All three Democratic presidential losses in the Eighties were caused by centrism.

[Hippo_Tron]

280. Two of those three losses were caused by factors entirely beyond anyone's control

The standard for the Post World War II era is to give a President (or at least his party if there's a succession) two terms in the White House. Jimmy Carter is an example of how that rule gets broken if you have enough bad shit happen to you. It doesn't matter if you're a liberal or a centrist, if you have an energy crisis, an economic crisis, and a hostage crisis all happen at once, people are going to be dissatisfied and vote for somebody else.

1984 was, likewise, un-winnable for any Democrat, voters had no reason to get rid of Reagan.

1988 is a good topic for discussion, because that was an example of an election that was lost entirely because of an incompetent campaign.

But let me throw in another topic for conversation here. I think that by 1992, voters were ready to toss the Republicans out of power and vote in just about any Democrat, and thus I think we could've done a HELL of a lot better than Bill Clinton. What I'm not sure about is whether said President could've gotten the sweeping reforms we would've liked through congress. Even when congress was Democratic from 1993-1995, you still had a substantial amount of power being held by white southerners, who aren't exactly known for a long history of progressivism.