Explain to the non-American, please

[kellycummings]

Well I guess both had some skeletons in their cupboards.
Snoopy,
P.S.: Kelly- congrats to your 400 posts

Thanks. Didn't realize how many I had until you said something. Most of them come from bitching too much.

 

[Boxlicker101]

The only two times a winner lost the popular vote was Bush/Gore and one that was back a ways. Of course I don't remember who now that I started this. Long time before Nixon and Kennedy though. Doesn't matter really.
I think who the best president was between those two is debatable. Nixon was excellent at foreign affairs and the economy wasn't too bad then. Kennedy was well liked and a great speaker but was the Clinton of his time. Nixon got caught, Kennedy didn't. I don't really side with either one of them myself. Too young to remember much about the Nixon era and Kennedy was a couple years before my time. I've heard pretty convincing arguments for both of them though.

Actually, it has happened more often than that. In 1824 Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote but nobody won a majority of the electoral vote. J. Q. Adams was elected by the House. He was also the son of a former president, by the way.

In 1876 Tilden won the popular vote but Hayes won the electoral college vote. In 1888, Cleveland won the pop. vote but B. Harrison won the electoral college vote.

2000 was the fourth time, then. Kennedy won a narrow plurality in 1960, but this was rather questionable. In Ill., the Dems. carried Chicago, as usual and the Reps. won the rest of Ill., as usual. The total vote was very close and because the margin was so big in Chicago, the Reps. demanded a recount, at least in Chicago. Lo and behold, the ballots had all disappeared. The mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, was probably the most crooked pol. in US history, so much so that it was a joke. When his son was the leader of the Dem. contingent in Fla. in 2000, I laughed out loud. Who better to recognize crooked politics than the son of the biggest crook of all?

Two presidents have seen their sons become pres., John Adams and George Bush. Both sons had the same first name as their fathers. Both fathers were defeated in a bid for re-election, as was the younger Adams. Let's see if history continues to repeat.

 

[SlickTony]

If you like interesting gubernators, I suggest the biographies of George Corley Wallace and Lester Maddox.

And then there's Huey P. Long and Edwin Edwards. 'Course my husband's family knew John McKeithen personally, but those other two were more colorful.

 

[SnoopDog]

Thanks. Didn't realize how many I had until you said something. Most of them come from bitching too much.

Lol, bitching is fun
Snoopy

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Thanks. Didn't realize how many I had until you said something. Most of them come from bitching too much.

Love your new av!

-Colly

 

[Boxlicker101]

And then there's Huey P. Long and Edwin Edwards. 'Course my husband's family knew John McKeithen personally, but those other two were more colorful.

I don't know why nobody has mentioned Jesse "The Body" Ventura, recent governor of Minnesota.

 

[Vincent E]

Nixon got more than Kennedy. Who turned out to be the better el presidente?

Once again, I am loathe to get into political debates, but how about this as a "What If...' scnario... Nixon wins in 1960, and Kennedy isn't elected until 1968.

The Cuban missle crisis would probably never have happened since Kruschev wouldn't have the stones to mess with Nixon. Bay of Pigs would probably have been successful anyway, and America gets an ally 90-miles offshore. On the other hand we would have been in Vietnam in greater numbers earlier, and who knows how that mess would have developed. LBJ never becomes president, the great society programs never materialize, and most likely the civil rights movement faces extra obstacles as Nixon would have been more likely to find "subversives" everywhere. J. Edgar Hoover gets a soulmate; in the "subversives" arena, not the cross-dressing thing.

Kennedy on the other hand is elected in the late 60s, and he and Jackie do not appear to be as glamorous after eight years of a still turbulent decade. He has more of a repuation of being a dog, but being politically savy he sees the way the civil rights winds are blowing and hops on the bandwagon. Kennedy is however left with the unsavory task of dealing with Vietnam if we are still there, if we are, and surprise surprise, he decides not to just pull out and stop fighting since so many Americans have made so many sacrifices. Instad he pushes for an honorable withdrawal. Watergate never happens, but the OPEC oil crisis does and Kennedy's challenge on the domestic front revolves around energy policy and the economy. Of course his younger brother Ted has to resign his Senate seat after Chapaquiddick; we cannot have the president being embarrassed by the runt of the litter, plus Robert is in the wings waiting for his chance to run in 1976. Teddy fades into alcoholic obscurity.

In 1976 we have a barn-burner of a campaign with a Reagan/Ford campaign taking on an RFK/Mondale campaign.