Biggest Loser: Presidential Edition

They say that history is written by the victors, and well, that's true. I'll be the first to admit that I'm disgruntled and uninspired by the 2008 POTUS Candidate Crop. I really wanted the Democrats to get their party in order and kick some Republican butt in this election because I think it's time for a party shift in the White House. (I vote by the candidate and issues, not the party.)

I'm neither an Obama Mama (he seems slightly smarmy/slimy to me, like a snake oil salesman) nor do I have McCain Mania (He reminds me too much of a Reagan-gopher love child, plus, I don't like his politics either).

I don't care which one of them wins the election because, quite frankly, John and Jane Q. Public are still ultimately the biggest losers in '08. We need a Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt (hell, I'd settle for a Madison or a Wilson at this point)this year and apparently we're SOL.

So, I think I'll write a few posts about the guys who've ran The Big Race and gotten the toughest electoral spankings by the voters.

First up is good ol' Barry Goldwater who embarrassed himself by losing to LBJ in 1964(61.1% LBJ over 38.5% Goldwater in the biggest landslide of the popular vote).

This Republican Senator from Arizona was considered "Mr. Conservative" and during the social unrest of the 1960's actually campaigned with a platform calling for the end of The New Deal programs of FDR, labor unions and welfare. His foreign policy was labeled as so hard-line militant anti-Communist (he had also served as a Major General in the Air Force Reserves) that LBJ was able to use that against him and declare nuclear annihilation by the Soviet Union if he got elected.

Goldwater lost so badly that he carried only 6 states, including his home state.

So, was he really all that bad? That depends on how you feel about conservatives, I guess....

Apparently McCain liked him, summing up Goldwater's legacy thus: "He transformed the Republican Party from an Eastern elitist organization to the breeding ground for the election of Ronald Reagan.” (Way to go, Barry, just what we needed ~insert sarcasm~)

This is a funny antidote:

Journalist Robert MacNeil, a friend of Goldwater's from the 1964 Presidential campaign, recalled interviewing him in his office shortly afterward. "He was sitting in his office with his hands on his cane...and he said to me, 'Well, aren't you going to ask me about the Iran arms sales?' It had just been announced that the Reagan administration had sold arms to Iran. And I said, 'Well, if I asked you, what would you say?' He said, 'I'd say it's the god-damned stupidest foreign policy blunder this country's ever made!'"

HA! Too bad he died in 1998 and missed out on the stupidity of the 21st Century~

Here are some interesting things Barry Goldwater has said...

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

"Let's lob one (nuclear weapon) into the men's room at the Kremlin."

"…we, as a nation, are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people…I say it is time to put conscience back in government. And by good example, put it back in all walks of American life."

"Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar . . . You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight."

"I certainly believe in aliens in space. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities....I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about — and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them."

"Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages."

"I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle."

"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."