Who ran a more inept campaign?

Dukakis?
Mondale?
McGovern?

Yikes, I listed all Democrats, but I can't really find a Republican candidate who ran as bad of a campaign as we've seen from McCain. Yeah, Bush the First lost, but that was more economic conditions than anything he did.

Where will McCain's campaign rank when this is all said and done?

If I had to pick the worst... I'd say Dukakis.

Dukakis's #s were close to GHWB.

Carter beat Ford by a flea's whisker despite the pardon. Then he ran a bad campaign in '80, so I think both of his are worse than Duke, or Gore.

53%-45%, while not McGovern and Mondale #'s is still not close. Also 426-111 in the EC was not close.

I'd have to give it to Dukakis. Nobody really wanted George I. Nobody wanted yet a third term of Reagan. He took a completely winnable election and turned it into a rout. What could be worst than that. Carter was dealt a bad hand -- stagflation, Soviets in Afghanastan, hostage crisis -- and he was clearly in over his head. Can't blame his campaign as much as his administration.

And McGovern -- he was beat before he started. Plus even if he had won, Tricky Dick would have declared martial law or something to hold onto power.

1976 should have been a blowout, yet he barely beat Ford and had time not run out, would have lost that election.

an incumbent President - not elected, but still an incumbent. Remember that Tricky Dick had won by a landslide only 4 years before. And I don't buy the "time running out" bit, not in 1976, not in 1968, not in 2000. Races almost always close a little in the final 2 weeks. Hold the election 2 weeks later and they the dynamics and outcome would be the same, without some game changing outside event.

I think Ford was DOA, there was no way he could win. Americans wanted to turn the page on the Nixon administration and Ford, rightfully or not, was tied to it. Yes, Carter ran a good primary campaign, however, even as an unknown, he built a huge lead early against Ford and barely won. And it isn't that the election tightened like they always do, there was clear movement in Ford's favor from the summer months until November. The only reason Carter won, in my opinion, is because of the 2nd debate, where Ford bumbled a question and said the Soviet Union had no sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Prior to that debate, Ford was surging in the polls and had cut Carter's down to basically a tie. After the debate, however, his momentum was blunted and Carter ran out the clock.

And he never got in front of the Willie Horton stuff even though Al Gore hit him with it early in the primaries.

Ha!

1996 could have been won by the Republicans had they run a better candidate.