Has a sitting president ever run for re-election and not won?

I'm not too worried.

• Good question!

  Jimmy%20Carter

• Just some guy named George Bush (the other one) back in 1992.

• Carter...Bush 1.....

  Barbara%20Please

• Bush carter and Hoover

• You are not serious are you? Are aware of recent American history? HW Bush, Carter, Ford... I hate to think that this kind of ignorance is one of the reasons we have so many of these breathtakingly stupid pols in our midst in 2011. Internet? Is it that young people just don't read it if not on the Internet or in a blog?

  charlie

• Ten Presidents have come to office by unseating an incumbent. Thomas Jefferson unseated John Adams (1800) Andrew Jackson unseated JQ Adams (1828) WH Harrison unseated Van Buren (1840) Benjamin Harrison unseated Grover Cleveland (1888) Grover Cleveland unseated B Harrison (1892) Woodrow Wilson unseated WH Taft (1912) FD Roosevelt unseated Hoover (1932) Jimmy Carter unseated *Gerald Ford (1976) Ronald Reagan unseated J Carter (1980) Bill Clinton unseated GHW Bush (1992) *Gerald Ford was never elected to the presidency or vice presidency.

  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_3_presidents_beat_an_incumbent

• Thank you Charlie. Jesus Christ - how stupid can you get? You should be ashamed of yourself OP. Can you find the United States on a map?

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

• No. It's never happened.

  Your%20average%20high%20school%20history%20teacher

• It's actually mildly entertaining when this imbeciles posts threads like this.

  Remember%3A%20I%20forgot%20High%20school%20math%3F

• Charlie -- why are you such a raving asshole? Not all the people who post on DataLounge are, like you, in their 70s. Some are actually teenagers who come here to learn as well as gossip. Why don't you just help them out instead of bitching at them? It's one thing to be an eldergay, it's another to be an eldershithead.

  Shoo%2C%20charlie.%20Shoo%21

• R10, you're an idiot if you can't realize the answer to OP's question is within living memory.

• Not defending idiocy r11, but there will be people old enough to vote next year who were, in fact, not yet born when Clinton was elected.

  not%20yet%20old%20but%20no%20longer%20young

• R10, a 15 year old should know thw answer to the OP's question. Hell, even a 12 year old. I did. And stop messing with my charlie.

• I think you all are too harsh on the OP. OP knew the answer. He or she was just trying to start a conversation on the current situation and whether President Obama could join the list. LEAVE OP ALONE.

• Has a stupider person ever started a thread like this one?

• R11, I'm trying to be generous by pointing out 18-year-olds were born in 1993, after George H.W. Bush lost his bid for a second term, so it isn't within their living memory. But did they learn nothing in high school? I know, that's a stupid question. Few of us learned much history in high school. High school history teachers are notorious for making the single most boring class ever, even though the subject is fascinating. For anyone who wants to learn more about American history than they learned in school, I recommend two books in particular: Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen, and A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, by Howard Zinn. Along with biographies of any president who happens to interest you. Or even gay-specific histories, like Gay New York, by George Chauncey (or dozens of others).

  http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281/ref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fs%3Dbooks%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1321806134%26sr%3D1-1

  self-educated%20is%20not%20necessarily%20uneducated

• How embarrassing for the OP. Jesus, this is recent basic history. I weep for the educational system.

• "Some are actually teenagers who come here to learn as well as gossip." Remember right after Cuntiness 101 is Sewing Caftans, followed by gym, where we all stand around & smoke while watching the jocks' asses.

• There really needs so be some sort of civics, film, gay history quiz passed before people should be allowed post here.

• It's not stupid to ask a question, R15. Yes, OP could have googled it, but he or she came here and got the answer, along with a lot of name-calling. More troubling to me than that OP asked the question is that he or she made the statement: "I'm not too worried." Not that I recommend worrying as a political strategy, but it's never safe to assume anything in a presidential campaign. We learned that in 2000, when Bush, his brother, and the Supreme Court stole the election, with disastrous results.

