what was jimmy carter's margin of victory in '76?

[Constitution Day]

nice to meet you, changeitback440... i pretty much stay away from the shift key too... have been doing so for years... in fact, my signature is also in lower case...

Re: your tagline

So you're a tequila snob, huh? Good for you!

I'm a grammar and punctuation snob. Unless one is the reincarnation of e.e. cummings, I think the use of all lower case makes people look kind of lazy at the very least.

Just my $0.02!

[latina4dubya]

I'm a grammar and punctuation snob. Unless one is the reincarnation of e.e. cummings, I think the use of all lower case makes people look kind of lazy at the very least. Just my $0.02!

then we have that in common! i am a grammarian (which includes punctuation) stickler myself... i am a professional editor and proofreader... i also teach grammar and writing... haha! when it comes to formal writing, i do follow the rules... unless i intentionally break them... i never let my students get away with breaking the rules... "one cannot intentionally break the rules unless one has mastered the rules." that's my motto...

mis dos centavos :-)

p.s.--so is your grammarian and punctuation snobbery a self-proclamation? please understand that i do not give credence to it or to your authority to give only e.e. cummings and any of her reincarnates a pass... my first name and maiden name both begin with D... capital D's are so ugly, in my opinion... i found the lower case D to be so much more attractive... that is why i decided to go with the lower case D's in my signature... that i actually thought about it and made a decision hardly constitutes laziness...

as i've aged i've come to do away with basing my decisions on how i look to others... this was no easy feat... i come from a family where appearance means more than the truth... i now know who i am and am comfortable with who i am (most of the time)... so if i come across as "kind of lazy at the very least," to you--Constitution Day--satis bene...

[samtheman]

You’re forgetting about a gal named Mary Jo.

[samtheman]

Mary Jo

Mary Jo

Mary Jo

[changeitback440]

google cant provide me with the opinions and insight i get on freerepublic ;)

[changeitback440]

I dont feel either carter or obama are worthy of my “shift” key ;)

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Kennedy defiantly would have been the rat nominee in ‘80 if Ford had won. The RINO Ford and heavily rat congress would have been terrible. I can’t imagine the GOP would have been able to win in 1980."

Against Dole, who was bitterly humorless while campaigning (yet in person, while not campaigning, the total opposite), Ted Kennedy would've appeared the more personable and appealling candidate. With little exception, it's usually the more personable candidate that wins the Presidential race.

"Even if Reagan had won the nod in ‘76 and the general he would have been hampered by congress and possibly been a one termer."

Exactly. The Congress in '77-'79 was quite radical and heavily Dem. He'd have had to battle a hostile Congress from day #1 (worse yet, there was a huge RINO contingent, and they'd have opposed him, too). Reagan benefitted in '80 by having a GOP Senate and enough of a GOP/Boll Weevil Dem coalition to get his agenda through. Reagan would've had to have spent his time on defense during '77-'81, hoping to whittle down the numbers of Dems for the '78 midterms and the like, but it would've been an uphill battle. At best he could try to make deals with more centrist Dems (ones that had been pulled left by the Watergate babies), but putting together the numbers would've been tough. If he got some modest accomplishments, he might've been able to win again in '80, but it's doubtful he'd have ever gotten the GOP majority, and '82 would've been a really bad 6-year wipeout (well beyond what it ended up being). Worse, yet, Vice-President Dick Schweiker (despite his having moved rightward), would not have likely been able to succeed Reagan in '84. The Dems might've won it that year, though probably not with Kennedy, perhaps then Jerry Brown (who would've been Senator at that point, defeating San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson two years earlier) or Senator Jimmy Carter (who would've beaten Herman Talmadge in the '80 Dem primary).

"I think you’ve told me this before idea. Post-racist cripple Wallace. But I don’t know. Why would Ted pick a veep with such baggage? To distract from his own? ;p"

Partly to distract, but Wallace had been largely redeemed by that point (as far as Dems were concerned). He'd have been 2 years off his 3rd term, one of the preeminent Southern political figures. Wallace could deliver Ted a decent enough chunk of the South. Essentially a bit of a replay of 1960 with JFK & LBJ. You better believe the Dems would've ate that up. As for Mary Jo ? Well, the sky-high unemployment, inflation, stagnation and "corruption" of 12 years of GOP Presidents (albeit with hyper-Dem Congresses) would've made Ted's "unfortunate accident" pale in comparison. Ted would've dismissed as "old news" from 11 years earlier, and the media would've aided the cause. They would've fanned the public to want to resurrect Camelot. It would've been just like last year. Bob Dole, at 57, would've been the "mean old man" (nevermind an injured war hero) against the youngish (48, a year older than Zero) Ted. I could see the whole campaign in my head. Dole would've carried the midwest, probably TX (with Bush) and VA, but I think Ted & George Wallace would've cleaned up the N.E., the coastal states, a good chunk of the Deep South. I think the map would've looked a bit like this... (the '80 EV votes shown here)

"How about Kennedy-Moonbeam Brown? Too radical maybe."

