Word: losers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Humphrey sounded the proper note when he met Nixon in Florida two days after the election: "I'm going to want his presidency to be an effective presidency, because as he succeeds, we all succeed." Gracious words from the loser are almost obligatory, but others under less compulsion to be generous to the winner after a close campaign also indicated a readiness to withhold judgment. Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox, a loyal Wallace man, sent congratulations to "my President." So did George Meany, while Walter Reuther, Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Whitney Young Jr. expressed good wishes...
...post-election press conference to point out the error of Ferré's political ways. Luis Negrón López gave out a premature victory statement early on Election Night, when he was 15,000 votes ahead. When final returns showed him to be the loser by a margin of 390,000 to 367,000, Negrón sulked for four days before offering Ferré his congratulations...
...loser statements, in fact, are probably rationalizations, from the game tears showing through Adlai Stevenson's remarks after he lost the 1952 presidential race (see box) to the naked bitterness of Richard Nixon in 1962, when it seemed that his defeat for the California governorship marked the end of his public life. In politics as well as business, the most common rationalization is that the loser has refused to pay a "price" for winning. Henry Clay, who spent 20 years trying to occupy the White House, finally produced that famous sour grape: "I would rather be right than President...
...Loser statements are often superfluous as well as dangerous. Often the less said the better: losers who seek an audience court disbelief in their sincerity and should perhaps just carry on in private. As William Butler Yeats once...
...reticence is advisable, resilience is crucial. Losers should always focus not on what might have been but on what still can be. In both fiction and life, Ernest Hemingway displayed the good loser's grace under pressure and sheer joy in struggle. "I am a little beat up," he reported after a serious air crash in 1954, "but I assure you it is only temporary." Overall, he may have lacked the truly good loser's ability to anticipate defeat and keep alternate courses open...