Political Quotes That Destroyed Campaigns - Election History Reaction

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Welcome back everyone to another reaction video. Well, this is one that was suggested over on the Discord server and I thought it looked really really interesting and it kind of molds more more modern history uh in politics but also uh what we typically do on this channel which is to take a look at past events and analyze them and maybe even apply them to the present day. So, uh, this is from a channel called Election History, which has 23,000 subscribers.

[00:00:27]And the video is 17 political quotes that destroyed campaigns. In other words, I guess they're looking at moments where a line, a phrase, uh, an event of some kind uh, is looked back on in history as the moment that that person's, uh, campaign either at that moment or in the future came undone. So, uh, we'll watch these. We'll talk about what happened in the aftermath, whether I agree with them or not. Uh, let me know which ones you think should have been added that weren't added to this list. I don't know what's on the list. I guess we're going to find out. Uh, it's a longer video. It's 37 minutes long, so we may cut some of it out and just look at some of the highlights just so this reaction is not like an hour and a half long or anything like that. Uh, and I want to say thank you to Jim Triggs for your support on Patreon. Thank you so much. Let's dive into this one.

[00:01:22]>> Of course, some quotes don't always destroy political careers, but show that a political career has already run its course. The first person we are going to look at is Jeb Bush.

[00:01:34]>> During the 2016 Republican nomination for president, Jeb was one of the early front runners. But as the campaign moved on, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio moved ahead of Bush, pushing him further down the list. So the 2016 election obviously is one we're going to look back on in history for a long long time because it really fundamentally transformed the landscape of politics in this country, right? I mean we're going to come up to 2028 and it'll be the first time in 16 years that Donald Trump's not on the ballot and uh it's going to be interesting to see how we're where we are at that time. But the interesting thing about that election is you had so many Republicans running for that nomination. And it was such a wide open race uh because you had George W.

[00:02:21]Bush president for eight years uh and then in 2008 you had uh John McCain run and of course he lost to Obama. 2012 Mitt Romney loses to Obama and so it kind of reset the Republican field. So it was wide open at that point. You had no real successor. Uh and Jeb Bush was a natural front runner. He's the son of a president. He's the uh brother of a president. and it just kind of made sense. And in any other year where there were maybe three or four main candidates, he might have had a really good chance. But this was a unique year where you got like what nearly 20 people running for the nomination and it just really diluted the vote and a lot of people split up among all those those candidates and it gave Trump an opening.

[00:03:06]After finishing a disappointing sixth in the Iowa caucuses with Ben Carson and Ran Paul finishing ahead of Bush, the first primary was in New Hampshire. It was at this point that the only people still with Bush were his diehard supporters.

[00:03:21]>> But it was easy to tell that Jeb was done and in enthusiasm in his campaign had dwindled to nothing. On February 2nd, 2016 in Hanover, New Hampshire, he said that the next president of the United States should be quieter and focus on acting in the nation security's interest instead of acting like a blowhard. He expected a reaction, but instead, >> please clap.

[00:03:49]>> I I will say this. I think a couple of things about this. I think taken out of context, which I'm sure a lot of these will be, and that's what we do, right? We take things out of context because on their own, they seem really awkward and really strange. In the context of this, I think this is blown way out of proportion. You know, with what he said before that, the way he said, "Please clap." It it wasn't like I I know this is spun as being like, "Oh, look how sad this is that he has to ask people to clap, but in the context of it, it was really more of a come on guys, you have to acknowledge that, you know? I mean, I don't think it it was an indication of a dying campaign. I think the campaign was already dead at that point and I don't think that this line made any difference whatsoever in the outcome of the campaign for him. But it did get spun as something that we remember it as today.

[00:04:48]>> Yeah, that showed how desperate Bush actually was.

[00:04:51]>> See, I don't think that's what that was at all. I know that's how we see it, but I don't think that's what was happening here.

[00:04:57]>> He finished a distant fourth in New Hampshire and dropped out of the race on February 20th. Since then, he's been absolutely absent from the political scene. And if you want to watch a detailed video about Jeb's first run for public office, you can check out this video here.

[00:05:13]>> Right. Yeah. I mean, where do you go from there anyway? Right. You you've been governor of Florida uh and now you're running for president and that fails. I mean, you either run for president again or you just kind of fade off into retirement at that point.

