Elections 2018

Just don’t

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Since WW2 only Nixon managed to win the presidency after losing in his first attempt. Based on that alone you shouldn’t attempt this.

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How many people have actually tried more than once?

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Ran for president 9 times.

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Ah, that’s where the American electoral system trips me up again.

For some reason despite us getting inundated with news about your party nomination processes every election, I keep forgetting that the party internal candidatures count as part of ‘running for President’.

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Well, parliamentary systems avoid this only at the expense of not allowing the electorate to vote for the PM at all. If party leader in such systems was open to a public vote, there would be plenty of people running.

(It still boggles my mind that Theresa May is leader of the UK based on 35k votes in a constituency that was created for her. And Angela Merkel, current leader of the free world, only has around twice as many votes, in a constituency created for her.)

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avengers-tony-stark-eyeroll

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Eugene Debs, William Jennings Bryan… Teddy Roosevelt…

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image

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I am not sure what you mean here. There are literally dozens and dozens of folks who have run multiple times for President. Not too many have ever been the party nominee multiple times, that certainly is a rarity. Normally if you were nominated and lost, the party tends to not nominate you again.

But “running for President” is not defined solely by being the party nominee, and never has been.

This is just NYT nonsense though, she said no twice and then said that she would like to be president after being pressed on it more. That’s a far cry from saying she might run again if the midterms go well.

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Agreed. Even if she did try and run again who the hell would fund her?

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My query was in response to Avyctes who specifically limited his claim to post-WWII presidential runs and those are all well prior :slight_smile: (but thank you, I’d not come across Eugene Debs before that I can recall and also completely forgotten about William Jennings Bryan [who I’d only ever heard of in the context of the Scopes trial], so I’ve learnt something today, yay!)

@ChuckV: Pat Paulsen, I’ll take.

I think we’re all getting confused. @Avyctes asserted that since WWII only Nixon was elected after losing in the first attempt.

I have no idea whether that’s true or whether if it is true, it’s in any way significant. If lots of people tried several times and failed, that might indicate something. If only Nixon tried, then it’s not saying much.

I tried a bit of googling but didn’t come up with much so thought I’d ask.

@d_r came up with Harold Stassen stating that he’d run for president 9 times.

As far as I can see Mr Stassen only ever sought the Republican nomination (and never got it).

From a European point of view (well mine at least), no one would say that counted as running for President.

We don’t invest as much interest in party internal nominations as the US seems to.

For example, no one would say that David Davis or Michael Gove or Andrea Leadsom ran for PM whereas one might say that of David Cameron even though under our system it’s not technically true.

Oddly enough, it’s probably more true of Gove and Leadsom than it is of Cameron since they ran for leadership of the Conservative party in circumstances that would more or less automatically make them PM if they won (as happened to May).

But I’ve only ever seen that referred to as ‘running for leadership of the party’.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I again realise that even with all the coverage of US politics we get over here nowadays and access to the web and therefore US internal coverage, I still don’t understand US politics/elections at all. :frowning:

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Also, postwar, Nader…

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ok. I am STILL confused.

“Running for President” is not limited to “having/winning a party nomination”.

So…most incumbent presidents have in fact run for President multiple times, with mixed results. Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, and Obama have all run for President multiple times.Additionally, non primary party affiliated candidates have also run multiple times. @anon61221983 beat me to it on Nader, but there is also Garry Johnson, Jill Stein, Ross Perot, and others I am sure.

A candidate for POTUS doesn’t announce “I am running for the office of POTUS” AFTER they get a party nomination, they state it before leading up to the primaries. So…again, I am still confused as to what info is being sought here. Maybe I missed a post in the thread that clarified it.

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I can also add Farrell Dobbs and Darlington Hoopes, Eric Hass and Adlai Stevenson II just from a relatively brief run through post-war elections so there do seem to have been quite a few.

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Yes, I get that.

I think you’ve clarified it for me quite handily, I’ve just managed to confuse everyone else…

From my point of view, saying that someone is a candidate for President simply because they say they intend to stand is extremely odd. I would say that someone is a candidate for President only when they actually stand in the Presidential election.

That’s obviously not the case in US terms though.

Anyway I think that’s enough posts about what was intended merely to be an enquiry for more context about a brief throwaway comment about Nixon and Hilary Clinton’s chances.

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SHE :clap:t4: ISN’T :clap:t4: RUNNING

the thirst is strong

He ran in 1960 on the Playboy ticket. Naturally JFK beat him in that category.

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Probably the same people pressing her to take another stab at it, honestly. There was no shortage of corporate donor money pouring into her campaign last time, and business leaders spooked by Trump’s willingness to smash international trade are definitely not going to gleefully hop on board with whoever the Democratic base’s “will no one rid me of this meddlesome economic system” standard-bearer ends up being.

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