>
>Nixon was almost ruined by the televised 1960 debate - a Nixon today
>couldn't make it on TV. Ford lost (even though the official LBO election
>model, right 11 of the last 13 times, forecast that he should have won).
>Dukakis lost, a laughinstock. Gore is a dork, but he's got money &
>incumbency. The odds are stacked strongly against dorks.
Being a dork didn't seem to hurt George Bush in '88 too badly (granted, he got killed in '92 when he was up against someone who actually bothered to mount a campaign). It's easy to forget this now, but in the mind-numblingly dorky election of '88 Dukakis left the Democratic convention with a huge lead over Bush--something like 17 points, if memory serves. There were a lot of Republicans resigning themselves to the prospect of a Dukakis presidency just a few months before the '88 elections.
I've seen Wellstone speak once, at a Pride Day rally in Mpls., on a beautful late spring day some years ago. He was pretty, um, dorky. But he knew how to work it to his favor--the "I'm-an-excitable-geek-and-I'm-not-afraid-to-show-it" thing. He wasn't a bad speaker but, trust me, you really don't want to see him in shorts. Which potential candidates are not dorks? Gephardt? Dork. Gore? Please. I think by dint of having slept with Debra Winger, Bob Kerrey is certifiably Not A Dork, but he's forehead makes him look like a lightbulb on TV, which is arguably a bigger problem.
What, pray tell, is the official LBO election model?
Jon