Worst possible winner of the 1976 presidential election?

Worst Possible Winner

  • Jerry Brown

    Votes: 4 3.4%
  • Robert Byrd

    Votes: 8 6.8%
  • Frank Church

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • Gerald Ford

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hubert Humphrey

    Votes: 6 5.1%
  • Scoop Jackson

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • Ted Kennedy

    Votes: 5 4.2%
  • Ronald Reagan

    Votes: 23 19.5%
  • Mo Udall

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • George Wallace

    Votes: 48 40.7%
  • Some other candidate (please explain your reasoning)

    Votes: 3 2.5%
  • Actually, Jimmy Carter was the worst possible president for those years

    Votes: 18 15.3%

  • Total voters
    118
I have heard it argued that 1976 was a poisoned chalice election. That is, that anyone who could have won that year would have almost inevitably seen his popularity erode due to stagflation, the Iranian Revolution, the general post-Watergate malaise, among many other issues that popped up, both foreign and domestic.

That said, given that this was a sensitive period of time, which candidate would have bungled things most severely, and most consistently across the board? Consider both the foreign and domestic policy challenges that laid in store for them.

Included in the poll is every candidate who won any state during the Democratic or Republican primary seasons that year, as well as Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy, given that they were regarded as very strong potential candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. I debated dropping Robert Byrd, as he seems to have run largely as a favorite son candidate for West Virginia, but kept him in to keep things interesting.

You are free to suggest other possibilities, and certainly there is someone out there who would have been unarguably worse than anyone included in the poll, but keep in mind that they need to plausibly win the 1976 election before doing any damage, or at least be a plausible addition to their party's ticket who could then assume the presidency in the event of a vacancy.
 
I said Humphrey. From what I've seen, his temperament would hurt him with that much going on during his presidency. Once he takes one hit, he'll never recover. It would send him tumbling down by the time 1980 hits.
 
I voted HHH from that group in that having a President die during his term on top of all else that happened would only add to the troubles.
 
Assuming Humphrey got elected and then was diagnosed with the disease that would kill him, his running mate might very well have been Jimmy Carter. The same logic that led Carter to pick Mondale would have worked in reverse. If not Carter, someone very much like him and there were other New South governors who were options.

Does George Wallace still get wounded in an assassination attempt in this timeline? The 1960s version would have been horrible, the 1980s version not so bad though I doubt he was that competent administratively. Jimmy Carter remains the only Deep South politician to be President of the United States, going back to 1789.
 
Assuming Humphrey got elected and then was diagnosed with the disease that would kill him, his running mate might very well have been Jimmy Carter. The same logic that led Carter to pick Mondale would have worked in reverse. If not Carter, someone very much like him and there were other New South governors who were options.

Does George Wallace still get wounded in an assassination attempt in this timeline? The 1960s version would have been horrible, the 1980s version not so bad though I doubt he was that competent administratively. Jimmy Carter remains the only Deep South politician to be President of the United States, going back to 1789.

I am assuming no point of divergence before 1976, maybe late 1975 at the earliest. Hence why Gerald Ford is an option.

I debated including Nelson Rockefeller, as Ford was the target of two assassination attempts, but I really couldn’t see him plausibly winning the Republican nomination in 1976. The party base had grown far too conservative.
 
Carter never understood the importance of compromise and realpolitik. Another president may have supported the Shah (or refused entry for a dying one), had been more inspirational rather than chastising, and have worked with Congress rather than assumed a rubber stamp waiting. A leader finds solutions rather than assigns blame.
 
I said Humphrey. From what I've seen, his temperament would hurt him with that much going on during his presidency. Once he takes one hit, he'll never recover. It would send him tumbling down by the time 1980 hits.

He died on January 13, 1978, so I guess you could consider that "tumbling down"...
 
I would have to go with Ronald Reagan. The country was having economic problems and he was not capable of handling them.
The policies he used in the 1980s in championed in 1976 would have been a total disaster. Is interventionist policies in Central America so shortly after the Vietnam War would not have gone over well, people would be upset over the potential of the direct involvement of American troops.
 
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U.S. Economy, GDP Growth Rate

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA

And look at how good ‘76, ‘77, and ‘78 were! I mean, these years compare favorably to 1996, ‘97, ‘98, ‘99, and 2000 of the Clinton years (which of course Clinton and Congress created together, and most of all, just ongoing economic trends).

You can go to this site, hover your arrow, and the graph will show GDP growth for any quarter you choose.

———————

For the late 1970s, it wasn’t till the Summer of 1979 that stagflation hit.
 
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Ronald Reagan. Not only due to his awful policies, but he would be facing large liberal Democratic majorities in both houses. He would not have any coattails even if he managed the eke out a win over Carter.
 
Ronald Reagan. Not only due to his awful policies, . . .
Honest to gosh, once stagflation hits in ‘79 and recession in 1980, Reagan’s instinct to reduce top tax rates may actually play to strength.

Whether this juices the economy in an overall good way, I think this has to a lot to do with ? ? whether we’re at the relatively flat or steep part of the supply curve ? ?
 
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Reagan and Wallace would've fared worse than Carter, Byrd likely would to. How Jackson and Jerry Brown fare compared to Carter depends on a variety of factors. Everyone else, including Ford, would've done better on the whole.
 
Reagan and Wallace would've fared worse than Carter, Byrd likely would to. How Jackson and Jerry Brown fare compared to Carter depends on a variety of factors. Everyone else, including Ford, would've done better on the whole.

He was not my final choice, but I am surprised that Scoop Jackson has gotten no votes whatsoever. Folks should keep in mind that he was a huge hawk, possibly the most likely plausible winner to get America involved in a war in Iran or elsewhere. On domestic policy, he probably would have governed similarly to the George Wallace of that era, given his opposition to busing and emphasis on "law and order." Even considering the totality of both of their political careers up to that point, Jackson does not come off looking incomparably better than Wallace. He was never a segregationist, but he was a strong supporter of Japanese internment during World War II.
 
I am assuming no point of divergence before 1976, maybe late 1975 at the earliest. Hence why Gerald Ford is an option.

I debated including Nelson Rockefeller, as Ford was the target of two assassination attempts, but I really couldn’t see him plausibly winning the Republican nomination in 1976. The party base had grown far too conservative.
Besides which, the assassination attempts were completely unrelated to his politics. The two would-be-assassins wanted a massive audience.
 
Voted for "some other candidate". If we're including everybody, Lester Maddox's obscure third-party bid really was the worst.
 
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