[00:05:26]>> Yes, I know that I'm starting to sound like Elizabeth Warren saying that I have a video for that, but a lot of times I do. Let's stay with the Bush family and move to Jeb's father, George. At the 1988 Republican convention, many within conservative Republican circles thought that Vice President George Bush, now the nominee for the Republicans, might raise taxes. During his 1980 campaign for the Republican nomination, Bush criticized Reagan's economic policy.

[00:05:55]>> Yeah. So, you have to remember that uh in the 70s, which is the the era in which we're coming out of when we get into Bush and Reagan running against each other for the 1980 nomination, uh you still have a liberal wing to the Republican party, a conservative wing to the Republican party, moderates within the Republican party. Reagan was a much more conservative Republican than George HW Bush was. And at this point, Bush, uh, you know, he had, I think, served briefly in Congress. Uh, he was a CIA director. He was the chairman of the Republican party. Um, and, uh, Reagan comes along. He's, you know, the former governor of California. He's much more conservative, and he pushes the Republican party in that direction. And so it was natural for people to believe that Bush was going to pull them back from being pushed further to the right back more toward the center of where the Republican party had been. Uh so it was natural that that would happen and it was natural for Bush to address that when he was running.

[00:07:00]>> Years later, here he was needing to reassure conservatives that he was on board. At the convention, Bush famously said, >> "But I will, and the Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no, and they'll push, and I'll say no." And they'll push again, and I'll say to them, >> "Read my lips.

[00:07:19]>> Read my lips. No new taxes." Of course, this didn't hurt him in the 1988 presidential election, which I talk about more in detail here, but in the 1992 presidential election, which I talk about in detail in this video, it did hurt him as he did raise taxes during his term as president. And I know there will probably be some Republicans in the comments saying that Bush was forced to raise taxes because of the Democrats in Congress.

[00:07:51]>> Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely true. It doesn't make it le you know but but that was the context in which he said it right. He said the Congress you got to remember that Congress had been Democrat for decades at this point. The Republicans had not controlled Congress.

[00:08:08]I think going back to the 40s and 50s was the last time the the Republicans had the speaker of the house. It had been solid Democrat leadership for going on 40 years. uh when Nuke Gingrich finally becomes speaker in 94 when you have the Republicans take over the house for the first time. So that's after Bush's president. So Bush and Reagan both had Democrat House for the entire time they were in office. But that's what he said. He said, "They're going to push me and I'm going to say no." Well, they pushed him and he didn't say no.

[00:08:37]But Bush still would have won that 92 election if you didn't have Ross Perau.

[00:08:42]Ross Perau ran and it's a fascinating race and and I think pulled, you know, he gets something close to 20% of the vote and Bill Clinton wins with what like 40 42% something like that. Uh so it was definitely a very unique election in that way. I don't know that that would have been fatal to Bush otherwise.

[00:09:01]Well, no, he could have just always vetoed the budget. Anyway, the Clinton campaign pounced on it and his read my lips promise ended up getting Bush four years later. Of course, saying that you're going to taxes is one of the biggest promises that candidates running for office make, even if they have no intention whatsoever of doing so. But what if a candidate actually tells you that they want to raise taxes? Well, that's exactly what Walter Manddale did four years before George Bush's promises of no new taxes. At the Democratic National Convention in 1984, former Vice President Walter Montdale wanted people to trust his candidacy in what would eventually become an uphill battle to win. To show his honesty, Manddale said, >> "Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I."

[00:09:55]He won't tell you.

[00:09:56]>> I just did.

[00:09:57]>> I just did.

[00:09:59]>> Yes. Promising to raise taxes isn't exactly the best campaign strategy. And Manddale would go on to lose 49 states in that presidential election. And he barely won his home state of Minnesota by a couple of thousand votes. Honestly, I think in this election, the more memorable quote, that's a good one. I mean, that's that's definitely a good one to highlight. The more memor memorable quote for me in that election is during the debate when they make uh a reference to Ronald Reagan's age. He was at that point running to become the oldest person ever elected president of the United States. He's running for reelection. Uh and Reagan very famously says um I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I will not for political purposes exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience. at this point, you know, yeah, it was it was just making light of it, but it completely removed that topic from the table as far as an issue. It became a non-issue after that, but I mean, Montdale was never going to win that election. I don't think it much mattered what he said. But Montdale wasn't the only Democratic presidential candidate who was a little bit too truthful when it came to their public statements. So was Kla Harris. after Vice President. Wow, there seems to be a lot of vice presidents on this list. Uh anyway, after Vice President Harris was selected as the Democratic nominee because let's be honest, all of the delegates were Biden delegates and simply rubber stamped Harris as the nominee once Biden dropped out of the race. Um anyway, while Biden's horrible debate performance was a contributing factor for him dropping out, so was the fact that inflation was high and people were feeling the squeeze on everything that they bought.

