Posted on 09/27/2012 3:39:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
There was only one presidential debate in 1980 between challenger Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter. Just two days before the Oct. 28 debate, Carter was eight points ahead in the Gallup poll. A week after the debate, he lost to Reagan by nearly ten percentage points.
Reagan's debate quip, "There you go again," reminded voters of Carter's chronic crabbiness. Even more devastating was Reagan's final, direct question to American voters: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" No one, it seemed, could muster a "Yes!"
Yet there was more to the 1980 campaign than the final game-changing debate rhetoric -- and some of the details are relevant to 2012.
Carter conceded that he could not run on his economic record -- not with a high "misery index' driven by high inflation, high interest rates, high gas prices and high unemployment. The lengthy Iranian hostage crisis finally began to highlight rather than mask Carter's anemic domestic leadership. Without a record to defend, Carter instead pounded Reagan as too ill-informed and too dangerous to be president.
The negative campaigning had not only worked but also seemed to get under Reagan's skin. He kept going off topic while committing serial gaffes: He claimed that California had eliminated its smog; that trees polluted as much as cars, that Alaska had more known oil than Saudi Arabia, and that new evidence cast doubt upon Darwin's theory of evolution. Reagan got clumsily bogged down in distracting controversies about everything from Taiwan and the Vietnam War to the Ku Klux Klan and the stealth bomber program.
Reagan fumbled facts and numbers constantly, as the nitpicking Carter blasted him for implausibly promising lower taxes, balanced budgets and vastly higher defense spending all at once. Throughout late summer, Reagan could not tap widespread voter dissatisfaction with Carter's disastrous economic and foreign policy and his off-putting sanctimoniousness.
Even more unfortunate for Reagan, Republican Congressman John Anderson announced a third-party candidacy. Anderson and a fourth candidate, Libertarian candidate Ed Clark, eventually combined to siphon off more than 6.5 million votes, most of which probably otherwise would have gone to Reagan.
A desperate Reagan also was having difficulty getting Carter out of the Rose Garden to debate. Finally, in late October, Reagan capitulated to Carter's preconditions and met him one time, face to face, without Anderson present.
In other words, until the very last week of the campaign, Reagan had an uphill fight. True, he eventually won a landslide victory in the Electoral College (489 to 49) and beat Carter handily in the popular vote. Yet Reagan only received a 51 percent majority.
What had saved Reagan from a perfect storm of negative factors -- gaffes, additional conservative candidates on the ballot, a single debate and a biased media -- was not just the debate. Voter turnout was relatively low at only 53 percent. If Reagan's conservative base was united and energized, Carter's proved divided and indifferent.
Reagan also won about a dozen (mostly Southern) states by less than 4 percent. Had just a few hundred thousand votes gone the other way in those states, the race might have been far closer than the eventual electoral and popular tallies indicated.
What does 1980 tell us about 2012? Barack Obama, like Carter, can run neither on his dismal four-year stewardship of the economy nor on his collapsing Middle East policy.
Instead, Obama, as Carter did, must stamp his opponent as too inexperienced, too out of touch and too uncaring to be president. While Carter was a dull speaker and Obama, in contrast, possesses teleprompter eloquence, there is no evidence that Obama is any better a debater than was Carter.
Turnout will matter. Challenger Mitt Romney, like Reagan, is said to have the more fired-up base, but the demography of the electorate is far different than it was 30 years ago and now may favor Obama. There are no third-party candidates to skew the result, but the polls seem just as volatile, as Obama, like Carter, usually surges ahead for a while, only to fall back to even in tortoise-and-the-hare style.
Unless there is a war abroad or a financial crisis at home -- such as the financial trauma that helped the struggling Obama surge past John McCain in mid-September 2008 -- the race between an unapologetic liberal and a confessed conservative will go down to the last week.
The winner probably won't be decided by old video clips, gaffes or even campaign money, but by turnout and the October debates -- depending on whether incumbent Obama comes across as a petulant Carter and challenger Romney appears an upbeat Reagan. As in 1980, voters want a better president -- but they first have to be assured he's on the ballot.
