[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

To me, it was more a campaign about weariness, than about changing direction. Reagan/Bush had lasted 12 years and the quick recession during Bush's term gave people enough of an excuse to vote for the other guy (Clinton or Perot, depending). Both Clinton and Perot hammered on that specific issue (both famously, by the way) and Bush never gave that much of an effort to fight back.

I remember that specifically about that campaign - it seemed to me that along the way Bush just gave up. By the time of the Convention, when he got saddled with a very right-wing platform, he just seemed defeated, personally.

Bush had to go far, far right to handle the Pat Buchanan challenge. I remember one story Mary Matalin wrote about Buchanan's speech at the convention, which was filled with alot of extreme social rhetoric. One of her friends turned to her and said, "We just lost the election."

Then in 2000, it happened again - people just got weary of the incumbent, and Gore couldn't do enough to get people fired up.

I don't agree with this. In 2000, Clinton had very high approval ratings. Gore's biggest mistake (among many) was his decision to distance himself from the incumbent, which made it hard for him to take credit for a strong economic situation. Utilizing Clinton more could have delivered him a southern state, which would have been enough to win the election.

In this year, I don't think people are as much weary as they are scared and angry. Bush's approval ratings are the lowest in history. Eighty percent of the country thinks we're going in the wrong direction. People want to go in a different direction, and Obama's tapping into that.

The thing that worked so wellf or Clinton is that he had an extremely likeable personality, but he was also very intelligent. Clinton could fit in at the neighborhood BBQ, or at a foreign summit. The 2000 and 2004 elections saw candidates with one of those two qualities, but none had both. This year, McCain has the intelligent quality, but a Gallup poll has Obama with a 58-23 lead in likeability. If Obama can convince people that he's competent, then he should have an easy time in November.