an unwritten rule in politics- he criticized a sitting President while in a foreign country.  If ever there was a hallmark of a sore presidential loser, Jimmy Carter established a new low.

After Clinton, move forward eight years to the election of 2000.  Here, the heir apparent to the throne, Al Gore, who had even invented the Internet, lost to some obscure Governor from Texas named George W. Bush.  Swearing off Nixon’s observation about the agony of a Constitutional crisis, Gore embraced the idea and held up the results of the election for 35 days.  After over 6 million votes were counted in Florida, Bush was declared the winner after the Supreme Court declared “enough is enough.”

Sadly, most of those on the Left now portray that decision as nothing but partisan and focus on the 5-4 aspect of the ruling.  In fact, there were two parts to that ruling.  The first part was 7-2 where even liberals on the Court agreed that Bush’s equal protection rights were being violated by the Florida recount.  The 5-4 aspect put an end to the recount- the more practical aspect of their decision.

For his part, Gore disappeared for awhile, grew a beard and reemerged as the guru of global warming, er…anthropogenic global warming, er..climate change.  You would think that the inventor of the Internet would be content to rest on his laurels, but he continues to bellyache about his 2000 loss and created perhaps the worst thing to ever inflict American politics- people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who proposes silly policies to prevent the world from spontaneous combustion within the next 12 years… and counting.

Then in 2004, the Democrats nominated John Kerry who addressed the convention as “…reporting for duty.”  That was an unconvincing nod to his Vietnam War service.  Unfortunately, he was better known as the guy who dumped his military medals in the Potomac, became a prominent war protester, and visited the North Vietnamese in Paris.  This stirred up the Swift Boat Veterans who organized to set the Kerry Vietnam War service narrative straight.  Regardless, Kerry lost.

But, did he go silently into the night?  Over a decade later, Kerry told the New Yorker that Bush had stolen the 2004 election.  According to Kerry, Bush had somehow rigged voting machines in Ohio and that his loss of that state’s electoral votes cost him the election.  But, Obama resurrected Kerry from the crypt of Democratic losers by naming him to succeed Hillary Clinton at the State Department.

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton who lost to a real estate magnate from New York who ran one of the most bizarre campaigns in the history of modern politics which will be written about for decades to come.  It is hard to discern what exactly is Clinton’s beef with her loss.  The reasons change with the seasons.  Is it sexism and people voting against a woman?  Is it uniformed hicks, the so-called “deplorables?”  Or, was it the Russians and Vladimir Putin who helped Trump win the election with help from German banks and whatever other conspiracy she and the Democrats can cook up?

There is one exception to this trend in the Democratic Party and that is Barack Obama.  Instead of being a sore loser, he holds the sad title of being a sore winner.  After all, the guy won two consecutive elections without much controversy.  Neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney went crying to the press or the courts regarding their losses.  McCain simply returned to the Senate and became a certifiable pain in the ass to the GOP while Romney…well, who cares?

Obama could make millions on the talk circuit.  He could play golf until the cows come home.  He can puff cigarettes behind the back of his wife until pigs fly.  Ever wonder why we haven’t heard of an impending Obama memoir?  He is not a good writer himself and he is apparently grumping to the cadre of biographers and speech writers he has employed in the past.

In a sense, one can understand Obama’s mood.  He was the one who stated that 2% economic growth would be the “new normal” so get used to it.  The new normal was the best Obama could achieve, so it appears that with the growth in GDP under Trump which every economist and pundit said was impossible, Obama would be a sore winner.  Of course, he’s got a cult of followers still who insist that it is Obama who is responsible for the better economy today.

Obama was also the one who roasted Romney on the debate stage by insisting that the “1980’s called and they want their foreign policy back” when Romney stated Russia was America’s greatest foe.  Yet, today the Democrats seem to forget Obama’s dismissal of Russia and now see Russians under every Republican bed.

In Obama’s case, it is his sense of self-puffery that makes him a sore winner.  He cannot fathom the fact that Trump can do better than him domestically or on the international stage when it comes to actual tangible actions.  Of course, when you have the press depicting Obama with a halo on the cover of publications, one cannot fault Obama for his false sense of self-worth and importance.  It is why when he does speak publicly, there are generally an average of 200 references to himself.

Recent Democratic presidential losers (and one winner) need to take a cue from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in hockey.  There, opposing teams beat the living crap out of each other, try to drive opponents through the boards, clunk them on the head with sticks, etc. for two weeks over a potential seven games.  Afterwards, they line up and shake hands, pat each other on the back and go home to ponder why they lost the series.  The Democratic loser’s state of denial is a sad, yet amusing thing to see.

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