• Some famous potentate once said that we are only 25 years (1 generation) away from barbarity. If the younger generation is not taught basics of civilization, then in a blink of an eye, civilization will end. (Ask the Romans about that....a 1000 year Dark Age followed the fall of Rome). Anyway, it may have been scripted for laughs, but I remember a Jay Leno on-the-street interview of Angeleno's. One question was "What is the name of the ocean that LA borders?" Many people did not know! But in case we think only this country is full of idiots, there was a recent survey in Russia. Something like 40% of the Russians surveyed believed that the sun rotates around the earth. In case someone here from a public school doesn't know, the sun is the center of our solar system and all the planets revolve around the sun.

• R20, I wish there was a way to see a parallel universe where things went differently, just for comparison, e.g., if George Dubya had LOST the election, what would the state of America and the world be today?

• charlie, simmer down now. I think your gout is making you cranky.

• Oh, yeah, I remember a recent survey of highschool graduates. A couple questions were simply "What century did the American Civil War occur" and "What century did WW2 occur". Charlie, you do not want to know what the kids said. Evidently, history is not taught at all in schools anymore.

• Jay Leno asked the "man on the street" question: Who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Many didn't know. When asked who lives in a pineapple under the sea, all knew Square Pants. Disgusting!

• [quote]Some famous potentate once said that we are only 25 years (1 generation) away from barbarity. If the younger generation is not taught basics of civilization, then in a blink of an eye, civilization will end. Mary! [quote](Ask the Romans about that....a 1000 year Dark Age followed the fall of Rome). And you're complaining about OTHER people not knowing about history? There's so much wrong with that statement I don't know where to begin. But a few points: 1) Rome did not fall because of a lack of a knowledge of civics. 2) Even after the Western half of the Empire fell in 476, the Eastern half of the Empire (centered in Constantinople) continued for nearly a thousand years, well into the Renaissance 3) the so-called "Dark Ages" are a fiction created by historians of previous centuries who didn't know much beyond what was happening in Rome itself and France and England. Culture and science flourished in Constantinople, in the Islamic world, in Asia, in Africa; and culture continued even in Rome and England and France, but just in a different form.

• I only knew the two most recent because they happened in my history. If OP is young, there's no reason he should know if it didn't happen within his memory.

• [quote]If OP is young, there's no reason he should know if it didn't happen within his memory. OK, now THAT is a truly stupid statement.

• "there's no reason he should know if it didn't happen within his memory." Quite the stupidest statement I've seen on DL & that's quite an accomplishment.

• R27, you must be around 17 years old, right? I cannot even begin to express my horror and disgust with such a sincerely stupid comment. Humankind has been around perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. And you only care about what happened in your itsy bitsy little life time, and only what you personally experienced? My God! Maybe it would honestly be the best thing for civilization if the Chinese just took over the world. Something is desperately failing in the West.

• R27, you are incorrect

• R31, considering the substantially successful efforts by the Chinese to wipe out much of their own history before Mao, I'm not encouraged by your proposal for them to take over the world.

• [quote]Who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Many didn't know. When asked who lives in a pineapple under the sea, all knew Square Pants. Disgusting! In their defense, we are all actively encouraged to watch stupid TV shows whereas, in the 21st century, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is considered the exclusive property of the ruling class.

• Jayzuz OP, not only am I too young to remember, but I'm also not from this country and even I know at least a few. What passes for education over here, anyway?

  Ciaran

• Clearly, the OP hasn't read that chapter in his fifth-grade textbook. r20, yes, sometimes it really is stupid. Example: "Has any incumbent President ever been re-elected?" See? Stupid.

• [quote] Shoo, charlie. Shoo! You first. Please!

• We don't need no stupid education. We're the smartest ones in this dumb anyway.

  Dawn, Concetta, Chicklette and apparently, OP.

• If illiterates could read this thread, they'd feel a lot better about themselves.

