So Romney won the Michigan state primary, McCain and Clinton took their respective party's crown in New Hampshire, and Huckabee and Obama were the #1s in Iowa. Perhaps one of these 2008 hopefuls will end up in the White House next year as President of the United States.
Or perhaps instead one of them will join Samuel Tilden, Horatio Seymour or Rufus King and have his portrait hung in the They Also Ran Museum. We never got to have a president names Rufus because he lost to James Monroe in 1816.
Yep, it's a museum dedicated to the other party's nominee, the candidate who lost the presidential election, and you'll find it in the mezzanine of the First State Bank in Norton, Kansas.
Several candidates lost their first bid for the presidency, but were successful on their second attempts, among them Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon. Some won a first term but lost a second, such as Herbert Hoover and George H.W. Bush.
Native son Bob Dole is proudly displayed. He lost to Bill Clinton in 1996.
Henry Clay is the nation's most consistent loser - running as a presidential candidate three times for three different political parties, losing to John Quincy Adams in 1824 as a Democratic Republican, to Andrew Jackson in 1832 on the National Republican ticket, and finally to James Polk in 1844 when Clay ran as a Whig. Whew.
I am sick just now learning of this awesome attraction while enjoying the 2008 Farmer's Almanac and have quoted them liberally here. If it had been included in last year's Almanac I would have made sure to include the town of Norton in my vacation plans when I visited Kansas for a week last March. Remind me to post photos one day soon.
Voting for a person on name alone is wrong, but Rufus, come on. You'd have to consider it based on the freak show of candidates running
today.
Posted by: Geo | January 17, 2008 at 04:37 AM
Well, you've done it. You've worked the word "Rufus" into your blog. I don't know if I should shake your hand in an accepting way or shake my head in disbelief...
Nicely done.
Posted by: LP | January 17, 2008 at 06:45 AM
Wow! President Rufus. That would be so awesome! I need stranger named individuals to be president!
Posted by: Steve-o | January 17, 2008 at 08:30 PM
Because Mitt, Barak, and Rudolph are normal names? Mitt? Isnt that sporting equipment?
Posted by: Jerkface | January 18, 2008 at 06:18 AM