Waxing Nostalgic for the Elections of Yore
Every fall, thoughts of the elections of yesteryear dance through my head. As an election junkie, I feel like I'm getting robbed on odd-numbered years, especially last year after the high-intensity 2004 Presidential election. The nasty TV ads, the yard sign wars, the telephone push polls.....it's all such an adrenaline rush for odd ducks like me. And the more outrageous the campaigns get, the more fun they are.
With that in mind, indulge me as I dig deep from within and share my thoughts on each election cycle dating back to 1988, grading each year based on the excitement of the campaign and the election-night outcome.
1988--I was 11 years old when George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis squared off, paying more attention to the campaign than most 11-year-olds but still disconnected from the specifics of the campaign, in this case for the best given that Republican character assassins accomplished one of their most successful smear campaigns of all time against Dukakis. With my dad being the eternal optimist, I discounted faint background rumors of Dukakis getting clobbered in the polls and was convinced he would be victories come November 8. The tears flowed pretty thick by 8:30 that evening when a sea of Bush-41 red could be seen even in Democratic bastions like Maryland. It was the first of what would be several ugly election nights for me. Excitement of campaign: B- Election Night Result: F
1990--I was very disconnected from midterm elections back in the days when MacGyver was still on the air and Super Mario Bros. 3 needed to be conquered. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but pay a little attention to the 1990 midterms, which grew to become particularly exciting in my home state of Minnesota. A juicy sex scandal pushed Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Grunseth out of the race only weeks before the election and a little-known college professor named Paul Wellstone was insurgent in a campaign against Republican incumbent Rudy Boschwitz. On election night, two of the biggest upsets were the victories of Wellstone, one of the biggest political Cinderella stories of all time, and moderate Republican Arne Carlson, who waged a very brief gubernatorial campaign after Grunseth left the race.
Excitement of campaign: B- Election Night Result: B+
1992--As early as December 1991, I was engaged in the Democratic nomination dogfight and was a strong supporter of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin in the field of underdog candidates. My excitement waned by March, when Harkin's campaign ended, and it remained in the dumps throughout the summer as I was unimpressed by the "triangulation" of Democratic nominee Bill Clinton at his party's convention. The presence of eccentric billionaire Ross Perot helped spice the race up, however, and I was very much engaged in the race after Labor Day. I couldn't bring myself to believe that a Democrat was poised to win a Presidential election after 12 years of rule by noxious Republicans, but I lit up with excitement on the night of the election when the map filled with blue and it was obvious that Bill Clinton was gonna win. Democrats padded their majorities in the Senate and House that evening as well. Fun election year.....great election night.
Excitement of campaign: B+ Election Night Result: A
1994--Like most Democrats, I was caught snoozing in 1994, unable to fathom the possibility that Democrats could lose their Congressional majorities, specifically their supermajority in the House. I wasn't paying any attention at all until the month before the election, and then only because news reports indicated that even stalwarts like Ted Kennedy and Mario Cuomo were in danger of defeat. It became obvious that November 8, 1994 was gonna be an ugly night for Democrats, but I remained steadfast in my belief that they'd hang onto their majorities.....but it didn't take long to find out how wrong I was. It was evident early that night that things were gonna be ugly for Democrats, and the bad news just rolling in from there. The landslide re-election of Minnesota's GOP Governor Arne Carlson and the victory of conservative Rod Grams for MN's open Senate seat pour salt on my wounds on that most awful of nights.
Excitement of campaign: F Election Night Result: F
1996--Even though the 1996 Presidential election lacked drama, I still really enjoyed the political climate of the year. For one thing, it was a wonderful point of escape for me in my miserable freshman year of college. Early on, I tracked the Republican nomination battle and didn't see anyone in the bunch who really scared me. Frontrunner Bob Dole got the nomination, and I had very little fear of him denying Bill Clinton a second term. A terrific rematch of Paul Wellstone and asshat Rudy Boschwitz in the Minnesota Senate race added to the excitement as the race took shape. On election night, there were no surprises and little excitement, but most of my preferred candidates were victorious (although the Dems didn't win back either House of Congress which I had some hope for), which in itself was a welcome development and made for a great evening.