[00:11:45]>> And see, that's the thing that I think people need to realize is that I'm not sure it mattered who the Democrat was.

[00:11:54]rightly or wrongly, people blame the party in power when they don't perceive that the economy is doing well or the nation's doing well. And like I said, I'm not saying it was Biden's fault. I'm just saying he was president. The Democrats were in control. And so the Democrats get blamed for it. And so it didn't matter if it was Biden, didn't matter if it was Harris. I think they were going to lose regardless.

[00:12:21]Still, the Democrats were oblivious to the plight of the average American. And while Harris and her vice presidential candidate Tim Walls both acknowledged the economic problems that hit Americans, they had no solutions. People didn't want to continue Biden's policy.

[00:12:38]However, when she appeared on The View on October 8th, 2024, she was asked the following.

[00:12:46]>> Would you have done something differently than President Biden? And remember the context, right? People are viewing the country as not in a great place.

[00:12:56]And now you're asking the person who is part of the administration, who's in power, would you do something different?

[00:13:02]So it's, and this is a tough spot for the vice president, does she publicly distance herself from the sitting president? I think you probably have to in that situation. Um, or does she kind of towed the line >> during the past four years?

[00:13:19]There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of and I've been a part of of of most of the decisions that have had impact.

[00:13:27]>> Yeah. Voters wanted change and this wasn't the answer they were looking for.

[00:13:31]Sure.

[00:13:32]>> From this point forward, Harris's numbers plummeted and she lost the presidential election being only the second Democrat to lose the popular vote since 1992.

[00:13:42]Sometimes a political quote doesn't destroy a campaign, nor does it even show desperation. Sometimes a politician says a quote because they know that they are quite confident rubbing it into their opponents. This was the case in the early 1990s with Australian Prime Minister Paul Keading. After a leadership spill that saw Bob Hawk out and Paul Keading in, many pundits assumed that the Labor Party was done for. However, the Liberal Party, now under the leadership of John Houston, introduced a plan called Fightback, which was a mixture of spending cuts and tax cuts for businesses, but also instituted a goods and services tax of 15%. All Houston had to do was to see how promising to raise taxes helped Walter Manddale. Anyway, Keening knew that this was an unpopular policy and instead of talking about his own economic plan, he constantly just let the Liberals continue to defend and fight back.

[00:14:39]>> So, I'm curious uh because I don't know Australian politics, the Liberal Party and the Labor Party, is the Labor Party also a left left side party in Australia because I know in the UK Labor is the Liberal Party. Um, but Australia also has a liberal party, so I don't know. I mean, so our Australian viewers, please let me know what what's the political party system like there.

[00:15:06]>> Which started chipping away at support for the Liberals. During a sitting of the Australian House of Representatives, Houston attacked Keading for not wanting to talk about the Liberals fightback policy. After Houston's question, >> if you are so confident about your view of fightback, why won't you call an early election?

[00:15:29]Mike, >> I really wish we had this system, the parliamentary system like this in the United States. It would be so much fun to watch the uh, you know, the president have to get up and, you know, debate policy with the other side. Order.

[00:15:48]>> The answer is Mike. Mike, because I want to do you slowly.

[00:15:53]>> I want to do you slowly. Essentially, Keening knew that no matter what he said, the unpopularity of fight back would lead Labor to victory. In the docu series, Labor and Power, which I highly, highly recommend if you want to know more about Australian politics, Labour Senator Reg Withers said that fight back was what killed the Liberals in the 1993 election. Labor scored the upset victory with Keading living to fight another day as prime minister. Sometimes releasing a 650 page economic policy like fightback might not be the best decision. Oh no.

[00:16:30]Especially >> Rick Perry uh who was Secretary of Energy >> when the results will be met with criticism. But that's still better than not knowing your own policy at all. In 2011, Texas Governor Rick Perry announced that he was seeking the Republican nomination for president.

[00:16:50]Early on, Rick Perry was battling with eventual nominee Mitt Romney being within the margin of error of Romney in many polls.

[00:16:58]>> Now, I think this is a great example of uh a quote that really may have hurt somebody uh in their chance for a victory. Uh you know, Rick Perry, governor of Texas, right after George W.

