"Today, We Are All Walter Mondale". Democrats learned the wrong lesson from 1984.

[SheilaT]

20. Keep in mind that in 1984

an unaccountably popular President, Ronald Reagan, was running for re-election. Usually, although not always, sitting Presidents get re-elected.

That year, the media was completely ga-ga over Ronnie, and no matter who the Democrats might have nominated, that person was probably going to lose. And lose big time. Mondale's liberalism, the kind of campaign he ran, his own personal appeal, nothing at all was going to make a difference. It's possible a different candidate would not have lost so badly, but that's not even important. What is important is that Ronnie's re-election was inevitable. Especially since nearly everyone thought that everything he did, especially his union-busting, was wonderful. Me? I have never forgiven Lane Kirkland, then head of the AFL-CIO for doing NOTHING to prevent the firing of the air traffic controllers. I mark that as the real beginning of the end for unions in this country. It's why thirty years later Scott Walker could so easily destroy the unions in Wisconsin.

The fact that occasionally a sitting President loses re-election (Jimmy Carter in 1980, George HW Bush in 1992) doesn't alter the almost universal re-election of the sitting President. I think it's unfortunate that political parties tend to treat each presidential campaign as if it's happening more or less in a vacuum, and that they always start out with a very good chance of winning the general election. Not true, but that's why political consultants get rich.