How presidential nominees deal with stinging defeat
Hillary Clinton now joins a select group of politicians who came up short in their quest for the White House. The losses can haunt them for months, or even years.
There is a long tradition in American democracy of losing presidential candidates accepting their defeats graciously -- Clinton’s emotional concession speech Wednesday was praised as “classy” and “poignant.” But that doesn’t make the rejection any easier to swallow, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.
It was not the speech Clinton thought she would give the morning after the election.
“This loss hurts. But please, never stop believing, that fighting for what’s right is worth it,” Clinton said.
Clinton failed to bust through the proverbial glass ceiling again, just like in 2008, when she lost the nomination fight to Barack Obama.
“Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,” she told her supporters, followed by applause.
“In a lot of ways, these losses are a little death for people,” said presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Goodwin said losing candidates can be consumed by disappointment and second guessing.
“They put their entire reputation on the line for one single night, and all that work may end up with a loss that will be seen in not only this country, but around the world,” Goodwin said.
Mitt Romney fully expected to beat Obama in 2012.
“I so wish that I had been able to fulfilI your hopes to lead the country in a different direction,” he told his supporters after his defeat.
Days after his loss, he was photographed at a gas station looking disheveled and roundly ridiculed.
“I want Republicans to win,” Romney told “CBS This Morning” in an appearance with his wife, Ann, one year later to reflect on his campaign.
“It was a fabulous experience. I loved it. But look at that,” he said, before his wife grabbed his face and shook it, ‘no.’
John McCain was vanquished by Mr. Obama in 2008.
“We fought as hard as we could. And though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours,” McCain said in his concession speech.
McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, said his candidate took the loss in stride because the result was widely expected.
“I don’t think you ever get over losing a presidential campaign. He moved right on. He was a sitting senator,” Davis said. “Although I’m sure there were days when he looked on the TV screen and saw the president and said, ‘I can do a better job than he can.’”
Clinton now shares a dubious distinction with Al Gore, who also won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the electoral college.
“As for what I’ll do next, I don’t know the answer to that one yet,” Gore told his supporters after his loss.
A defeated Gore grew a beard, wrote books and launched a failed cable network, only to sell it for millions. But he never ran for public office again.
“I acknowledged earlier, I don’t think I’m very good at politics, Charlie,” he told Charlie Rose in 2007. “And I think that – I think that, I mean, I’m willing to bear my responsibility for not being more effective as a communicator.”
Michael Dukakis has said being able to go back to his job as governor of Massachusetts helped him return to a sense of normalcy.
Some defeated presidents, including Jimmy Carter, became more popular as ex-presidents than they ever were in the Oval Office.