I can’t personally remember a race where “the other side must be stopped” as pretty much the sole consideration among the voters until the Trump era.
The Kerry '04 campaign might as well have been “Anyone But Bush”, and it went down in flames as a result. Every time Kerry was pressed on any kind of progressive-ish sounding issue, he ran to the right for fear of spooking the moderate centrist voter. Every time Bush was pressed on his conservative bona fides, he just pointed to 9/11 and said “I kept us safe” and the news media ate that shit up.
In the end, you had the Strong MAGA Security candidate in Bush and the flaky swish liberal candidate in Kerry. Kerry lost by 3M votes and 35 ECs, dwarfing the Bush/Gore defeat. Then he slunk back to the Senate and triangulated votes with John McCain for the next eight years.
The Kerry '04 campaign might as well have been “Anyone But Bush”, and it went down in flames as a result. Every time Kerry was pressed on any kind of progressive-ish sounding issue, he ran to the right for fear of spooking the moderate centrist voter. Every time Bush was pressed on his conservative bona fides, he just pointed to 9/11 and said “I kept us safe” and the news media ate that shit up.
In the end, you had the Strong MAGA Security candidate in Bush and the flaky swish liberal candidate in Kerry. Kerry lost by 3M votes and 35 ECs, dwarfing the Bush/Gore defeat. Then he slunk back to the Senate and triangulated votes with John McCain for the next eight years.