How Did He Get Elected ? Looking Back At Some Of The More Ridiculous Elections In Our History

With Tuesday’s election solidly in the rear view mirror, it seems a good time to take a look back at some of more off beat elections. Well Tuesday is behind you if you are a Republican , there’s already Democrats foaming at the mouth over Georgia’s gubernatorial election but what are you going to do other than have a good laugh at them. And speaking of the laughs

5) An Election With 4 Candidates All Of Them Democrats

No this is not California’s crazy primary system striking again. This is the election of 1824, where all the candidates were Democratic Republicans and somehow 4 got on the ballot. . The candidates were William Crawford, Treasury Secretary, John Quincy Adams Secretary Of State , Henry Clay Speaker Of The House, and a Sitting Senator by the name of Andrew Jackson. Jackson won the popular vote but not a majority of the electoral vote, while Adams and Clay cut a deal where Adams would become President and Clay Vice President. Can you imagine what social media would look like if this happened today ? I am surprised Jackson didn’t just duel Adams and Clay for the job, instead he left the senate and formed what would become the modern Democratic Party and went on to win election in 1828.

Remember elections like this the next time you are inclined to think it should be easier to run for office. We could wind up with a new party even worse than the Democrats.

4) Lose The Popular Vote, Lose The Electoral Vote, Win The Election ?????

I know “That’s not how this works, that’s not how anything works”, but in 1876 that’s exactly how it did work. Samuel Tilden the Democrat candidate managed to win 4,288,546 popular votes, 184 electoral votes while Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won 4,034,311 popular votes 165 electoral votes in what should have been a very sound trouncing and the first Democratic Party win since the civil war, not only was the margin telling but the turnout to vote was mind shattering 81.8% of the vote. This was when people cared about voting and really valued their ability to do so.  So why isn’t president Tilden on money ? Well you can thank Florida, yes Florida messing with elections since the beginning,  Turns out the electoral votes from 4 states were unresolved, with Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina be claimed as won by both candidates and an elector from Oregon being declared illegal. The election was finally settled with the compromise of 1877, where Hayes would get the presidency and the south would have the federal occupation ended. Yeah that doesn’t sound quite right to me either, after all if Tilden won he could just order the troops out of the south.

It should be noted that both Louisiana and South Carolina have become considerably more sane since then while Florida is ever exploring new ways to troll the rest of the country.

3) What if we imprisoned politicians before they took office ?

An idea that was tried but never actually caught on. Shame we are normally such an efficient country think of the time this would save. If you are confused let me fill in the details.

The time is 1920, and a 5 time candidate for president (And you thought Hillary didn’t know when to step off the stage) is running for office from PRISON!! The candidate is Eugene Debs of the socialist party. Debs was in prison for Anti-War protests and was running against Warren G. Harding (R) and James Cox (D). Bizarrely enough he actually managed to get 6% of the popular vote which is in the ballpark of the 8.4% Ross Perot got in 1996, showing that being in jail is not as much an impediment as you might think for a politician.

2) 12 Candidates fighting for VP ? When The President Got 100% Of The Electoral Vote ?

You might have guessed there was only one president ever that received 100 percent of the electoral vote, that was George Washington. In 1788 he ran unopposed and was unquestionably a uniter and not a divider. The race for VP however was an entirely different matter. At the time it was awarded to the runner up in the electoral vote with electors casting two votes. So we had the odd situation of 12 people running for a job nobody really wanted or was even particularly certain what it entailed unless the president died.

1) Remember That Time A Foreign Nation Managed To Interfere In Our Elections And Got Someone Nobody Wanted Elected ?

This really shouldn’t be the most ridiculous election but it is the most ridiculous excuse for a candidate losing in our history. 2016 The Democrats running the most unlikable candidate imaginable someone that a significant portion of the country believes should be in jail barely loses to an outsider whose campaign had the plank of lock her up. In addtion to the above she decided not to bother campaigning in states with votes she needed to win. The excuse ? Russians managed to steal the election for Donald Trump by spending roughly $100,000 dollars on internet adds. Personally I would have gone with a different excuse. Seeing as Hillary spent 3/4s of a billion dollars directly and had similar amounts spent by the PACs backing her . It’s just sad when you can’t win because someone decided to spend less than 1/10,000th of what you are. I am kind of upset myself, I used to buy internet ads and never had those kind of results.

Well there you are 5 of our really fun elections, something to think about when you hear a talking head squawk about how divided we are as a country and how uncivil we have become. We may be on our way to some rough times but we aren’t there yet.

 And a shameless plug for the Redstate Slack Discussion Community.

It’s A really fun place to chat with your fellow Red Staters, it was especially fun to hang out and discuss the election results as they came up.

Information on the chat room and how to join can be found here

Drink up That’s it for the Watercooler today. As always it’s an open thread