Before reality TV, America’s best chance of watching a fellow citizen humiliate himself/herself in front of the nation week in and week out was by watching  politicians on the campaign trail. Some politicial campaigns, like Barack Obama’s 2008 bid for the white house, are run so well that the entertainment value is entirely sapped out of them. Others make you wonder if Larry, Moe and Curly are the chief campaign strategists. Usually, a disasterous campaign is defined by one or two major mistakes that are a symptom of a greater ailment. Herein lies a list of the campaign mistakes where politicians wowed us in their folly and awed us with their incompetence, the dog decisions of  campaign history, the Top 5: Political Campaign Mistakes

Number 5: Ross Perot and the mystery of the disappearing candidate

Ross Perot was a maverick when John Mccain was in diapers. Ok that is a patently untrue statement, but the billionaire businessman was as much of a political outsider as a billionaire could be.

Perot ran for President as an independent in 1991, and the elf-like Texan briefly led Bush Sr and Bill Clinton in the polls with his big ideas on balancing the budget.

At  a near peak in popularity in July, soon after Time magazine had led with a cover story called “Waiting for Perot”, Perot mysteriously dropped out of the race for two weeks. Apparently. Perot had caught wind of a GOP  plan to release “digitally altered” photos of his daughter that would potentially ruin her impending wedding.

When Perot decided two weeks later that he was running again, the wind was clearly out of his sails and his campaign foundered. He is now remembered by many as one of Dana Carvey’s best SNL characters.

Number 4: Thomas Dewey: not one for specifics

The famous 1948 headline was “Dewey Beats Truman”, but despite winning the popular vote, Dewey lost to Truman…and the Chicago Tribune had to eat some crow. Perhaps Dewey’s  loss had something to do with the fact that he was most certainly the  greatest speaker of platitudes and vagaries ever to run for the highest office.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, his campaign speeches could be boiled down to a couple of statements: Agriculture is important. Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. Our future lies ahead. Apparently Dewey was so confident in winning that he was intentionally avoiding any specifics, believing that he was a shoe-in for the presidential gig so long as he avoided nasty things like “issues”…it is said George W used the same strategy to actually run the country.

Number 3: Jesse Jackson can’t stop kvetching about jews

In the 1984 race for the democratic nomination, Jesse Jackson was considered a fringe candidate, and clearly he was comfortable acting the part. Jackson referred to Jews as “hymies” and New York City “hymietown” when speaking to a Washington Post reporter. He also said that Nixon’s aids were not attuned to poverty because most of them were Jews, and that he was sick and tired of hearing about the holocaust. Jackson didn’t get the nomination, but more importantly he hasn’t been able to get a good brisket in NYC since.

Number 2: Gary Hart and his Monkey Business

Gary Hart was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for the 1988 election. Problem was that a rumor  of his infidelity threatened to sink his nomination. Hart responded to the rumors by challenging the press to follow him around and verify his awesomeness as a faithful husband. Problem was that the Miami Herald had already busted him, as a stake out of his residence caught model Donna Rice paying a visit.

Hart’s wife, Lee, stood by her man, and just a few days later, her trust was rewarded with newly released images of Hart with Rice on his lap and news that Hart had spent a night with Rice on a Yacht called…wait for it…Monkey Business.

Hart’s campaign was dead in the water after the first Herald report, and the dead horse was flogged with the Monkey Business business.

Wins first prize in our most incriminating picture contest...

Number 1:McCain doesn’t vet his veep

We try hard not to keep talking about her, but she just keeps appearing at or close to number 1 on our lists. We simply can’t stop

After meeting her for just a few hours, John McCain felt that Sarah Palin had the right stuff for the role of Vice President of the United States. It was a maverick  decision that would come back to bite his maverick ass. The McCain team admits (in some detail recently in this Vanity Fair article) that the campaign killa from Wasilla was either uninterested or incapable of understanding some of the larger issues that faced America. She would be happy to remain thoroughly uncoached for major interviews only to berate her handlers when the interviews went badly. She clashed with McCain’s handlers and strategists and a noticeable rift developed between McCain’s and Palin’s people soon before the election. She has been called a “Diva” a “Narcissist” and she also has a penchant for pumps that led to a $150k spending spree on the GOP dime. She was the black widow spider of McCain’s campaign, and people are talking (seriously, without laughing) about Palin for prez in 2012. God help us.