[00:17:13]Bush was governor of Texas. and you know kind of in that same uh vein of politics and uh similar style, similar you know way of speaking. Uh and he has this pretty close primary fight with Mitt Romney uh who is viewed as a more liberal member of the Republican party compared to a southern Republican conservative Republican like Perry >> campaign. One of Perry's campaign focuses was to slash the federal government, going as far as to even removing departments from the federal government. During a debate on November 9th, 2011, Perry was asked about those departments.

[00:17:53]>> Commerce, education, and the third one there. Let's see.

[00:17:59]>> EPA.

[00:18:00]>> EPA. There you go. No, >> let's talk Let's talk deficit.

[00:18:04]Seriously, >> is EPA the one you don't?

[00:18:09]>> You can't name the third one.

[00:18:11]>> The third agency of government. I would I would do away with the education. Uh the uh >> this this was brutal. I mean this this does not reflect well when you are in a tight race and you can't remember it.

[00:18:24]That that one was bad.

[00:18:26]>> Commerce.

[00:18:26]>> I I commerce and let's see.

[00:18:30]>> I can't the third one. I can't. Sorry.

[00:18:33]Yeah, that didn't help. His campaign went south from that point on with Perry eventually dropping out just before the South Carolina primary. Of course, not knowing what you want to do as president running for president with all of the nation's cameras pointing at you isn't great, but sometimes people just scream on stage. Yes, you know where I'm going with this. And >> yeah, and honestly, in hindsight, this this should not have been nearly as big a deal as it was. It was just kind of embarrassing more than anything. It didn't reflect in any way, shape, or form on on Howard Dean as a person or anything like that. I don't know that he was going to win anything anyway. Uh but he did end up, I think, becoming the DNC chairman.

[00:19:16]>> Yes, I've already made a video about Howard Dean's political career, so check that out.

[00:19:21]>> Going into the 2004 Democratic primary season, Howard Dean was the front runner in most of the polls. Yeah. But in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Dean dropped from being a strong first to falling to third with both John Kerry, who we will be talking about soon, and John Edwards moving ahead of Dean.

[00:19:39]>> And Carrie ends up the nominee. Edwards is his running mate.

[00:19:43]>> And honestly, Dean didn't really do anything to actually lose support. It was just that voters had a change of heart. Still, after Dean finished third in the Iowa caucuses, he was advised by his campaign manager, Ted Kennedy, campaign flunky Joe Trippy, as well as Senator Tom Harkin, to go out there and give them hell. Now, personally, I think the actual scream gets more attention than it deserves. I agree with him on that. I I It's just one of those things that people like to watch and laugh at.

[00:20:16]kind of like the Jeb Bush, please clap thing that I don't think really made that much of a difference, but it's still interesting to to talk about >> because it was just more than the scream. Honestly, the whole thing looked absolutely unhinged. So, here's the clip.

[00:20:34]>> 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. 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 DC TO TAKE BACK THE WHITE HOUSE.

[00:20:55]YEAH, that didn't look good. The only primary that Dean would win was the Vermont primary and that was months after he had already dropped out of the race. But it is true that being emotional can lead to your emotions getting the best of you and saying something that you might regret being caught on camera. That can be said for our next politician George Allen.

[00:21:18]>> Allen was in a tough reelection bid against former Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb.

[00:21:24]>> One of the things that Webb's campaign did was to have campaign staffers follow Allen's campaign and record every one of his public appearances. One of those who followed Allen was SR Sedarth, an American citizen who was born in the United States but of Indian descent. He had attended a number of Allen's events and eventually became a familiar face to Senator Allen. On August 11th, 2006 at Brakes Interstate Park in rural southwest Virginia. Allen finally snapped.

[00:21:56]>> This fella here over here with the the yellow shirt, Macaka or whatever his name is, he's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere and it's just great. We're going to places all over Virginia and he's having it on film and it's great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he's never been there and probably will never come. So, it's good for you to see what he in the real world rather than living inside the beltway.

[00:22:25]His opponent actually right now is with a bunch of Hollywood movie mogul. We care about fact, not fiction. So, welcome. Let's give a welcome to Maka here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia. Not only did Allen use a racial slur with Macaka being closely the same as monkey in French, but also implied that Sedarth wasn't American, which he absolutely was. At the time, Allen was leading in every poll, sometimes outside the march of error. But after this incident, which was plastered all over television and the internet, the race got closer. Webb would go on to win the election by less than a half a percent. I'll say I don't think it was intentionally racist. Uh but very often in politics, what your intentions are and how it gets spun or how it comes across are often two very different things. Another person who might have said something that he wish he could take back was Gary Hart, former senator of Colorado, who is making his second run for the presidency in 1988.