Excitement of campaign: B Election Night Result: A-
1998--This was the first midterm election that I actively tracked for several months preceding November. I was prepared for a bloodbath with the multiple developments of Clinton's impending impeachment hearings, the proverbial "six-year itch" that typically batters the incumbent party, and several very vulnerable Democrats. There was widespread speculation of the Republicans gain six or more Senate seats and scoring a filibuster-proof majority. Excited as I was on election night, I was nonetheless demoralized. But almost right away, it was evident that things weren't going according to the Republican script. Democrats were easily winning races they weren't expected to (John Edwards in NC, Fritz Hollings in SC, Chuck Schumer defeating incumbent Al D'Amato in NY). One by one, every vulnerable Democrat was spared from the sword, save for Illinois Democrat Carole Moseley Braun. But even with all of these victories, the Dems only managed to do damage control in '98, maintaining their 45-seat Senate minority and gaining only five seats in the House. The Republicans' only positive development of the evening was unfortunately one that would prove ominous in the very near future....the landslide election of the "Bush brothers" in Texas and Florida gubernatorial races. Nonetheless, a very exciting night....and the groundswell of hilarious campaign ads from throughout the country made getting there fun too.
Excitement of campaign: B+ Election Night Result: A
2000—Hands-down the best election year of my lifetime, this one looked like it was gonna be a snoozer, a coronation of candidates Gore and Bush hand-picked by party operatives. The Democratic primary was a snoozer, with Al Gore quickly laying waste to challenger Bill Bradley. The Republican primary, on the other hand, was an absolute barnburner where an insurgent John McCain got the full wrath of Karl Rove foisted on his chest with the ruthless ferocity that no Viet Cong captor could have matched during McCain’s POW days. The Dems avoided a blowout defeat when McCain couldn’t get his party’s nomination, but the election fight became jaw-droppingly boring throughout the summer of 2000. It wasn’t until after Labor Day that things heated up again, and it became abundantly clear that this would be a very close race. Never before had I experienced a genuinely close Presidential election, and being unemployed with nothing but time on my hands to overanalyze the contest, I became obsessed with Electoral College math and tracking candidate campaign stops. I had convinced myself Bush was gonna win up until the final week of the campaign when I realized that the states where Gore led in the polls would get him to the more than 270 electoral votes he needed even if he didn’t win the popular vote. Election night 2000 was a night of breathless, roller coaster thrills for me and I’ll never forget it. The weeks of partisan hissing that followed was every political junkie’s dream come true, and even though it didn’t end the way I wanted it to, I can definitely say that it changed me from being a moderate political junkie to a hard-core obsessive. That can probably be said about many people who followed Election 2000.
Excitement of Campaign: A Election Night Result: A+
2002—I went to the 2002 election year with modest expectations and a great deal of nervous enthusiasm about the fate of my political hero Paul Wellstone, who was locked in an incredibly close race that rose to national prominence as early as March that year. It was clear even before Wellstone’s death that “national security” meme was not doing any favors for the Democratic Party, and that they would be very lucky to hang onto the Senate that they then controlled by one seat. Still, the excitement of election season was inescapable, but the death of Wellstone and the memorial service gone awry sucked nearly all the enthusiasm out of me with only a few days to go in the campaign. I eventually regained it when I saw polls the Sunday before the election showing Democrats favored in most of the battleground Senate races. It didn’t take long on the evening of November 5, 2002, to realize the Dems were getting clobbered, both nationally and in Minnesota. I went to bed around 2 a.m. with the pit of my stomach aching. The only bright spots were two incredibly close races (the South Dakota Senate race between Tim Johnson and John Thune, and a local legislative race in my home district in southern Minnesota) where the winner wasn’t determined until around noon the next day, both swinging in the direction of the good guys. Still, an awful election cycle that still gives me nightmares.
