F in Democratic Presidential Campaign history

Blogger Hugh Hewitt writes the following-

America is a great and good nation, and it will not turn itself over to a party in the grip of its hardest left cadres, its most corrupt machine and its least experienced nominee ever.

Wrong. There were at least two Democratic nominees for President since The Civil War who never held political office.

Alton Parker the 1904 nominee and George McClellan the 1864 nominee. Parker was an elected Appeals Court Judge in New York, McClellan a Civil War General. Then you had Horace Greeley, the 1872 nominee. A newspaper editor, whose experience in political office consisted of serving just three months in Congress.

Hugh uses the word experience. You could grant Parker and McClellan points based on their non-political work experience, but that then leaves Greeley. Greeley's lack of time in office before getting the nomination, is well known to those who have studied American history. Hugh should have known it, he went to Harvard. I got a 4 on the American AP exam and spent 20 years telling people to 'Take a deep breath and hold it."

Note- McClellan was Governor of New Jersey for one term, but after he ran for President.

You can also make an argument William Jennings Bryan, who was only a two-term Congressman, had even less experience than Obama before being nominated not once, not twice, but three times by the Democratic Party.

Memo to Hugh- Take out an Encyclopedia or at least check Wikipedia.

Hugh is also drinking large doess of Koolaid in the days before the November election.

… despite the rapture of college students and the registration of the homeless in Ohio, the common sense of Americans will override curiosity about Barack Obama and infatuation with his celebrity, and trust John McCain to pilot the country for the next four years.

*****

The hard left’s seven year rage against George Bush has disfigured the politics of the country, but it hasn’t infected the large center or demoralized the principled right.

There are plenty of Conservatives, Professor Bainbridge who I tip for this post, just being one. Bush's failure to take on Congress over spending, immigration, or for failures in Iraq, has had many faithful unhappy. Look at Bush's abysmal poll numbers too.

There are plenty of conservatives predicting defeat in November. Conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer being one of the latest examples.

As Professor Bainbridge wrote "I guess Hewiit needs to feed his radio/blog audience this sort of nonsense to keep his ratings up, but it makes it hard to take him seriously." That seems a very plausible explanation to me.