[00:23:34]>> Hart along with New York Governor Mario Cuomo were considered the front runners for the Democratic nomination. But once Cuomo decided that he wasn't going to run for the nomination, Hart was the clear front runner.

[00:23:46]>> Yeah. I mean, Gary Hart was figured by everybody to be the nominee to run against George HW Bush in 1988.

[00:23:54]>> But even with this being the case, it was known in Washington circles that Hart was probably a less than faithful husband and had numerous affairs. In an interview, >> and this is not unusual for a political candidate, right? I mean, Bill Clinton, uh, who would be the nominee four years later, very famously also did it. just he hid it a little better >> that Gary Hart conducted with EJ Dion which was published on May 2nd 1987.

[00:24:24]Deion asked Hart if he was having an affair. Hart denied it saying follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very bored. End of quote. Well, someone did put a tail on him and investigated his past. On the same day that the New York Times published their article, the Miami Herald published an expose on Hart which said, quote, "Gary Hart, the Democratic presidential candidate who has dismissed allegations of womanizing, spent Friday night and most of Saturday in his Capitol Hill townhouse with a young woman who flew from Miami to meet him."

[00:25:02]Hart denied any impropriy. End of quote.

[00:25:05]A few days later, the Herald reported that Donna Rice was the woman who met with Hart and she denied that there was anything going on between the two. And there's so much of these exact same kinds of stories that happened four years later with Bill Clinton.

[00:25:19]>> Media dug deeper and found that the relationship between Hart and Rice had been going on for a while and had met a number of times on a yacht called Monkey Business, which Rice had confirmed. And I think the difference is that when it happened with Clinton, it was pretty clear that it was in the past, whereas this was a current thing that was still happening. With the mounting pressure against him, he dropped out of the race on May 8th. If there is anything that people remember about the whole Gary Hart incident, it was the picture of Rice sitting on Hart's lap. However, this photo wasn't released until June 2nd, 1987 in the National Enquire, nearly a month after Hart had already dropped out. So, no, Hart didn't win the Democratic nomination. The person who would go on to win the Democratic nomination 1988 was Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukauus. And yes, I've already made a video about that campaign. Anyway, caucus was now the Democratic nominee and had to take on the Republican nominee, Vice President George Bush. By the time of the October 13th, 1988 presidential debate at UCLA, the Dukakus campaign was already in freefall. Attacks on his record were fast and furious, and his record of being against the death penalty were constantly being brought up by the Bush campaign. That said, I've often said about this that I thought this was a little bit out of line that they even asked this question.

[00:26:51]>> The death penalty became the wedge issue that made it look like D caucus didn't share the values of most Americans. But it wasn't the Bush administration that dealt the fatal blow, but instead CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, who was the moderator of the debate. Shaw opened up with the following. Governor, if Kitty Dukakus were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?

[00:27:22]>> See, to me, that is a completely outofline question to ask in a presidential debate. And some of you might argue, well, no, it's perfectly reasonable to ask him what he would do in that scenario. But uh you know to throw like such an emotionally charged question right at the beginning of the debate like that h I just that never sat well with me. And honestly while I think this contributed to his downfall, I think the whole Willie Horton thing, this parole of a of a killer um out of prison on the weekend uh and some other things like him doing the video of him riding in the tank all contributed. It was just a a very poor campaign.

[00:28:04]>> No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life.

[00:28:10]>> Yes, the campaign was sinking, but now it was sunk. George Bush would dominate the general election with that debate performance killing Daucus' chance of winning. Another poor debate performance was that of Canadian Prime Minister John Turner in 1984. When Pierre Trudeau resigned as prime minister of Canada in 1984 >> and that's the father of Justin Trudeau, >> the leader of the Liberal Party, he was replaced by John Turner who defeated future prime minister Jean Cretian for the Liberal Party leadership.

[00:28:42]Immediately an election was called which saw Turner pitted against new progressive conservative leader Brian Maloney. But before leaving 24 Sussex, Trudeau made a deal with the Liberals.

[00:28:55]Trudeau, who was becoming less popular with each passing day, said that he would only resign early if the incoming prime minister, whether that was Turner or Cretian, appointed a number of people to patronage positions. Trudeau himself had already appointed 200 people to these positions, but Turner, now the new prime minister, appointed an additional 18 people that Trudeau wanted in. This basically smelled of corruption. Though this was and still is a practice that happens in Canadian politics, >> this became one of the most contentious issues of the 1984 campaign. When asked about the patronage positions, Turner tried to answer it as diplomatically as possible. Here's the exchange.

