"Shame on you, Barack Obama"

[UGAalum94]

I think that Bush's lack of international experience would have hurt him had he been running for the first time under the same conditions as the present candidates.

But I think most of us were more concerned about domestic issues back then, and remember at that time , he ran against Gore, who let's be honest, probably couldn't have won the nomination against present day Obama, especially if we think pre-canonization as a Global Warming Saint, Gore, as he was then.

All the retroactive comparisons are hard to pull off because so much of the reason any particular candidate was electable had to do with when they ran and who they ran against. Don't you think that B. Obama, or bizarrely even McCain, could have beaten Bush in 2004, had either found himself running in the general election against Bush*? But instead, Bush got to run against Kerry, probably the only person that three million voters could reliably like less than Bush.

* I realize that this wouldn't work in reality; my point is just that we've had people win nominations and elections that they couldn't have won had they run in a different year.