Famous Meltdowns on the Campaign Trail

Frontrunners have it hard. Everyone expects them to win and so, their words and actions are magnified on the campaign trail… and so are their gaffes. Likewise, if they win a primary by a less-than-predicted margin, it is perceived by the media, political pundits, and even some voters as a sign of weakness.

Just ask Ed Muskie.

For Millennials and political neophytes alike, Ed Muskie was a well-respected Democrat senator from Maine who ran for vice-president on Hubert Humphrey’s ill-fated ticket in 1968. As such, he was considered the favorite to capture his party’s nomination in 1972. In fact, polls leading up to that year’s primaries showed Muskie defeating incumbent President Richard Nixon in a head-to-head matchup.

Not bad for a man who had to go through life with the middle name of Sixtus.

Despite winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Muskie’s campaign started taking on water because his margins of victory were relatively slim (AKA the frontrunner syndrome). Then, on February 24, 1972, the Manchester-Union, the Granite State’s largest and most influential newspaper, published an unverified letter claiming that Muskie had disparaged French Canadians by calling them “Canucks.” A day later, the same newspaper published an article accusing Muskie’s wife Jane of being a drunkard and a racist.

Justifiably angered, Muskie gave a speech the following day in front of the Manchester-Union’s offices in which he called the newspaper’s publishers “gutless cowards.” Unfortunately for Muskie, he delivered his speech amid snow flurries, some of which melted on his cheeks and gave the appearance that he was crying.

Remember, this was 1972, not 2024, and that perceived weakness resulted in Muskie plummeting from first to fifth in the eventual delegate count at the Democratic National Convention where South Dakota Sen. George McGovern won the nomination… and the dubious distinction of being cremated by Nixon in the general election. Yes, that “Tricky Dicky” whose White House was eventually implicated in the forging of both the “Canuck letter” and the allegations about Jane Muskie.

Speaking of emotional outbursts, who can forget Howard Dean screaming into the mic after his disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses in 2004? Having been the early favorite going into the caucuses, Dean told his supporters on election night that “Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York. ... And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House!”

Dean’s high-pitched voice grew increasingly shrill with each new state he named, after which he concluded his remarks with a staggeringly unpresidential war whoop that went absolutely viral and was replayed ad nauseum by the TV networks as well as by his main opponents for the nomination.

Bye-bye, Howard!

Dean’s childish battle cry is reminiscent of three other self-inflicted wounds that torpedoed other presidential campaigns. Two involved Democrats and one a Republican.

First, the Republican, Michigan Gov. George Romney, the widely perceived frontrunner for the 1968 Republican nomination. A highly successful businessman who had turned around American Motors before entering politics, Romney was an early supporter of the Vietnam War. However, after returning from a fact-finding trip to Southeast Asia in 1967, Romney changed his position on the war, saying that he had been previously “brainwashed.”

Romney’s ill-timed comments came at the height of the Cold War and just five years after the release of the Manchurian Candidate, a popular movie starring Frank Sinatra as… drum roll, please… a brainwashed presidential candidate.

It was game, set, and match for Romney… opening the door for Richard Nixon to complete his political comeback from twin defeats in 1960 (for president) and 1962 (for governor of California).

Fast forward to 1988 and the demise of not one, but two high-profile presidential candidates. You may have heard of the first guy, who at the time was a junior senator from Delaware. Joe Biden’s first of four presidential campaigns went up in flames when he was caught plagiarizing from Robert F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and British politician Neil Kinnock in his campaign speeches. Digging a little deeper, the press discovered that Biden had flunked a class in law school for plagiarizing five entire pages verbatim in one of his papers.

When Joe claimed to have finished in the top half of his law school graduating class – when in fact, he came in 76th of 85 – his presidential aspirations went temporarily kaput until he was able to safely run again in an era where journalistic integrity had become an anachronism and the mainstream media had become an appendage of the DNC.

The second Democratic casualty from 1988 and the last in our list of campaign meltdowns is former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart. After successfully managing George McGovern’s bid for the Democratic nomination in 1972 and narrowly losing the nomination himself to Walter Mondale in 1984, Hart entered the 1988 race with a decided edge over his competitors. Until, that is, he was accused of womanizing.

Hart flatly denied the allegations, telling the press to "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored."

Unfortunately for Hart, the press called his bluff and did exactly that. Not only did they discover that he had been rendezvousing with Donna Rice, a young campaign aide at a Washington D.C. townhouse on multiple occasions, but also that the two lovers had taken a private overnight cruise on a yacht – no, I’m not making this up – named “Monkey Business.”

Hart was forced to suspend his campaign, fled to Ireland for a few months, and then returned to the campaign trail… only to get hammered in the early primaries on his way to an early exit from the race.

Yes, even earlier than Geritol Joe’s.

(Oops, I almost forgot Gerald Ford’s infamous “There is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe” blunder in 1976. However, since that verbal gaffe occurred during his primetime debate with Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter and not on the actual campaign trail, I’m hoping you’ll forgive me the oversight.)