• 'Imbecile', 'Idiot', 'Stupid' and other insults... what sort of people are you? Certainly not superior to the OP, in my opinion.

• Ciaran attends a glorified diploma mill and he's casting stones? That's rich.

• Perhaps not, r39; but we are more learned.

• OP, I don't expect someone to know the whole history of Presidential elections, but I do expect them to know the answer to a question like that, particularly when the answer can be gotten from pretty recent history (1992, 1980 etc)

• R42, do you expect people to know the answer without having been taught (since many high schools don't even offer civics any more, thanks to budget cuts and No Child Left Behind)? Do you expect people who were young children the last time it happened to know it without asking? Why is it so horrible for someone to ask, here on a board with people who are extremely knowledgeable on the subject?

  Not%20OP%2C%20but%20always%20willing%20to%20answer%20questions

• R43, even if one isn't taught at school, how can one not be aware of it when the media talks about Jimmy Carter (and George Bush Sr.) being a "one-termer" all the time? All through this year the media and the Republicans have been saying Obama could be a one-termer like Carter. How can someone miss it?

  R42

• Some DL readers aren't from the US

• Perhaps the person is young, or doesn't watch the media much, R44. The point is, none of us are born knowing everything. We learn in a myriad ways: reading, school, television, the net, and asking friends, to name a few. So why not ask on a board with hundreds of well-informed, intelligent posters? Yes, as we can see, asking a question on DL can result in dozens of insults, but it also provided the answer.

  R43

• Voters should have to pass a test. Use the test used for citizenship.

  OP%2C%20I%27m%20looking%20at%20you.

• R45 makes a great point.

• OP was trying to say within a party, no president has ever not won their party's vote for re-election. I don't think any Democratic candidate is going to overtake Omaba, not even Hillary so it's safe to say he will be the Democratic candidate.

• That's been known for months, R49

• OP is orobably a home-schooled soccer mom (or dad) who is on his/her way to church and got asked a difficult question by his/her kid who will, no doubt, eventually know much more than him/her if given half a chance.

• DUH. ME 'TUPID.

  OP

• I knew about Ike vs. Stevenson and I was a tyke. But there's another problem: American kids think schools must teach everything there is to know; they are completely incurious otherwise.

• OP = Stupid

• [quote]OP was trying to say within a party, no president has ever not won their party's vote for re-election. Oh, really?? [quote]In the 1968 presidential election, Eugene McCarthy was the first candidate to challenge incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, running on an anti-Vietnam War platform. The unexpected vote total he achieved in the New Hampshire primary and his strong polling in the upcoming Wisconsin primary led Johnson to withdraw from the race, and lured Robert F. Kennedy into the contest.

• "Charlie -- why are you such a raving asshole? Not all the people who post on DataLounge are, like you, in their 70s" I think Charlie is more like 80ish, and I think we've met on Nantucket. I'm still trying to figure out how to confirm that. If he's who I think he is, he's a liberal of the worldy, old-fashioned sort, from before the Kennedy era. If I'm right, he's lovely and charming in person. An ascot, pocket handkerchief, Palm Beach slipper kind of guy. But then, we have lots of those on Nantucket.

  Harris%20from%20Nantucket

• I am not only ashamed to read a web site that attracts someone as ignorant as OP, I am ashamed to support a presidential candidate that he endorses. This is deeply disturbing.

• The sad thing is not that the OP didn't know the answer off-hand, but apparently didn't have the ability to research the answer with a simple history of US Presidents google search.

  Teri

• I'm too dumb to do a simple internet search.

  OP%2C%20R10

• You eldergays are so easy to dupe.

• Is a sitting president the same as a standing president, and is an incombant president a sterile president that can't have any more children? All these technicalities give me a headache, fer sure.

• Charlie makes me hard.

• who is charlie?

• LBJ didn't run because he knew he had fucked himself in Viet Nam and didn't have a chance of winning!