I know dozens of people who voted for Obama last time, that either are voting for Romney now or sitting it out. I’ve yet to see ONE McCain voter saying that he was happy with Obama and was going to vote for him in 2012.
Yeah, except that Romney is no Reagan.
That's countered by Obama is no Carter. He's 5X worse, as if that were possible.
I hope Romney knows he needs to give America an optimistic vision of his potential presidency in the debates, like Reagan did.
I know it probably sounds alarmist to those of a different mindset, but I believe this country is teetering on the precipice of a thousand years of darkness. What should be just a relatively inconsequential election to replace one administrator with another has become the final battleground to entrench a criminal junta and snuff out any remaining notion of what was traditional America. It’s almost too depressing to contemplate.
I don’t think it was the Reagan part that beat Carter.
It was the “not a war crazy meanie” that beat Carter.
The race was also similar in that a lot of folks didn’t want Carter,but Carter/Media had were successful in scaring many about Reagan.
When they saw Reagan was jovial and balanced, voters had an alternative to Jimmah that they were no longer afraid of. “There you go again” was effective as much for the smile and way Reagan said it.
If Romney can show that the Obama/Media portrayal of Romney is BS, the result could be the same.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan.
The other factor was that Carter committed a tactical blunder by allowing Reagan the last word, which he used to slip in the brilliant "are you better off now than four years ago" thought. People remembered that and took that to the polls when they voted. Carter couldn't blunt that stroke.
“While Carter was a dull speaker and Obama, in contrast, possesses teleprompter eloquence, there is no evidence that Obama is any better a debater than was Carter.”
That is just it, “teleprompter eloquence.”
Take away the teleprompter and Obozo will be deer in headlights. I can’t wait!
The American people (in general) are more stupid than they were in 1980. Hollywood and the music industry are balls out telling their audience that not voting for Obama is “racist”. A generation of liberal, touch-feely school teachers have ingrained that “fairness” is more important than reality. The American Idol/Jersey Shore crowd is more concerned about gays being able to marry than they are about a nuclear Iran.
The silent majority that most of us are, are dying off and being replaced by whiny, limp-wristed children who don’t remember living under the threat of the Soviet Union. This once proud nation that kept order in the world simply by its strength and leadership, now is a capitulating, apologizing farce of a country, destroyed by the hordes of freeloading deadbeats, celebrities who have to push the shock envelope to be relevant, and lazy democrat politicians who could never make anything of their own lives and now want to ruin it for everyone else.
Romney may very well win, and I hope he does, but I see no “morning in America”. Ever again.
RE:#11, as much as I hate to say it, you’re spot on.
I totally agree with your assessment.
ff
You nailed it.
“...but I believe this country is teetering on the precipice of a thousand years of darkness.”
Spot on. It can be seen and felt in a hundred ways every day. If this maddening Progressive is voted back into office he will institutionalize all the negative things that are poking their nose under the tent flap. If they win, all they will have to do is choose either black or brown for the color of their official political shirts;
something that will contrast nicely with Che Guevarra’s image.
IMHO
That’s what I would try to estimate if I were a pollster, rather than guess at the Democrat-Republican ratio.
In other words, until the very last week of the campaign, Reagan had an uphill fight. True, he eventually won a landslide victory in the Electoral College (489 to 49) and beat Carter handily in the popular vote. Yet Reagan only received a 51 percent majority.
That is amazing that Reagan only won by 1 percent popular vote. I think what will happen is that Obama wins the popular vote but Romney wins the electoral college. I think the population is not as patriotic as they were in 1980.
Obama will spend more time cracking on liner joke than sticking to the issues,he has no answers no plan he only has excuses and blame.
From VDH’s mouth to G-d’s ear. Unfortunately, the electorate is vastly different from that of 32 years ago- richer but cruder, more informed but more ignorant, more racially diverse but more racist...
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