Question about the 1980 election (Congress, statistics, president, Bill Clinton)

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by woxyroxme

I have always thought that Anderson kept anti-Reagan republicans from voting for Carter and that is how Reagan won.

That is something that could be debated: yes, he offered an alternative to Reagan but if he hadn't been a candidate do you really think those Republicans would have voted for Carter? None of us will ever know. My thoughts, just from the ones I knew and living in CA they were more than a few, they would all have voted for Reagan over Carter. They knew Anderson would not win, and they would never have supported Carter.Plus check the % Reagan won by, even if 50% of those who voted for Anderson had voted for Carter or 75% Reagan would still have won. That is like saying Perot costs Bush the election. He hurt him, but not enough to cost him the election.

[Vector1]

Originally Posted by BoxmanSneaks

Do you think Carter would have been re-elected if the hostages were released before the election? Or Would he still have lost the election.

Carter had no chance, just like Ford had no chance.
McCain also had no chance, so 2008 was Hillary's best shot if she had not been beaten by an unheard of political neophyte named Obama.

[Vector1]

Originally Posted by nmnita

That is something that could be debated: yes, he offered an alternative to Reagan but if he hadn't been a candidate do you really think those Republicans would have voted for Carter? None of us will ever know. My thoughts, just from the ones I knew and living in CA they were more than a few, they would all have voted for Reagan over Carter. They knew Anderson would not win, and they would never have supported Carter.Plus check the % Reagan won by, even if 50% of those who voted for Anderson had voted for Carter or 75% Reagan would still have won. That is like saying Perot costs Bush the election. He hurt him, but not enough to cost him the election.

I agreed with all you said until you made the mistake of including Perot in your comment. I know many of my Dads friends who voted for Perot not because they disliked Bush, rather because Republicans/conservatives expect politicians to stay true to their word. Bush vowed and promised not to raise taxes, yet at a certain point felt it was best to do so for the country. As a result he lost a lot of people who either didn't vote, or figured they would give a straight talking Perot a shot.
Rest assured if it was a two way race between Bill Clinton and the incumbent Bush, Bush would have won.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by BoxmanSneaks

Do you think Carter would have been re-elected if the hostages were released before the election? Or Would he still have lost the election.

While some elections involving an incumbent POTUS were landslides (FDR, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan), many of them were extremely close calls. For most of the close elections you could pick out one issue that may have determined the outcome.

Incumbent Presidents who lost a re-election vote

1. John Adams 1,460 2 Served one full term. Lost reelection.
2. John Quincy Adams 1,461 6 Served one full term. Lost reelection.
3. Martin Van Buren 1,461 8 Served one full term. Lost reelection (twice).
4. Benjamin Harrison 1,461 23 Served one full term. Lost reelection.
5. William Howard Taft 1,461 27 Served one full term. Lost reelection.
6. Herbert Hoover 1,461 31 Served one full term. Lost reelection.
7. Gerald Ford 895 38 Served the remaining 2 years, 5 months, and 11 days of Nixon's second term. Lost election for a full term.
8. Jimmy Carter 1,461 39 Served one full term. Lost reelection.
9. George H. W. Bush 1,461 41 Served one full term. Lost reelection.

Incumbent Presidents who were not nominated for re-election or withdrew

1. John Tyler 1,430 10 Served the remaining 3 years and 11 months of William H. Harrison's term. Lost nomination for a full term.
2. James K. Polk 1,461 11 Served one full term. Did not seek a second term.
3. Franklin Pierce 1,461 14 Served one full term. Lost renomination.
4. James Buchanan 1,461 15 Served one full term. Did not seek a second term.
5. Andrew Johnson 1,419 17 Served the remaining 3 years, 10 months, and 17 days of Lincoln's second term. Lost nomination for a full term.
6. Rutherford B. Hayes 1,461 19 Served one full term. Did not seek a second term.
7. Chester A. Arthur 1,262 21 Served the remaining 3 years, 5 months, and 13 days of Garfield's term. Lost nomination for a full term.
8. Lyndon B. Johnson 1,886 36 Served the remaining 1 year, 1 month, and 29 days of Kennedy's term. Served a full term. Withdrew from the race for renomination.