• Ford wasn't a president elect. He doesn't count.

  just%20sayin%27

• charlie is the guy who is personal fiends with every celebrity in NYC because he walked on the same street as they did once.

• Government schools are run by the teachers unions which are all Democrat. So of course you didn't learn anything.

• Oh charlie, seriously: GO FUCK YOURSELF. Everyone on Datalounge knows you can't even spell properly, even though you're past sixty and had an expensive education! As a result, you have no right to go after ANYONE else EVER because of his ignorance.

  not%20the%20OP

• [quote]Government schools are run by the teachers unions That's why teachers are so low paid...because THEY run the schools. Right, freeper cunt.

• Chevy Chase on SNL single handedly killed Ford's election chances.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DH9jtfUPlxdI

• Hey Charlie and you other DL chowderheads: Before you get your knickers in a knot again--and the fact that a board like this gets you so excited is, well, kind of sad--half the people who post on DL are just posting for fun, to get a rise out of you dolts who take things so seriously. OP is probably just a troll looking to have a little fun at the expense of you guys, and look! 70 posts later and it's still going on....

• Guys, guys .. don't be so rough on OP. He's undecided, you know, one of the people who will produce the oucome of this election.

• Once upon a time, long long ago, little OP, there was a man called George Herbert Walker Bush. And he was such a terrible President, that when another man, called William Jefferon Clinton, came along and ran for President, people were so grateful to have a positive, upbeat person to vote for, with an intelligent, non-smarmy wife that wasn't a nasty, bitter harridan like Bar Bush, that they voted for him instead. And President Bush had to leave the White House after only four years. Afterwards, the new President, otherwise known as "Bubba," had a lot of fun. And everybody had a job and didn't care about Bubba having so much fun, they were just happy. Except for mean, jealous Republicans, who sadly had a type of Tourette's that caused them to yell out "Monica Lewinsky" at odd times. Then after Bubba had served the maximum number of terms allowed, a stupid son of George Herbert Walker Bush ran for President too. And for a long time, no one was ever happy again. Finally, after many years of wars, suffering and sadness, President Bush II was gone, and people were so happy they sang with happiness on the day he left the White House. They sang, "Na, na, na, na, Hey, hey hey, goodbye," as his helicopter slowly flew away. The new President, Barack Obama, took over. People were full of hope. Except for mean, jealous Republicans, who sadly had a type of Tourette's that caused them to yell out the "n" word at odd times. And spent the next four years trying to stop the "N word" from accomplishing anything. What will happen next, little OP? Well, in the words of the President, "Don't boo, vote."

  True story.

• George HW Bush had incredible approval ratings following the first Iraq War and still managed to lose. Obama has never been anywhere near those kinds of ratings. Obama could still easily lose, even running against idiot Mittens.

• Bonus Question: HOw many of those unseated presidents were VP's under a former administration?

• [quote]Bonus Question: HOw many of those unseated presidents were VP's under a former administration? Bush 1 Ford (If he is counted) Van Buren Tyler

• Yeah, but Ford only got in because of Nixon's resignation so I don't even know if he counts.

• It's easy to figure why John Q. Adams lost. He was one of the nastiest men ever to serve as President. When he summoned his son to leave Boston and come to DC for a dressing down, his son killed himself rather than face his father.

• R70 no dipshit, the pardon of Richard Nixon after Watergate, sunk Ford.

• Bonus question 2 Which sitting President was challenged by former President, resulting in him not getting reelected. HINT: Stuck in a bathtub once.

• Bonus question 3 Which sitting president lost reelection to the same man that actually won the popular vote previously. HINT: Swam nude in Potomac

• Bonus question 1 about unseated presidents who were also VPs should include John Adams. Adams was Washington's VP and he was unseated after one term by his own VP, Thomas Jefferson. (Jefferson was elected under the old rule that the second-place finisher became VP. Running mates were first featured in the election in which Jefferson beat Adams.)

• [quote]Which sitting President was challenged by former President, resulting in him not getting reelected. Harrison challenged by Cleveland. Cleveland won his second term.

