5 – Walter Mondale (1984 Election)
I could have included Ford in 1976 or Carter in 1980 as they were both dismal candidates. However, I have opted for Walter Mondale who was on the wrong side of the biggest electoral vote defeat in history (yes, even worse than McGovern). To be fair to Mondale, every potential Democrat candidate would have been trounced by the extremely popular Ronald Reagan but there was nothing about him that was appealing.
Mondale had enough political credentials to be a nominee; he had been a U.S. Senator for his home state of Minnesota for 12 years and had been the Vice President under Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981. However, Carter wasn’t a popular president and the American economy nosedived during his tenure. Nonetheless, the Carter and Mondale team were nominated by the Democrats for the 1980 Election. It was a complete bloodbath as the Reagan/Bush Republican ticket won by a landslide with 489 Electoral College votes to just 49 for the Democrats.
You would have thought that the Democrats would want to distance themselves from the stench of failure but instead, they nominated Mondale as their 1984 presidential candidate. Apparently, he was the best in a very bad field but he put his foot in his mouth immediately after winning the nomination. At the Democratic Convention, Mondale’s acceptance speech included the following: “Let’s tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.” His attempt to play the ‘honest’ candidate card was naïve at best and idiotic at worst.
Even though Reagan was 73 years old, Mondale couldn’t make a dent and his liberal campaign was a disaster. He was seen as a man who would help the poor but at the expense of the middle classes. This caused traditional Democrat voters, such as blue-collar workers in northern states, to vote for Reagan who was credited with the recent economic boom. In the end, Mondale was beaten 525-13 as he only won D.C. and his home state of Minnesota (by less than 4,000 votes) although he did win over 40% of the popular vote.