Excitement of Campaign: B Election Night Result: F
2004—As engaged as I had been in previous elections, I reached new heights with my energetic involvement in the 2004 Presidential election….and I was definitely not alone. For nearly a year, I spent hours a day where I should have been working engaged in blogosphere pissing matches. Every step of the way, I was convulsing with excitement over one of the hardest-fought Presidential elections of all time, gleefully jubilant with every good sign for Kerry, woefully glum with every positive development for Bush. I had discovered in the past three election nights that I never really knew what to expect while awaiting the election returns to roll in, but like most leftist political junkies, I was overcome with confidence after seeing the irrationally exuberant exit poll numbers the afternoon of November 2, 2004. Most of us had our finger on the champagne bottle cork by evening, just waiting for Kerry’s “victory” to be official. And what a nightmare we ended up living instead. It was clear early on the exit poll data was completely wrong, and that red states were redder than they were in 2000 while blue states were less blue. After 7 p.m., it was clear Kerry and the Democratic Party in general would be defeated and there wasn’t a single positive development the entire night (Tom Daschle defeated along with three other Democrat-held seats). I had hoped to never again be sucker-punched by election returns as badly as I was in 2002, but I ended up with an even darker black eye that night.
Excitement of Campaign: A+ Election Night Result: F-
How will Election 2006 compare to the historic evenings of the recent past? Only time will tell…….
With that in mind, indulge me as I dig deep from within and share my thoughts on each election cycle dating back to 1988, grading each year based on the excitement of the campaign and the election-night outcome.
1988--I was 11 years old when George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis squared off, paying more attention to the campaign than most 11-year-olds but still disconnected from the specifics of the campaign, in this case for the best given that Republican character assassins accomplished one of their most successful smear campaigns of all time against Dukakis. With my dad being the eternal optimist, I discounted faint background rumors of Dukakis getting clobbered in the polls and was convinced he would be victories come November 8. The tears flowed pretty thick by 8:30 that evening when a sea of Bush-41 red could be seen even in Democratic bastions like Maryland. It was the first of what would be several ugly election nights for me. Excitement of campaign: B- Election Night Result: F
1990--I was very disconnected from midterm elections back in the days when MacGyver was still on the air and Super Mario Bros. 3 needed to be conquered. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but pay a little attention to the 1990 midterms, which grew to become particularly exciting in my home state of Minnesota. A juicy sex scandal pushed Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Grunseth out of the race only weeks before the election and a little-known college professor named Paul Wellstone was insurgent in a campaign against Republican incumbent Rudy Boschwitz. On election night, two of the biggest upsets were the victories of Wellstone, one of the biggest political Cinderella stories of all time, and moderate Republican Arne Carlson, who waged a very brief gubernatorial campaign after Grunseth left the race.
Excitement of campaign: B- Election Night Result: B+
1992--As early as December 1991, I was engaged in the Democratic nomination dogfight and was a strong supporter of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin in the field of underdog candidates. My excitement waned by March, when Harkin's campaign ended, and it remained in the dumps throughout the summer as I was unimpressed by the "triangulation" of Democratic nominee Bill Clinton at his party's convention. The presence of eccentric billionaire Ross Perot helped spice the race up, however, and I was very much engaged in the race after Labor Day. I couldn't bring myself to believe that a Democrat was poised to win a Presidential election after 12 years of rule by noxious Republicans, but I lit up with excitement on the night of the election when the map filled with blue and it was obvious that Bill Clinton was gonna win. Democrats padded their majorities in the Senate and House that evening as well. Fun election year.....great election night.
Excitement of campaign: B+ Election Night Result: A
1994--Like most Democrats, I was caught snoozing in 1994, unable to fathom the possibility that Democrats could lose their Congressional majorities, specifically their supermajority in the House. I wasn't paying any attention at all until the month before the election, and then only because news reports indicated that even stalwarts like Ted Kennedy and Mario Cuomo were in danger of defeat. It became obvious that November 8, 1994 was gonna be an ugly night for Democrats, but I remained steadfast in my belief that they'd hang onto their majorities.....but it didn't take long to find out how wrong I was. It was evident early that night that things were gonna be ugly for Democrats, and the bad news just rolling in from there. The landslide re-election of Minnesota's GOP Governor Arne Carlson and the victory of conservative Rod Grams for MN's open Senate seat pour salt on my wounds on that most awful of nights.