[00:29:42]>> Well, I've told you and told the Canadian people, Mr. Maloney, that I had no option.

[00:29:47]>> Herman, your next question.

[00:29:48]>> You had an option, sir. You could have said, "I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price. You had an option sir to say no and you chose to say yes to the old attitude.

[00:29:59]>> Opened the door to that one. I mean he he he invited that. He really >> and the old stories of the Liberal Party that sir, if I may say respectfully that is not good enough.

[00:30:08]>> That's such a good Canadian way. If I could say like he if I could say so respectfully. Yeah, that was so good >> for Canadians.

[00:30:17]>> I had no option if I was able. That is an avow of failure. That is a confession of non leadership and this country needs a great point. You had an option.

[00:30:25]>> I don't know anything about this scenario. But he's making an excellent point.

[00:30:30]>> Sir, you could have done better.

[00:30:31]>> Mr. Turner, your response, please.

[00:30:33]>> I I've just said to Mr. Moderator, taken the Canadian people through the circumstances. Mr. Trudeau had every right to make those appointments before he resigned. In order that he not do so, yes, I had to make a commitment to him.

[00:30:48]Otherwise, I was advised that with serious consequences to the Canadian people, I could not have been granted the opportunity of forming a government.

[00:30:57]>> This sank the Liberal Party's chances and Mol Rooney swept into office with a commanding majority. Another Liberal Party leader who was absolutely destroyed in a federal election debate was Michael Ignad. After the Liberal Party under Paul Martin lost to Stephen Harper's newly merged conservative party, which merged the old progressive conservatives and Preston Manning's reform party, the >> progressive conservatives. Interesting concept.

[00:31:25]>> Liberals went with Stefan Dion, a political science professor from Quebec.

[00:31:29]But the liberals would lose more seats in 2008 and replace Dion with Ignadv who was also a political science professor and spent much of his life overseas.

[00:31:39]Once Ignatius became Liberal Party leader, he acted more like he was a prime minister in waiting instead of simply being the leader of the opposition. Granted, once >> I mean that's kind of what the leader of the opposition is though, right? I mean I guess it's all in how you interpret what that means. ADF became the leader of the opposition. The Liberals did improve in the polls, but that didn't last long as Steven Harper looked as if he was headed for a majority. And while Harper showed up for Prime Minister's questions, Ignadv had a less than impressive attendance record. This was something that NDP leader Jack Leighten wanted to make known.

[00:32:19]>> Okay, so now I get it. He he was not confronting the prime minister directly.

[00:32:23]He was kind of operating more in the shadows. Leighton's NDP were already starting to make inroads in Quebec where they had only won two seats previously, one of which I talk about in this video here. And when the debate came, Leighton delivered one of the best blows in Canadian political history.

[00:32:41]>> I have to pick up on something Mr. McNatt said. He said before, you have to walk the walk and you have to be a strong leader and respect parliament.

[00:32:46]I've got to ask you then, why do you have the worst attendance record in the House of Commons of any member of Parliament? If you want to be prime minister, you better learn how to be a member of parliament first. You know, most Canadians, if they don't show up for work, they don't get a promotion.

[00:33:00]>> Great question, Mr. >> Great question. Surrender to anybody in my respect for the institution of parliament and my obligation to the people who put me there. So, don't give me lessons about respect for democracy.

[00:33:10]Don't give me lessons. Don't give me standing up to voting.

[00:33:14]>> Yeah, he he he made an excellent point and the response was, "You can't talk to me like that." That's not much of a response >> against his policies and you weren't in the chamber.

[00:33:25]>> You missed you missed 70% of the votes.

[00:33:28]Our party need to understand a little bit more about how our democra >> Listen, I don't even know who's who here as far as the parties go. So, I've got no dog in this fight. I'm not Canadian.

[00:33:37]I don't know the parties, but I just on the surface looking at this, he landed a knockout on this one.

[00:33:42]>> Works. That's my only point.

[00:33:44]>> Within days of that debate, the NDP went from being a distant third to being tied with the Liberals. Wow.

[00:33:50]>> A few weeks later, the NDP would finish second, forming the official opposition.

[00:33:55]In the province of Quebec, the Liberals were almost wiped out with one MP, Justin Trudeau, holding on to his papo right. And yes, I will eventually be doing a video about the NP and Jack Leton.