An interesting East Coast/West Coast combo, but more than likely Kennedy needed a Southerner on the ticket, otherwise risk losing it going to the GOP. CA wouldn't have gone for Dole, even in '80, especially in a bad recession blamed on Ford, so Ted would've carried the state without having to pick Gov. Brown.

"Perhaps Reubin Askew, John Glenn, Mo Udall, or Lloyd Bentsen. Or even Mondale for try number 2."

All intriguing choices, especially Askew, but I think FL still would've stayed in the Dem column given a recession, perhaps with Wallace helping. Glenn wouldn't have been needed to carry a suffering Rust Belt. Udall wouldn't have been able to help Kennedy carry hyper-GOP AZ. Bentsen might've helped in TX a bit, but I think the state was moving towards the GOP, anyway, and would've gone that way in '80, recession or no, if Bush were on the ticket. I think the only reason why some Southern states that went for Carter in '76 would've swung to Dole in '80 is solely because even with Wallace, Ted Kennedy would've been too much to stomach, recession or no. My state of TN didn't vote for JFK with LBJ even in 1960. Putting together Ted & Geo. Wallace would've been like uniting the factions in a way any of the other candidates wouldn't have worked. Although Wallace was NOT a Conservative, despite claims to the contrary, he was a Populist of sorts who could hold onto Southern Conservatives by his rhetorical saber-rattling (Carter succeeded solely because he had Wallace to pave the way, he co-opted his schtick without the harder edges, and wrapped it in a faux-religious piety).

[Impy]

“With little exception, it’s usually the more personable candidate that wins the Presidential race.”

Who is the exception?

Barry had it over McLame.

Bush over 2 pieces of wood.

Bubba over Dole and Poppy.

” Although Wallace was NOT a Conservative, despite claims to the contrary”

Damn right.

Wallace is popular in fiction.

I once heard Chrissy Matthewsclaim that Wallace cost HHH the election.

Nixon would have got, what 65-70% of the Wallace votes?

[fieldmarshaldj]

Ford likely edged Carter in personability, but he looked stiff in the debates, and that awful gaffe about Poland not being under Soviet control (WTF ?!?). McGovern was probably more personable than Nixon, too (which may have had them worried, but McGovern was a friendly-seeming moonbat). Humphrey was probably more personable than Nixon, too (I remember Jesse Helms absolutely reduced to tears speaking of Humphrey’s last appearance on the Senate floor when he was terminally ill - and I only saw two people get that upset over Nixon’s death publicly, one was his kid brother at the funeral, and the other was Bob Dole). Goldwater and LBJ may have been a tie, but both were quite arrogant, but Goldie took a real screwing in ‘64, I’d have been real pissed and ugly myself.

Looking at ‘72, you could conclude that Nixon would’ve received the bulk of Wallace’s votes had he not run in ‘68, but the problem with that is you forget the diehard Dems in those states, and even with Humphrey, Nixon and him might’ve merely split the vote at that point. It took an extra effort and focus on getting the Wallace voters over to the GOP for ‘72, and remember a huge number of them went right back to Carter in ‘76 again. So, yes, Humphrey might very well have pulled off a narrow win, but I think he would’ve had a bad time of it, especially if he decided to move hard-left and exit/abandon Vietnam rapidly.

In fact, take it one step further, and I’ll say if Humphrey-Muskie had run again in ‘72, you can probably guess who I believe the GOP nominee would’ve been. Yup, CA Gov. Ronald Reagan, and he’d have won, too, and probably swept in GOP majorities in BOTH the Senate and House (8 years ahead of time for the former, 22 years ahead of time for the latter). His potential running mate ? TX Senator George HW Bush, who would’ve beaten Lloyd Bentsen in 1970 in a viscerally anti-Dem/anti-HHH year. Looks like any way you cut it, those guys were going to end up as President.

But, boy, the ‘70s sure would’ve turned out differently. Reagan would’ve won Vietnam, too, and the Soviet Union would’ve collapsed a decade earlier. Best part of all ? No Jimmy Carter in the WH (might’ve even lost to Hal Suit for Governor in ‘70), and the South would’ve realigned 20-30 years ahead of schedule.

