In the fall of 1984, when President Ronald Reagan was on a triumphal march to re-election and Southern Democrats feared devastating losses across their region, Victor Ashe, a Republican candidate for Senate in Tennessee, was stalled and frustrated in his campaign against Al Gore Jr.
Here he was at the end of 2019, three years in the Oval Office, with approval ratings that Ronald Reagan might have killed for – and an interview on the country's most-watched television talk show to launch what would surely be a triumphal march to re-election the following November.
His face is plastered across Athens and Alexis Tsipras, former Prime Minister and leader of Syriza, took to the stage in Syntagma Square, in the heart of the capital, to cap his election campaign with a triumphal rally.
No one who saw him on the balcony on his election as Pope giving the triumphal gesture of a footballer who'd just scored a goal could doubt he wanted the job.
Remember, Karl Rove almost blew the 2000 election by wasting time on a triumphal tour — and Al Gore would have been elected with ease if it weren't for hanging chads, felon purges, and a partisan Supreme Court.
His election in 1978, followed by his triumphal return to his homeland the following year, undoubtedly galvanised Poles and provided inspiration for the Solidarity movement that rocked the Polish communist regime during 1980-81.
Civil rights groups attribute the proliferation of the Nazi symbol to the triumphal mood of white nationalists who had supported president-elect Donald J. Trump in the Nov. 8 election.
He noted that the electoral debacle of 2014 had come six years to the day after his triumphal appearance in Chicago's Grant Park to celebrate his 2008 election on a platform of hope and change.
As against all that triumphal applause, note also that even if the Conservatives "win" the next election, they will get no more than the support of around a quarter of the electorate: some mandate.