One Incumbent President who failed to be nominated for re-election and four years later lost an election

1. Millard Fillmore 969 13 Served the remaining 2 years, 7 months, and 23 days of Taylor's term. Lost nomination for a full term in 1852. Lost election in 1856.

Incumbent Presidents who were re-elected (days in office)

1. George Washington 2,865
2. Thomas Jefferson 2,922
3. James Madison 2,922
4. James Monroe 2,922
5. Andrew Jackson 2,922
6. Abraham Lincoln 1,503
7. Ulysses S. Grant 2,922
8. Grover Cleveland 2,922
9. William McKinley 1,654
10. Theodore Roosevelt 2,728
11. Calvin Coolidge 2,041
12. Woodrow Wilson 2,922
13. Franklin D. Roosevelt 4,422
14. Harry S. Truman 2,840
15. Dwight D. Eisenhower 2,922
16. Lyndon B. Johnson 1,886
17. Richard Nixon 2,027
18. Ronald Reagan 2,922
19. Bill Clinton 2,922
20. George W. Bush 2,922
21. Barack Obama 2,922

Four Presidents died in office, and Donald Trump has not completed first term. Grover Cleveland was both POTUS #22 and #24. The statistics add up to 45 presidents.

[functionofx]

Originally Posted by BoxmanSneaks

Do you think Carter would have been re-elected if the hostages were released before the election? Or Would he still have lost the election.

No, credit card interest rates were nearly 30%, we had stagflation, home mortgages were going from 11 to 16%. The economy did Carter in, as did the oil boycott, Iran was just icing on the cake.

[marino760]

No, he was going to lose regardless of the hostages. Interest rates were extremely high as well as inflation. The economy was really bad. People were tired of him because the economy was getting worse instead of better. The hostages were just one more nail in his political coffin.
Reagan gave people hope. Carter didn't.

[desertdetroiter]

Carter would've likely still lost. There was so much other stuff going on that wasn't in his favor. Reagan represented a fresh start for a new decade. Plus, the Republicans were back to their old '68 tricks, but doing it in a more subtle fashion. It was all about perpetuating the idea of the welfare queen, and making veiled appeals to the white working class that they were losing their country. Reagan's guys were all top notch political operatives. They knew what they were doing.

Carter, for all of his sunny optimism and political honesty, just didn't go over well coming out of the Vietnam Era. The country was in shambles, Watergate still lingered, the hostage crisis dragged on for far too long, inflation was outta control, unemployment was a bit high, and Reagan represented law, order, competence, strength, and a return to the America that people missed.

So really, I don't see any chance of a Carter victory. That's how I remember feeling at the time.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Vector1

I agreed with all you said until you made the mistake of including Perot in your comment. I know many of my Dads friends who voted for Perot not because they disliked Bush, rather because Republicans/conservatives expect politicians to stay true to their word. Bush vowed and promised not to raise taxes, yet at a certain point felt it was best to do so for the country. As a result he lost a lot of people who either didn't vote, or figured they would give a straight talking Perot a shot.
Rest assured if it was a two way race between Bill Clinton and the incumbent Bush, Bush would have won.

I still don't know if he would have won, but I guess we will never know. There is no doubt Perot did hurt him badly My dad and step mom were 2 of those who supported Perot. I was shocked, I ever thought I would see the day my dad didn't vote Republican in a national election.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by BoxmanSneaks

Do you think Carter would have been re-elected if the hostages were released before the election? Or Would he still have lost the election.

I honestly think that Ted Kennedy primary-ing him had more to do with his loss in 80 than the hostage situation.

[r small]

Originally Posted by FirebirdCamaro1220

I honestly think that Ted Kennedy primary-ing him had more to do with his loss in 80 than the hostage situation.

And then there was the story about Carter being attacked by the "killer rabbit". Political cartoonists at the time depicted the rabbit as bearing a strong resemblance to Ted Kennedy.