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The perfect election campaign

Over at POTUS are a couple of interesting posts by Rick Shenkman. One has made the HNN front page. It centers on what Rick considers an excessive Democratic longing for an Obama candidacy. The other is a follow up, in which the question is broached as to whether “boss politics” did a better job of selecting candidates and therefore president than the current system does.

If you want to address that, go there. My question to you is this: has there ever been in the US something close to the perfect presidential election campaign? My definition of “perfect” echoes our original republicanism. I mean that the candidates were strong, the debate meaningful, and the outcome not too bad.

Let me suggest a candidate: Eisenhower versus Stevenson (1952).

Posted on Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 7:53 PM | Comments (3) | Return

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