For a blog entry last week, I pondered the presidential elections I've covered, albeit from a distance.
I decided to expand that to presidential elections during my lifetime for this blog entry.
Most have been like Super Bowls: noncompetitive.
Let's examine the evidence.
1960: Kennedy vs Nixon. This one was a nail biter.
1964: Johnson over Goldwater in a walk.
1968: Nixon barely defeats Humphrey.
1972: Nixon glides over McGovern.
1976: Carter defeats Ford in a squeaker.
1980: Reagan romps over Carter. The networks called this one at 8:15 PM.
1984: Another Reagan romp. The victim this time is Walter Mondale.
1988: Bush gets 426 electoral votes to Dukakis' 111.
1992: Bill Clinton won 100 more electoral votes than needed. George Bush fails to win reelection.
1996: Clinton over Bob Dole. It wasn't close.
2000: One of the few exceptions. Bush wins just five more electoral votes than Al Gore.
2004: Bush won the vast majority of States, but John Kerry had the big ones. This was another close one.
2008: Barack Obama had a fairly easy time defeating John McCain.
2012: Obama and Mitt Romney had roughly the same number of states, but once again, the Democrat had the big ones. Obama wins again.
2016: According to most polls, this one is breaking Hillary Clinton's way, but this has been an exceptionally unusual year. You never know. Two weeks until election day.
