Five Best on politics

choi

Ken Mehlman, Five Best on politics. Wall Street Journal, Mar 2, 2024, at page C8 *Five Best is a column that appears every Saturday, by invitation only).
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture ... n-politics-fb279f5e

Note:
(a) Author description appears under his name "Ken Mehlman" in print: "The campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 2004, a former chairman of Republican National Committee and a partner at private-equity form KKR."
(b) "chronicles the making of six 1988 presidential candidates, including Joe Biden in his first run for the White House."
(i) There were more candidates from the two major parties alone, but the book chronicles just six.
(ii) 1988 United States presidential election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19 ... esidential_election
("It remains the most recent election in which a candidate won over 400 electoral votes, and consequently the last landslide election of a US president. 1988 was the first time since 1940 in which the governing party won three consecutive presidential elections. Additionally, it was the last time that the Republicans won the popular vote three times in a row. Conversely, it began an ongoing streak of presidential elections that were decided by a single-digit popular vote margin. It was also the first, and only election to date, in which one of the two major presidential candidates was not of Northern European ancestry") (footnotes omitted)
(A) electoral college
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_college
(section 1 Examples, section 1.1 President of the United States: total 538 electors)
(B) "It was also the first, and only election to date, in which one of the two major presidential candidates was not of Northern European ancestry."

The sentence alluded to Dukakis, who is of Greek descent (southern Europe). However, the sentence is wrong, Obama is not, either.
(C) For candidates in the two major political parties, see 1988 United States presidential election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19 ... esidential_election
(section 1 Republican Party nomination, and section 2 Democratic Party nomination)

You can see, from the hyperlink underneath the section 2's heading, that Senator Joe Biden was a nobody at the time. I was a graduate student at University of Illinois at Chicago, where a white driver of school shuttle bus said he would vote for Jesse Jackson in Democratic primary (there were two native sons from Illinois, the other being Senator Paul Simon, who also earned plaudits)
(D) Joe Biden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden
(1942- ; section 4 1988 and 2008 presidential campaigns)

Biden was first elected senator (from Delaware) in 1973 (age 31). In 1988 he was 46. And his candidacy for presidential nomination in Democratic Party was June 9 to Sept 23, 1987; in other words, his candidacy had ended before Iowa caucus was held in January 1988.
(iii) Remember the author was a Republican campaign strategist. So his assessment about Biden is not completely bias-free. I have no idea whether Biden will withdroaw, but probably not.


(c)
(i) Moneyball
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball
(ii) "Mr Bush won the 2000 election but lost the popular vote"

2000 United States presidential election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20 ... esidential_election
(table)
(iii) "The 'Moneyball' approach helped the GOP win its only popular-vote victory in 36 years."
(A) This is wrong. Counting back 36 years from 2004, it would be 1968.

Recall that in 1988, George HW Bush won the general election by landslide. And remember that in 1984, Reagan won by even larger margin (Democrat Mondale carried only his own home state of Minnesota plus Washington DC). See 1984 United States presidential election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19 ... esidential_election

I came to the US in September 1984.
(B) Naturally Republican candidates lost in both popular and electoral votes in 1992 and 1996 presidential elections (Clinton won both).
(C) In 1980, Reagan also won by landslide. See 1980 United States presidential election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19 ... esidential_election
(iv) list of United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ... st_the_popular_vote

(d) The author's review on the last three books are dull, and incomprehensible.