[Impy]

The scenario would be perfect if you can find a better VP for Reagan, not that freshman RINO sqiush from Texas. ;D

[fieldmarshaldj]

Could’ve run with my preference for ‘80, which in ‘72 would’ve been ex-NV Gov. Paul Laxalt (2 years away from the Senate seat win over Lt. Gov. Dingy Harry Reid).

[Impy]

This Hal Suit fellow was a RINO? Too bad he won the primary over the party switching democrat.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Leaned that way, apparently. I didn’t realize (or recall) his opponent, James Bentley was the first GOP statewide officeholder in GA since Reconstruction (however, he never won as one, that wouldn’t happen until Attorney General Michael Bowers, who was also elected as a Dem, but switched parties and won), although Mack Mattingly would be the first to win statewide period as a Republican (excluding Bo Callaway in ‘66) in the modern era in 1980.

One problem Bentley had in a GOP primary at the time was that the GOP in that period (at least until Watergate) was heavily-Atlanta based (aside from Calloway’s win in the rural mid-SW part of the state in ‘64, the two GOP Congressman were from Atlanta proper & DeKalb County, who both won in ‘66, in the seats that John Lewis and Cynthia McKinney would later occupy - showing the dramatic demographic shift in the years since), and Bentley won the rural areas, while the more liberal Suit won the Atlanta region, giving him the victory. Ironically, neither of the two Congressmen, Ben Blackburn & Fletcher Thompson, were RINOs. Indeed, they were more of the Jesse Helms breed.

I was always surprised Bo Callaway didn’t try again in ‘70. BTW, did you notice on Wikipedia’s entry for the ‘70 GA Governor’s race, they paint Carter in an exceptionally good light ? No mention of his appalling race-baiting against ex-Gov. Carl Sanders (”He shook hands with Negro basketball players !”), nor that Carter tried to attach himself to Gov. Maddox on racial issues. No doubt Carter ran to moderate Hal Suit’s right. Talk about a whitewash of history !

[Impy]

A have a question for you.

With the talk of anti-democrat alternate 70’s midterms how come 1978 didn’t go better?

Jimmuh wasn’t unpopular enough yet?

[Impy]

A lot of Republicans in then rat south appeared to be 'moderates'. From East TN to NC to VA to the AR Rockerfellers.

"I didn’t realize (or recall) his opponent, James Bentley was the first GOP statewide officeholder in GA since Reconstruction "

He would have stood a better chance against Carter. Comproller General appears to be part of the Insurance Commissioners office now.

(aside from Calloway’s win in the rural mid-SW part of the state in ‘64, the two GOP Congressman were from Atlanta proper & DeKalb County, who both won in ‘66, in the seats that John Lewis and Cynthia McKinney would later occupy - showing the dramatic demographic shift in the years since

Atlanta was whiter then?

[fieldmarshaldj]

According to this:
http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/CFIDE/roper/presidential/webroot/presidential_rating_detail.cfm?allRate=True&presidentName=Carter

Carter’s negatives weren’t immensely high, but his approval ratings were roughly in the same rage Zero’s are now (sitting around 50% approval). He hit a high of 75% (!) in mid-March ‘77, which Zero never hit. But he deteriorated by 20% in 6 months to the mid 50s. 7 months later, he was at a lackluster 40% (April ‘78), and that was the first time his disapprovals were higher than his positives. However, by the election time, he’d gone back above 50%. Had the election been held earlier in the year, we might’ve scored more gains.

Add in that the GOP was still in bad shape because of the two prior elections and the Watergate taint, so they couldn’t take full advantage of the situation (we’re somewhat in a similar problem now).

I mentioned in post #35 some of the seats up that year. We made an underwhelming net gain of 3 Senate seats (actually we won 8 new ones, either knocking out incumbents or taking open seats, but the Dems took out or grabbed 5 of ours, including Ed Brooke-MA (lost to Tsongas), Bob Griffin-MI (that was a bad loss for us, Griffin lost to Levin, and had he not hesistated on running again that year, he’d have likely held that seat until at least 1997), won Carl Curtis’s open seat in NE with a Republican-turned-DINO (Ed Zorinsky, who was going to switch back to the GOP prior to his death in the late ‘80s), Clifford Case’s seat in NJ (we took him out in the primary), Dewey Bartlett’s open seat in OK (won by Gov. David Boren)). Had we held all of ours, we’d have been down just 53D-47R (and the gains in ‘80 would’ve put us at 58R-42D, the largest number of Republicans since the 1920s). That 5 seat cushion would’ve been enough to have kept the Senate tied for Reagan’s last two years.

