Out and Down

The real question is probably not whether Hillary Clinton will crash, but how hard and for how long. In 1984 Democratic nominee Walter Mondale lost every state but one. The story goes that, after the shellacking, he spoke to George McGovern, the South Dakota Democrat who had suffered a similar defeat 12 years earlier, in 1972. "George, when does it stop hurting?" Mondale asked. "Fritz, when it happens, I'll let you know," said McGovern.

The pain can be intense. In his memoirs, Richard Nixon described his rather lonely life after losing the 1960 election to JFK. Nixon recalled heating up a TV dinner in a small apartment on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles and "eating it alone while reading a book or magazine." In 1977, journalist David Frost asked Nixon whether resigning the presidency was worse than death. "In some ways," Nixon replied, adding later in the interview, "and, to a certain extent, it still is."

Gerald Ford went to bed on election night in 1976 thinking he could still win and woke up to find out that he had lost. He disappeared, incommunicado, to Palm Springs, Calif., for eight days. "I don't think anybody took it harder than he did," recalled his former aide, Jim Cannon, to NEWSWEEK. After George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, he wrote in a memoir: "It's hard to describe the emotions of something like this … But it's hurt, hurt, hurt." In 2000, Al Gore grew a beard and went silent for weeks. "We were roadkill," recalled his wife, Tipper, to Vanity Fair.

The most forthright about the pain of loss may be Jimmy Carter. Just how blunt is revealed by Richard Fisher, who ran a losing campaign for the U.S. Senate from Texas against Kay Bailey Hutchinson in 1994. Shortly before the election, Carter came through Dallas and summoned Fisher, who is a friend. "You are going to lose," Carter announced. Fisher was a little taken aback and asked Carter why he was being so direct. "Because I want you and your family to be prepared: when you lose you will get depressed. I mean seriously depressed. Campaigning is like going to war. You put every ounce of your body and soul into it. If you lose, you feel lost." Fisher asked Carter if he had suffered depression. "I did," he replied. "As did Rosalynn." Fisher asked Carter if his faith had helped him get out of it. "Hell, no," Carter replied. "We were bankrupt. I had to get to work." (Fisher lost, got depressed and went back to work; he is now head of the Federal Reserve bank in Dallas.)

The first president to lose a re-election battle, John Adams, offers a lesson in coping. "It was a terrible trauma for him to be defeated in 1800 and go back to Massachusetts as a loser," says Beschloss. "But, once he got over the shock, he said, 'I have this wonderful marriage and I love my children and I love my farm and my books and my friends.' Because there were other things in his life, he was able to survive and prosper." Gore got back on his feet as the Paul Revere of climate change. Hillary seems more likely to stay in politics, to keep aiming for the White House. In her last weeks on the campaign trail, "she had a lot more fun, in a weird way," recalls an adviser who did not wish to be named describing the candidate behind the scenes. "She found herself. She was true to herself; she had much more fun; people responded to that. Although she was getting crapped on in the media and everyone was writing her off, it emboldened her, it evoked this amazing emotion." She may find that high again. But first, in all likelihood, will come the low.

With Karen Breslau, Sarah Kliff and Jessica Ramirez

© 2008