Excitement of campaign: F Election Night Result: F
1996--Even though the 1996 Presidential election lacked drama, I still really enjoyed the political climate of the year. For one thing, it was a wonderful point of escape for me in my miserable freshman year of college. Early on, I tracked the Republican nomination battle and didn't see anyone in the bunch who really scared me. Frontrunner Bob Dole got the nomination, and I had very little fear of him denying Bill Clinton a second term. A terrific rematch of Paul Wellstone and asshat Rudy Boschwitz in the Minnesota Senate race added to the excitement as the race took shape. On election night, there were no surprises and little excitement, but most of my preferred candidates were victorious (although the Dems didn't win back either House of Congress which I had some hope for), which in itself was a welcome development and made for a great evening.
Excitement of campaign: B Election Night Result: A-
1998--This was the first midterm election that I actively tracked for several months preceding November. I was prepared for a bloodbath with the multiple developments of Clinton's impending impeachment hearings, the proverbial "six-year itch" that typically batters the incumbent party, and several very vulnerable Democrats. There was widespread speculation of the Republicans gain six or more Senate seats and scoring a filibuster-proof majority. Excited as I was on election night, I was nonetheless demoralized. But almost right away, it was evident that things weren't going according to the Republican script. Democrats were easily winning races they weren't expected to (John Edwards in NC, Fritz Hollings in SC, Chuck Schumer defeating incumbent Al D'Amato in NY). One by one, every vulnerable Democrat was spared from the sword, save for Illinois Democrat Carole Moseley Braun. But even with all of these victories, the Dems only managed to do damage control in '98, maintaining their 45-seat Senate minority and gaining only five seats in the House. The Republicans' only positive development of the evening was unfortunately one that would prove ominous in the very near future....the landslide election of the "Bush brothers" in Texas and Florida gubernatorial races. Nonetheless, a very exciting night....and the groundswell of hilarious campaign ads from throughout the country made getting there fun too.
Excitement of campaign: B+ Election Night Result: A
2000—Hands-down the best election year of my lifetime, this one looked like it was gonna be a snoozer, a coronation of candidates Gore and Bush hand-picked by party operatives. The Democratic primary was a snoozer, with Al Gore quickly laying waste to challenger Bill Bradley. The Republican primary, on the other hand, was an absolute barnburner where an insurgent John McCain got the full wrath of Karl Rove foisted on his chest with the ruthless ferocity that no Viet Cong captor could have matched during McCain’s POW days. The Dems avoided a blowout defeat when McCain couldn’t get his party’s nomination, but the election fight became jaw-droppingly boring throughout the summer of 2000. It wasn’t until after Labor Day that things heated up again, and it became abundantly clear that this would be a very close race. Never before had I experienced a genuinely close Presidential election, and being unemployed with nothing but time on my hands to overanalyze the contest, I became obsessed with Electoral College math and tracking candidate campaign stops. I had convinced myself Bush was gonna win up until the final week of the campaign when I realized that the states where Gore led in the polls would get him to the more than 270 electoral votes he needed even if he didn’t win the popular vote. Election night 2000 was a night of breathless, roller coaster thrills for me and I’ll never forget it. The weeks of partisan hissing that followed was every political junkie’s dream come true, and even though it didn’t end the way I wanted it to, I can definitely say that it changed me from being a moderate political junkie to a hard-core obsessive. That can probably be said about many people who followed Election 2000.