• "It's easy to figure why John Q. Adams lost. He was one of the nastiest men ever to serve as President." He was incredibly intelligent, learned, diligent, hardworking and completely unsuited to be president. To the extent successful presidents are of the people rather than govern the people, he was not endowed to be a successful president. Look at what directly followed: a man who was charming, reckless and had loads of charisma but nowhere near as competent as Adams. Yet, he succeeded as president by many accounts. Bonus question #2: Taft.

• OP, you have no reason to worry. You just sit there, playing with your eleven fingers and thirteen toes.

• William Howard Taft really didn't want to be President. His main ambition was to became a Supreme Court justice. This suited his laid-back temperament and clashed with Nellie Taft's determination to become a First Lady. When Teddy Roosevelt was ready to nominate his friend Will to the Supremes, Nellie Taft demanded a private meeting with the President. She vehemently turned down the offer. Will was elected handily in 1908 with Teddy's backing but the Tafts had a curse laid on them. Teddy's oldest daughter, Alice, had taken to hate Nellie, perhaps because they were so much alike. Shortly before leaving the White House, Alice buried a voodoo doll on the lawn and called on the gods to visit woe on the new occupants. Two months after entering the White House, Mrs. Taft suffered a stroke, impairing her speech. She never fully recovered.

• Did not read the thread. Is OP serious? Uh, Ford, Carter, Daddy Bush... The real poll to look at is the Scholastic News Poll. They've only been wrong once since 1940.

• Thanks for bumping my thread. As soon as someone posted Bush 1 I had a d'oh! moment. But, still, it is a rare event. And I'm still not too worried.

  OP

• R80 and R81 are referring to William Howard Taft and Teddy Roosevelt, who not only swam in the Potamac, he made the other men in his party do it too, including a diplomat who swam nude except for his kid gloves. "In case we meet some ladies," the story goes. And it was cold!

• [quote]HINT: Swam nude in Potomac I hope it wasn't William Howard Taft.

  ***shudder***

• Just because William Howard Taft was a big ol' bear is no reason to refer to him as "Nellie Taft."

• President John Q. Adams regularly swam nude in the Potomac River. Anne Royall, the first American professional journalist, knew of Adams' 5 A.M. swims. After being refused interviews with the president time after time, she went to the river, gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her interview. Before that incident, no female had interviewed a president.

• Okay just because they teach shit like this in the school system doesn't mean we actually pay attention in class. Think back to your high school days. You can't tell me that you've never not paid attention in a class you thought was totally worthless and boring! Duh for you it was Science, English, or Art. For me I totally zoned out in History and Civics. I can honestly tell you I did not know the answer to this question and neither did my roommate and we're college students. I can tell you I appreciate History now that I'm in college, but in high school I couldn't have given a shit about, what I thought, was the boring shit like politics. So take a chill pill and inform the not so informed instead of screaming that their dipshits because everyone's a dipshit at some time in their life and not one of you can say you have never asked a stupid question before.

  Anonymous

• OP = stupid

• Hey Charlie you're such a great person and you're so much better than the person who asked this question. You should get a life if you're so upset that someone doesn't know the answer to a question and tries to find out what it is.

• Sorry, R93, I loved history. I paid attention. In fact because I paid attention I never had to study for exams. Ah, the days when my memory worked.

• [quote]Jesus Christ - how stupid can you get? You should be ashamed of yourself OP. OP is the reason ai hate my own country, WHAT IDIOTS!!!

• This question confirms what I have known for a long time - the country becomes increasingly stupid with each passing generation.

  Anonymous

• It's still a rare event!

• The answer to the original question is NO. Most of the presidents have been running around trying to win votes, rather than remaining seated. The only president to consistently remain seated while campaigning was Franklin Roosevelt, and he just kept on winning. Great question!

• Very true R8. When you realize how very ignorant our teachers are...you know that we actually have no hope. Reagan accomplished what he was after...schools that are good for baby sitting and not much else.