Warren for VP? Clinton Beware as Massachusetts is Presidential Ticket Loser Land

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

GoLocalWorcester News Team

If Cleveland was loserville for not winning a sports championship for 50 plus years, then Massachusetts is Presidential campaign loser land. Cleveland broke the loser streak this year after decades of frustration.

As Commonwealth Senator Elizabeth Warren moves closer and closers to being tapped as Vice President on the Hillary Clinton’s Presidential ticket, it should be noted that tickets with Massachusetts candidates have failed miserably for decades.

The last candidate to capture the White House with a resident of Massachusetts on the ticket was John F. Kennedy in 1960. And, even that race was a split decision as GOP Presidential candidate Richard Nixon had tapped Massachusetts’s Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. as the Vice Presidential candidate. Someone had to win.

Since then, three Presidential campaigns have had residents of the Commonwealth on the Presidential ticket.

Here are the races:

1988 Democratic Presidential Candidate Mike Dukakis

1988 Republican George H. W. Bush ran up 426 Electoral votes and crushed former Massachusetts Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis. Dukakis who once had a 17-point lead in polls only garnered 111 electoral votes. Dukakis claimed to be the father of the Massachusetts Miracle. The Bush team hit him for the state’s reputation for high taxes — Taxachusetts and for releasing Willie Horton.

2004 GOP candidate George W. Bush edged Massachusetts Democratic candidate John Kerry in the electoral college 286 to 251. Kerry, the Massachusetts Senators was tagged for being too liberal.

GOP candidate Mitt Romney

2012 Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama handily defeated for Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 332 to 206 votes in the electoral college. Romney showed that the Massachusetts losing streak was not just a Democratic plague, but it may be more bipartisan issue.

In 2016, regardless if Clinton taps Warren as VP, the Libertarian party has slotted former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld as Vice President. The streak has a good chance of continuing.