Excitement of Campaign: A Election Night Result: A+
2002—I went to the 2002 election year with modest expectations and a great deal of nervous enthusiasm about the fate of my political hero Paul Wellstone, who was locked in an incredibly close race that rose to national prominence as early as March that year. It was clear even before Wellstone’s death that “national security” meme was not doing any favors for the Democratic Party, and that they would be very lucky to hang onto the Senate that they then controlled by one seat. Still, the excitement of election season was inescapable, but the death of Wellstone and the memorial service gone awry sucked nearly all the enthusiasm out of me with only a few days to go in the campaign. I eventually regained it when I saw polls the Sunday before the election showing Democrats favored in most of the battleground Senate races. It didn’t take long on the evening of November 5, 2002, to realize the Dems were getting clobbered, both nationally and in Minnesota. I went to bed around 2 a.m. with the pit of my stomach aching. The only bright spots were two incredibly close races (the South Dakota Senate race between Tim Johnson and John Thune, and a local legislative race in my home district in southern Minnesota) where the winner wasn’t determined until around noon the next day, both swinging in the direction of the good guys. Still, an awful election cycle that still gives me nightmares.
Excitement of Campaign: B Election Night Result: F
2004—As engaged as I had been in previous elections, I reached new heights with my energetic involvement in the 2004 Presidential election….and I was definitely not alone. For nearly a year, I spent hours a day where I should have been working engaged in blogosphere pissing matches. Every step of the way, I was convulsing with excitement over one of the hardest-fought Presidential elections of all time, gleefully jubilant with every good sign for Kerry, woefully glum with every positive development for Bush. I had discovered in the past three election nights that I never really knew what to expect while awaiting the election returns to roll in, but like most leftist political junkies, I was overcome with confidence after seeing the irrationally exuberant exit poll numbers the afternoon of November 2, 2004. Most of us had our finger on the champagne bottle cork by evening, just waiting for Kerry’s “victory” to be official. And what a nightmare we ended up living instead. It was clear early on the exit poll data was completely wrong, and that red states were redder than they were in 2000 while blue states were less blue. After 7 p.m., it was clear Kerry and the Democratic Party in general would be defeated and there wasn’t a single positive development the entire night (Tom Daschle defeated along with three other Democrat-held seats). I had hoped to never again be sucker-punched by election returns as badly as I was in 2002, but I ended up with an even darker black eye that night.
Excitement of Campaign: A+ Election Night Result: F-
How will Election 2006 compare to the historic evenings of the recent past? Only time will tell…….
posted by Mark at 7:11 PM
3 Comments:
sean, your fears are well-founded. The GOP was an amazing GOTV operation that the Democrats simply can't seem to match. We may have caught them off guard in 1998 and other years in the past when our base turned out and theirs didn't, but in the post-Karl Rove era, I wouldn't count on that happening again. Republican voters most likely will be motivated to head out to the polls this November, meaning Democrats and especially independents are crucial to any possible scenario where Democrats win. I'm not yet convinced there's sufficient intensity on the past of Democrats and indies to vote at this point.
Sara, nice account. I guess I should mention that I was also pretty excited with the results of "election night 2005", but lamented that there weren't a great deal more races up for grabs that night that a few California propositions and two gubernatorial races.
sean, sorry for the belated reply, but I've been gone for an extended weekend. But your question is an interesting one. I would guess that the Republicans would have likely lost seats in 2002 and I seriously doubt Bush would have been re-elected if not for 9-11. The terrorism theme was the only thing Bush and the GOP had to run on in the '02 and '04 election cycles, yet it was still quite obvious that the administration was planning an invasion of Iraq that would have likely happened before 2004 whether the 9-11 attacks had occurred or night. The voting public would have been far less likely to forgive the mess in Iraq had it not been for the 9/11 attacks (or the weak economy) and Bush's "I'm the only one who can protect you" assurances.
As for Max Cleland, he would have probably been re-elected in 2002 if not for the terrorist attacks but Georgia is getting more Republican each year with the vast sprawl of exurban Atlanta and the tens of thousands of country club Republicans moving there. Cleland voted with the Democrats 86% of the time. There was only so long that was gonna be tolerated in Georgia.
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