Jimmy Carter: Reagan only won in 1980 because of the third-party candidate

posted at 8:02 pm on October 25, 2010 by Allahpundit

He’s making a two-step argument here, I think, part of it based on pure conjecture. Step one: If not for Teddy Kennedy’s bitter primary challenge (which of course wasn’t a third-party candidacy), the Democratic Party would have been united for the general election. Instead, untold numbers stayed home, crippling Carter. Step two: If not for John Anderson running as an independent, Carter would have cleaned up among the Anderson base and swept to victory. There’s no way to flatly disprove him on step one since we can’t know how many Teddy fans boycotted the general, but on step two, have a look-see at this recap of the 1980 election. Reagan crushed Carter in the electoral college, 489/49; even if you cede every last Anderson vote to Carter, Reagan still would have won a clear majority of the popular vote with a margin close to three million. Among the individual states, a quickie glance at the numbers reveals that, in states taken by Reagan, Anderson won enough votes to have possibly influenced the outcome in Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin. That is to say, if all of Anderson’s voters in those states had broken for Carter, Carter would have won the states. (Anderson was, in fact, a liberal Republican who’d competed in the GOP primary, so no doubt plenty of his supporters would have broken for Reagan over Carter if forced to choose. But let’s keep this hypothetical.) It looks to me like all of those states combined would have given Carter another 170 or so electoral votes — meaning Reagan still would have crushed him by 100 EVs and been elected president comfortably. In which case … what is this guy talking about?

One thing he is right about, though: Why, per today’s New York magazine extravaganza on Palin’s path to the White House, would Mike Bloomberg ever consider running for president? He’d spend a billion dollars or more and would need a clear majority of 270 electoral votes to win, an utter impossibility with the left- and right-wing bases energized for Obama and Sarahcuda. If no candidate won 270 outright, the House of Representatives — which will almost certainly be controlled by the GOP, wink — would decide things, meaning Palin would win. Why on earth would a Democrat in independent’s clothing like Bloomy want to spend a 10-digit sum from his personal fortune to elect the major party candidate with whom he has the least in common politically? Does not compute. Click the image to watch.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Related Posts:

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Trackbacks/Pings

Trackback URL

Comments

Comment pages: 1 2

Been to many TEA party rallies, have you? Or are you merely engaging in rectal speak?

As usual…

JohnGalt23 on May 24, 2013 at 1:46 PM

As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.

hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM

Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?

mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM

MSNBC consensus: Obama’s speech was historic, amazing, “one of the best of his presidency”

Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?

parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM

They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.

They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.

A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.

Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM

MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.

rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM

Nobel Peace Prize that he totally earned a mere nine months into his presidency? Yeah, that one.

I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.

fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM

Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!

And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!

Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM

They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.

They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.

Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM

…bromides about what we’re told are President Foreign Policy’s miraculous yet still oddly unmaterialized abilities to move us drastically closer to world peace.

Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!

KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM

I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.

Do they even know or care that they are morons.

marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM

His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.

DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM

Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:

During his foreign policy speech Thursday afternoon, President Obama warned that domestic terrorism would increase in the modern age of the Internet.

“[T]his threat is not new,” Obama said. “But technology and the Internet increase its frequency and lethality.”

Obama warned Americans that materials on the Internet could influence people to commit terrorist acts.

“Today, a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit themselves to a violent agenda and learn how to kill without leaving their home,” he said.

To combat domestic terrorism, Obama reminded Americans that it was important to reach out to Muslim communities.

“The best way to prevent violent extremism is to work with the Muslim American community — which has consistently rejected terrorism — to identify signs of radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting towards violence,” he said. “And these partnerships can only work when we recognize that Muslims are a fundamental part of the American family.”

You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.

onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM

That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?

onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM

Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.

myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM

Comment pages: 1 2