Kevin Drum notes that you have to go all the way back to the 1960s to find an example of a presidential election loser who got a second crack at the prize.
Modern politics harshness to losing leaders is not entirely unique to the U.S. Look, for example, at the revolving door that is the leadership of the British Conservative Party. Or the Australian Liberal Party in the 1980s and 1990s. Or the New Zealand Labour Party between 1989 and 1993. Or the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party since 1993. Or the New Zealand National Party since 1999.
It's like an elementary school game. If you can't knock the government off the first time you have to go to the back of the line and wait a few years until your party gets really desperate, and you might get a second chance.
This is how parliamentary systems are different -- you only have to keep nice with 50-200 of your parliamentary peers, rather than the capricious millions of a U.S. presidential primary season. But the leader is normally the first to go after a loss. Presuming they don't fall out with the people in their own district (or lose that), a losing parliamentary leader can slink off to the backbenches, and come back in a few years.
By contrast the presidential system offers many candidates no fall-back position. It's lose or go home.
Kerry's advantage over other losing candidates in recent years is that he can return to the Senate, and if he's skillful parlay his increased profile into being a de facto/rhetorical leader of the Democratic opposition.
Posted by robe0419 at November 9, 2004 9:28 AM