McCain Redux - Other Really Bad Weeks

The question has been asked several times:

Has anyone running for President had a worse political week than John McCain?

Possibly not.  But the contenders are in extended.

The point:  every one of these candidates went on to lose... badly.

Who has had a worse political week than John McCain?

Contender No. 1:  George McGovern, August 1972

From Wikipedia:

Just over two weeks after his nomination, it was revealed that McGovern's running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had received electroshock therapy for depression during the 1960s. Though many people still supported Eagleton's candidacy, an increasing number of influential politicians and columnists questioned his ability to handle the office of Vice President. The resulting negative attention prompted McGovern to accept Eagleton's offer to withdraw from the ticket, replacing him with United States Ambassador to France (and brother in-law of John F. Kennedy) Sargent Shriver. This occurred after McGovern had stated publicly he was still "... behind Eagleton 1000 percent"; reneging on that statement a few days later made McGovern look indecisive. The Eagleton controversy also put the McGovern campaign off message and was speculated at the time to perhaps be a harbinger of what would become McGovern's subsequent landslide loss.

To add insult to injury... prior to the convention, the Prince of Darkness himself reported that a leading Democratic Senator had said that McGovern was for "amnesty, abortion and acid":

After McGovern had won the Massachusetts primary on April 25, 1972, journalist Robert Novak phoned Democratic politicians around the country, who agreed with his assessment that blue-collar workers voting for McGovern did not understand what he really stood for.[14] On April 27, Novak reported in a column that an unnamed Democratic senator had talked to him about McGovern.[15] "The people don’t know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion and legalization of pot," the Senator said.[15] "Once middle America - Catholic middle America, in particular - finds this out, he’s dead."[15] The label stuck and McGovern became known as the candidate of "amnesty, abortion and acid."[14][16]

The "leading Democrat" who gave Novak the quote?

On July 15, 2007, after Eagleton's death, Novak disclosed on Meet the Press that the unnamed senator was Thomas Eagleton.[14] Political analyst Bob Shrum says that Eagleton would never have been selected as McGovern's running mate if it had been known at the time that Eagleton was the source of the quote.

Contender No. 2:  Barry Goldwater

All those nutty comments come back to haunt Barry Goldwater:

Before the 1964 election, the muckraking magazine Fact, published by Ralph Ginzburg, ran a special issue entitled ‘The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater.’ The two main articles contended that Goldwater was mentally unfit to be president. The magazine attempted to support this claim with the results of an unscientific poll of psychiatrists it had conducted. Fact had mailed questionnaires to 12,356 psychiatrists, and published a ‘sampling’ of the comments made by the 2,417 psychiatrists who responded, of which 1,189 said Goldwater was unfit to be president.

Contender No. 3:  Walter Mondale
After promising to raise everyone's taxes, Mondale was still not doing badly when he shocked Reagan in the first debate, garnering even a positive comment from National Review:

Forensically, Walter Mondale turned in one of the better performances of his career. He looked like Frankenstein's monster and his voice could have unblocked a sink. But, aside from the handicaps that God gave him, he was terse, pointed, and aggressive without being disrespectful. Even a joke or two filtered through. Reagan made none of the dreaded gaffes, which may have been his problem: He kept recurring defensively to points — minutes and minutes on Social Security, for instance — in a manner that suggested overcoaching. Something certainly threw him off his stride; he rambled, stalled, and huffed nervously throughout the first half of the debate.

Had Reagan turned in another performance like that, bringing up Reagan's age and his ability to fully execute his duties, its likely Mondale would still stand a chance...

However, in the next debate on October 21, 1984, Reagan effectively neutralized the issue by quipping, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

Mondale said that when Reagan made that comment and the crowd burst into laughter, he knew the election was over.

You decide:  who has had the worst week ever - take the poll!