Matthews, moments ago:
George W. Bush won the presidency by a big popular vote victory by modern standards in 2004!
Yeah? Let's go to the tape:
1988: George H.W Bush wins by 7,077,121 votes.
1992: Bill Clinton wins by 5,805,256 votes.
1996: Bill Clinton wins by 8,201,370 votes.
2000: George W. Bush wins by negative 543,816 votes.
2004: George W. Bush wins by 3,012,499 votes.
So Bush racked up only the second lowest popular vote win of the past five elections. But that's okay: we can't expect Matthews to know everything. And a general understanding of how recent elections compare to each other is the sort of meaningless trivia a professional pundit shouldn't have to bother with.
