Why The Next President Is Such A Lucky Man

Why The Next President Is Such A Lucky Man

Partisans always prefer victory to defeat, but in retrospect some elections look like poisoned chalices. Jimmy Carter's narrow victory over Gerald Ford in 1976, for example, merely saddled the Democrats with the blame for economic problems that were global in scope and paved the way for Ronald Reagan's 1980 election. In 2004, Democrats were desperate to boot George W. Bush from office, but his second term wound up being uneventful in policy terms, and John Kerry's defeat allowed his party to duck a financial crisis that almost certainly would have come about one way or another.

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