Has a candidate ever won the nomination, saw that he was losing, and.....

[patricia92243]

decided to step down and let somebody else be the nominee?

I'm not talking about dying or something like that.

[Fovea]

1. Not a nominated candidate,

but Lyndon Johnson comes close.

[stopthegop]

2. Toricelli did it in New Jersey in 2002.

not national though

[w4rma]

3. Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri stepped down from the McGovern/Eagleton

ticket after it was revealed he'd undergone electroshock therapy
for depression.

[rucky]

4. The comparison you want to make is Gary Hart

n/t

[krkaufman]

5. Clark as the nominee in a brokered convention.... Yeah!! n/t

[mikehiggins]

6. No.

There have been candidates who have withdrawn because of scandal or health but nobody running for President EVER believes they are losing until the last vote is counted, whether by the states or the Supreme Court.

Kerry, for example, will not withdraw even if they produce pictures of him in bed with Paris Hilton and Prince.

You don't get to be a nominee for President if you don't have balls, even if you're a woman. Kerry would tough it out to the end, no matter what.

[bhunt70]

7. Hot.

[PATRICK]

8. Interesting

There have been nominees who were put on notice at the convention that their cause was doomed. Goldwater even asked what in blazes he was even running for then. Mondale knew though he took a fair shot demolishing a fumbling Reagan in the first debate(was told then that was not enough either). In the second debate it looked like someone had switched makeup kits and gutshot Mondale.

The trouble usually is the other candidates would not have fared much better and the chaos would have spread down the line to local races. Most candidate fields have not been as strong with viable options as this one, with a few candidates not exactly given a chance to be dumped by the electorate. The Dems this time would find it easier to field an emergency candidate if the the top guy was felled physically. The GOP has the real problem. No one has been allowed to come up for air and the bitter factionalism that would ensue would be worse than among their rivals. A good candidate would be no shill and a shill would sink them worse than Bush who still has his idiot fans.

However this whole question is framed in the atmosphere of a total loss of nerve and common sense over the latest Rove Drudge gambit- a pretty dumb and desperate ineffectual one at that except for how it has tested nerves in places like this.

[goodhue]

9. Grunseth for MN gov in 1990

had to withdraw at last moment because of swimming nude with teenage girls & other likely infidelities. Repukes quickly got Carlson on the ballot and he won in what was a very bizzare election year in MN. Same election that Wellstone beat incumbent Boschwitz.

[mountainvue]

10. Gary Hart?

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. Yes

Bob Torricelli did it in a Senate campaign in 2002.