I was following further down on the approvals of Carter, he dropped to the Dubyaesque range of the 20s by June ‘79. The rock bottom of his administration numbers were July ‘79, when he hit 28% approval, 59% disapproval. I don’t recall what (off the top of my head) was going on that accounted for the bottoming-out, or if it was just an accumulation of disappointment in him (I vaguely recall the period, if only because it was a month before I started Kindergarten, and he was still “well regarded” down here in the South). His approvals were slightly better around the election of ‘80, but not enough to save him (and he still had a fairly solid bloc of mid-50s that disapproved of him and wouldn’t budge). Looks like had the election been held in the Summer of ‘79, Reagan and the GOP would’ve won by a far-wider margin.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Our East TN guys were pretty Conservative. NC Mountain Republicans were somewhat similar, but they were opposed to the Low Country Republicans (i.e. the Broyhills vs. the Helmses). The VA guys varied, from Conservative (such as Sen. Bill Scott) to outright liberal (Gov. Linwood Holton). Rockefeller in AR was fairly liberal (his son more Conservative).

Yes, Bentley probably would’ve done better against Carter, but whether he could’ve won, I’m not sure.

And yes, Atlanta was Whiter then (it was about half and half until the early ‘70s), and DeKalb County was still White and upscale suburban Republican (but as Barone noted in his early editions, the area tended to be “opposed to the rest of Georgia” — and now nearly 4 decades later, they still are, but in a totally different direction and demographics). At that point, there were still enough Whites in the Southern cities (Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta) that Republicans were competitive.

Indeed, Birmingham had a GOP Mayor until 1975 (he demolished the old White Segregationist machine in ‘67 with the help of Black voters), but he was beaten by a White Dem liberal who essentially just held the seat long enough to turn it over to a Black Dem before Whites flooded out of the city proper. It’s unfortunate that a lot of center-right, good gov’t middle class Whites didn’t stand their ground and not flee to the suburbs, allowing the cities to get hijacked by race-baiting Black Socialists (and their mau-mauing leftist White allies) exploiting the underclass vote and turning them into hellholes (for lack of a better word). So many of our cities were lost because the most productive citizens that made the places liveable and civilized voted with their feet, they didn’t want to fight.

[Impy]

That's something that seems quaint now. GOP strength in deep south urban centers.

BTW I made a 1968 without Wallace map.

I gave the Wallace states to HHH and let him keep Texas (questionable) and all the rest of his states.

Outside the south I've read both that Wallace supporters were "mostly union democrats" and "mostly conservative suburbanites" (with busing being an issue).

I flipped MO, AK and DE to HHH.

I found an old thread on the Dave Leip atlas forum. http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=37619.0

3 of 4 mappers flipped Illinois. I don't. Republicans won the Governorship and Dirksen was reelected, Republicans kept the state legislature. Nixon got 47%. So I keep it Nixon.

Some guy said HHH would "take the south". I say Nixon should obviously keep Florida and the border states he won in 1960. And I let him keep the Carolinas as well.

The state to flip to give HHH the win would be Ohio.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I can’t tell from that map who you’d have had carry the ‘68 election absent Wallace. One thing I can say with little hesistation, Nixon would carry TX. He’d have carried it in ‘60 without the fraud perpetrated on LBJ’s orders. The state wouldn’t have gone for two Northern liberals, HHH-Muskie, in a 2-man race. In this case, Wallace clearly harmed Nixon (It would go for Nixon by 66% in ‘72).

MO might’ve gone to HHH, but I can also say no way would HHH have carried AK or DE. AK was GOP by then, and DE swept in a GOP Governor that year. The big question would’ve been the Deep South states, but I have to say, I think they might very well have all gone for Nixon absent Wallace, the states from LA to SC all went for Goldwater in ‘64, and I can’t see them flipping back to the even more liberal HHH in ‘68. Look at ‘72, and Nixon carried those states by jaw dropping margins of as low as 65% (LA) to as high as 78% (!) in MS.

[Impy]

Tha map I made gives it to Nixon narrowly.

I figured if Wallace supporters in any state were mostly union dems it was Alaska. That year they reelected their GOP congressman by an increased margin but upset primary winner rat Mike Gravel won the Senate race, and the rats retook the state house and almost retook the state senate.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/446336

If you take Texas and the Wallace states and give them to Dick then it’s very difficult for HHH to win. He’d need OH, CA ,IL and either NJ or MO.

Everyone says H was gaining in the polls and would have won if the election were in December. And you don’t know how the campaign would have shook out without Wallace in the race.

But it looks to me like if there was an instant runoff with Wallace backers choosing their second candidate that Nixon would have still won.