"I Was Running in the Wrong Continent."

That’s what Adlai Stevenson said to explain away his overwelming loss to Ike in ’56.

This year, John Sullivan says that “Half of Europe is leaning to Kerry”. But as far as most American voters are concerned, it’s the wrong half.

(Via Charles Johnson.)

Update: A reader emailed me the electoral college results from the 1950s and writes:

Check out the states that Adlai won in 1952 and 1956.

He wasn’t running in the wrong continent, but in the wrong country: the USA instead of the CSA.

This vividly illustrates how, in the 1950s, segregationists were the core constituency of the Democratic Party. Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas voting for the Northern intellectual over the general who won WWII? The mind boggles.

Well, a lot’s changed since then.