[00:34:08]>> And with that, let's move back state side to the 1976 presidential election.

[00:34:14]This is another example of one that I think is a perfectly fair thing to criticize him for uh what he says here.

[00:34:24]And I know where they're going with this. There's no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Uh but I'm not sure it mattered to the outcome of the election.

[00:34:33]I don't see a scenario in which Ford was going to win that election in the aftermath of everything that happened with Nixon.

[00:34:39]>> Shaping up to be one of the closest presidential elections in history. The Democrats had nominated Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia and peanut farmer, who was basically an unknown. I talk about that nomination campaign in this video. As for Gerald Ford, he had been catapulted to the presidency due to the resignations of Spiro Agnu and Richard Nixon and defeated Ronald Reagan in the Republican primaries, which I talk about in this video. So, for those who aren't familiar with the whole story, uh Gerald Ford from Michigan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, uh he um is the House minority leader.

[00:35:18]So, we talked earlier about how the Republicans had never been in control of Congress for for decades. And so, he's the the leader of the Republicans in in Congress. Uh and when the vice president Spiro Agnu resigns over corruption uh issues uh under the new amendment to the constitution that allowed for this, President Nixon was able to make an appointment for vice president and he appoints uh Gerald Ford to be vice president and that had to be then confirmed but he was confirmed as vice president and then Nixon resigns and so Ford becomes president without having been elected vice president or president. Only time in history that's happened. Anyway, this election could >> but then afterwards he pardoned Nixon and basically said our long national nightmare is over and you know now we don't have to worry about that and it it a lot of people held on to that and held that against him and I'm not sure he was ever going to overcome that >> have gone either way and the debates became one of the determining factors to win undecided voters. The first debate was uneventful with the exception of the debate being stopped for 27 minutes because of audio trouble, but the second debate was about foreign policy, particularly regarding the Cold War.

[00:36:36]This is where Ford could have stood out as his foreign policy resume was much more impressive than that of Carter's.

[00:36:43]>> Right? He is the sitting president.

[00:36:45]You've got this kind of relatively unknown governor from southwest Georgia.

[00:36:52]uh who is kind of seen as like this country bumpkin by a lot of people. Uh and you could really distance yourself from him by showing your strong command of foreign policy in the middle of the Cold War at a very crucial time right after uh Vietnam.

[00:37:08]>> In a question about the Helsinki Accords, an agreement that sought to ease tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, one of the debate moderators, Max Frankle, asked Gerald Ford this.

[00:37:19]>> Mr. President, I'd like to explore a little more deeply our relationship with the Russians. They used to brag back in Kruchv's day that because of their greater patience and because of our greed for business deals that they would sooner or later get the better of us. Is it possible that despite some setbacks in the Middle East, they've proved their point. Our allies in France and Italy are now flirting with communism. We've recognized a permanent communist regime in East Germany. We've virtually signed in Helsinki an agreement that the Russians have dominance in Eastern Europe. We've bailed out Soviet agriculture with our huge grain sales.

[00:38:00]We've given them large loans, access to our best technology, and if the Senate hadn't interfered with the Jackson amendment, maybe you would have given them even larger loans. Is that what you call a two-way street of traffic in Europe? What >> has been accomplished by the Helsinki agreement? Number one, we have an agreement where they notify us and we notify them of any military maneuvers that are to be undertaken. They have done it in both cases where they've done so. There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.

[00:38:39]>> No reasonable human being being thinks that the Soviets were not dominating Eastern Europe.

[00:38:46]That was so brutal, so out of touch and so tonedeaf of a thing for the sitting president of the United States to say in a presidential debate.

[00:38:57]>> I'm sorry. Could I just follow? Did I understand you to say?

[00:39:00]>> Yeah. I mean, even the the moderators like I'm sorry, what? like he he was bes he couldn't believe he had actually heard him say that >> that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence and occupying mo most of the countries there and in and making sure with their troops that it's a common zone whereas on our side of the line the Italians and the French are still flirting with >> I don't believe uh Mr. Frankle >> that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don't believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. Each of those countries is independent, autonomous. It has its own territorial integrity. And the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.

[00:39:59]>> Brutal. As a matter of fact, I visited Poland, uh, Yugoslavia, and Romania to make certain that the people of those countries understood that the president of the United States and the people of the United States are dedicated to their independence, their autonomy, and their freedom.

[00:40:21]>> And it does not matter how you qualified it, how you explained it, how you justified it. All anybody had to do was go back and replay that sentence. There is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe. That's all anybody heard.

