A Squeaker Versus A Wipeout

In my abbreviated travels around all of those Internet tubes today, I happened upon this story about Senator John Kerry that appeared in The Boston Globe, in the vein of “how the mighty have fallen, oh what a shame he’s only appearing at 4H clubs now instead of debates with an incumbent president watched by 63 million people, etc.”

And I read this…

The closest parallel to Kerry's story is George McGovern's, who was defeated by Richard Nixon in 1972 and then in 1974 was stumping around South Dakota farms before his reelection to the Senate.

I believe Globe staff writer Matt Viser needs to brush up on his history; this tells us that incumbent Richard Nixon won 49 states, while McGovern won Massachusetts (ironically enough) along with the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, Dubya (as noted here) officially carried 31 states in 2004, while Kerry won 19 plus, again, the District of Columbia. Nary a wipeout in sight, sports fans (and, but for some truly low electoral antics by Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, who knows – too painful to contemplate, though).

And by the way, what a shame that Curt Schilling did not decide to run against Kerry after all (as noted here). What a pleasure it would have been to see “Top Step Shill” get a big electoral defeat shoved down his throat – maybe that would have shut his mouth at long last.

And as long as I’m mentioning Kerry, here’s some of his speech in Denver a few weeks ago.