[00:40:37]>> This alone was probably enough to tip the election.

[00:40:40]>> And look at look at Carter. He knows he knows that he just scored big without having to do a thing.

[00:40:47]>> Carter as it indeed ended up being one of the closest elections in recent history. Another election that was expected to be close was the 2004 presidential election. The Democrats nominated John Kerry, who had an impressive resume, but didn't exactly have the star quality of somebody like Bill Clinton. In fact, Carrie had his Michael Dukauus in the tank moment when he went out wind surfing. Essentially, Car's campaign was being compared to Dukauus' campaign with one PR blunder after another. However, one of the quotes that St. Kim really wasn't his fault. But taken out of context, in 2003, Carrie supported an $87 billion >> the flip-flop thing. The quote went to a larger issue, which was that this was kind of the main opposition uh talking point to him was that he was a flip-flopper, that you couldn't trust him, that he would go back on issues and do whatever was political expediency. to continue military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, with part of the condition being that the Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans would be eliminated.

[00:41:58]Gary voted for that version of the bill.

[00:42:00]But when the final bill didn't remove the tax cuts for the wealthy, Carrie voted against it. when asked in a town hall meeting, >> which when you explain it that way is a perfectly reasonable political position to take. But again, sound bites are everything and it doesn't matter what the explanation behind it is. It only matters what people can cut out from your quote and use.

[00:42:27]>> About this, Carrie explained that he first voted for the bill, but then not the final version. This led Carrie saying that he had voted for the bill before he voted against it. This led to Carrie saying, quote, "I voted for the bill before I voted against it." End quote. The Bush campaign would take this out of context, only use the I voted for it before I voted against it quote, and made it look like Carrie was a flip-flopper. Carrie would go on to lose the election by a larger margin than expected. I tried to find a longer clip, but I can only find one very lowquality clip of this incident on the internet.

[00:43:07]Sorry about that. Another person who would lose by a large margin six years later was US Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. This was a special election to replace outgoing Senator Joe Biden, who is now vice president. Initially, the natural successor to Biden was Mike Castle, who served as governor of Delaware as well as the state's sole member of Congress.

[00:43:31]In fact, the Democrats really didn't even put up a fight putting up president of the Newcastle County Council, Chris Coons, as their candidate.

[00:43:40]>> Which is interesting because when we think of Delaware, I think of that as being a relatively reliable Democrat state. So, to think that the natural successor to Biden was going to be a Republican. However, 2010 was the Tea Party year with the Republican candidate who ran against Joe Biden two years earlier, Christine O'Donnell, making another run for the seat. In an upset, Oddonnell defeated Castle in the Republican primary and took on Coons in the general election. During the general election, old video clips of her on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher surfaced in which she said that she dabbled in witchcraft, which led to Democrats making fun of her being a witch. But instead of brushing it off as nonsense, the Oddonnell campaign decided to run a commercial.

[00:44:29]>> I'm not a witch.

[00:44:31]I'm nothing you've heard. I'm you.

[00:44:35]None of us are perfect, but none of us can be happy with what we see all around us. Politicians who think spending, trading favors, and backroom deals are the ways to stay in office.

[00:44:48]>> I'll go to Washington and do what you do.

[00:44:52]>> I'm Christine O'Donnell and I approve this message. I'm you.

[00:44:58]>> Honestly, I thought it was a good commercial. However, the only thing that anyone remembered from commercial was that O'Donnell was saying that she was not a witch.

[00:45:08]>> What is the lesson that we have seen in these last several examples?

[00:45:12]>> If it can be taken out of context, it will be taken out of context. So, you have to be careful with what you say.

[00:45:19]And I get that as somebody who says a lot of stuff on the internet, some of which could be taken out of context, but I'm not running for politics, for political office, nor do I ever intend to. That was it. O'Donnell would go on to lose Chris Coons by over 16%. And has been pretty quiet since.

[00:45:37]>> Yeah.

[00:45:38]>> All right. We're not going to watch every one of them. There's still a few more. The link is down in the description. If you want to watch the video in its entirety, you can check out all of it uh and see the ones that we didn't cover in there. And if you think there's one that we should have covered that should have been mentioned that wasn't, let me know in the comments section below. Uh I want to thank and these are just the usernames. This is all I have. Uh is Woody. I want to thank Woody. And I want to thank Soullex for your support on Patreon. Thank you so much. Check out some of these other videos if you want to learn more. Thanks for watching.