Nixon vs the Zeitgeist

...Better than even, it is generally agreed, because the President has history, the polls and the Democrats behind him History suggests that, m the cyclical rotation of politics, it is about time for the uneasy coalition of the New Deal to yield to the easy consensus of Middle America In this new era, Nixon should be the beneficiary of the voters' two-term habit ("one good term deserves another") What is more, the national polls report that he is as strong at the opening of 1972 as he was at the end of 1968, if not stronger, and the Democrats are fragmented with far more rival White House aspirants than they had at this fame four years ago Nixon also has the power through the Presidency to project images inexpensively and, through a well-oiled campaign machine, to reinforce those projections expensively So things are moving along for Poor Richard That is the conventional wisdom Yet contrary to common mythology, very few Presidents have been elected for and served out two full consecutive terms In fact, there have been exactly nine such men, of whom five occupied the Chief Executive's post in the years before 1836 Since then, the only genuine two-termers have been Grant, Wilson, FDR, and Eisenhower All the others were denied a full repeat performance either by the electorate or by death On the basis of the record after 1836, the odds must be figured at seven-to-one against a President being reelected and completing a full second term The key question, therefore, is whether Nixon has the turn of the wheel—the great political cycle?going for him in his attempt to beat the odds Again, if the past has any relevance to the future, one would have to say that is extremely doubtful The wheel turns very slowly In the 172 years since the adoption of the Constitution, the basic party commitment of the American electorate has changed only twice in 1860 and in 1932 The period 1800-60 was Democratic (originally Democratic-Republican), 1860-1932 was Republican, 1932 to date, Democratic once more The exceptions merely prove the rule For instance, m 1800-60, only two Whig Presidential candidates defeated the party of Jefferson and Jackson Harrison in 1840 and Tyler in 1848 Even if one counts John Qumcy Adams as a "Whig" in Democratic clothing the dominant party ot the time sat in the White House tor 48 years out of 60 In the period 1860-1932, there were only two Democratic Presidents Cleveland and Wilson, with Cleveland a minority President twice and Wilson once Republicans occupied the White House for 60 of those 72 years From 1932 to the present, there have been only two Republican Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon The Chief Executive has been a Democrat for 70 per cent of the past four decades And I think the slow-turning wheel of party fortune still points to cratic than the electorate as a whole At the moment the young are registering better than two-to-one Democratic For the first time, the class listed as professional"—reasonably educated and affluent—has switched its allegiance from Republican to Democratic Indeed, it is generally conceded that Nixon did not win m 1968, the Democrats lost Disunion proved disaster The nature of that Democratic disunion, however, is often misread—especially m more intellectual circles, where it is asthe Democrats Consider the following evidence ?In the six congressional elections that took place during the eight years of Eisenhower and the four years of Nixon, the Republicans have been able to wm control of Congress only once (1952) Otherwise, the Democrats have maintained virtually unthreatened superiority in both houses ?This Democratic control of the Federal legislature faithfully reflects the basic party (as distinct from personal) attachment of the electorate Today, 47 per cent of the voters identify themselves as Democrats, while only 30 per cent call themselves Republicans ?The new vote?8-20-year-olds —is even more markedly Demosumed that Hubert Humphrey was defeated because of the division over Vietnam There is, of course, reason for that belief Many of the passionate doves did not get into the Humphrey campaign until it was too late, if at all, some insisted there really was no difference between him and Nixon Surely the noting m Chicago—the ugliest and most visible exhibition of Democratic dissension ?lost countless votes for Humphrey Yet despite all this, on Election Day 1968 the states of the Northeast, where peace sentiment was strongest and most articulate, went for the Democratic candidate handsomely Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and—yes—New York (No doubt some of the lost states —New Jersey, Illinois and California —might have been won by a united Democratic party But even if Humphrey had carried all three of those populous states—which would have been a remarkable feat, since JFK lost California eight years before and his narrow victory m Illinois was highly suspect—he would just barely have mustered the necessary electoral count) More damaging for the Democrats in 1968—and possibly '72?than the flap between doves and hawks was the separation of North and South from a marriage consummated by Jefferson and Burr 175 years ago This defection of Dixie in '68 is consistently underrated in liberal punditry because so many Northern intellectuals look upon the South as either numerically unimportant or morally unworthy of serious attention Uncertain though its morality may be, its arithmetic is not In 1968, the South represented 22 per cent of the electorate (the East, 31, Midwest, 31, West, only 16) The percentage will be almost unchanged m 1972, with the East losing a point that is picked up by the West The full significance of the Southern defection in '68 becomes apparent when Humphrey's performance is read alongside Kennedy's JFK carried 23 states to win 301 electoral college votes—a mere 31 above a majority Of these 23 states, seven were Southern he got 9 of Alabama's 15 electoral votes, Arkansas' 8, Georgia's 12, Louisiana's 10, South Carolina's 8, North Carolina's 14, and Texas' 24 The total Southern count was 85 electoral votes?nearly one third of Kennedy's needed 270 In addition, JFK earned a couple of Southern satellites like Missouri and New Mexico In 1968, Humphrey lost all of these states except Texas—not on the war issue but because of LBJ's liberal record on race Outside the South and its satellites, JFK carried only four states that were not carried by Humphrey New Jersey, with 16 electoral votes, Nevada, with 3, Delaware, with 3, and Illinois, with 27 But to balance some of these losses, Humphrey earned two Northern states that JFK had lost Washington and Maine The only big difference in the electoral count of JFK and HHH outside the Southern orbit was Illinois, which Nixon confidants still insist was won by the Republicans in 1960 (before the official count) as well as in 1968 Thanks to the double Democratic division, Nixon was elected President as a minority party candidate without a majority of the popular vote?43 4 per cent, to be exact As head of his party, his work was cut out tor him if he wished to make the GOP a majority party once again, or failing that, to get himself reelected with a majonty vote The thing to do was to exploit the Democrats' double split (1) deescalate the war m Vietnam, or at least appear to be doing so, (2) win the South and with it all those Middle Americans who were discomfited by the mounting social disorder of the '60s In the effort, the President has had the considerable advantages of public power, private funds, manipulative know-how, and Democratic disarray But he also has to combat the Zeitgeist It takes more than tools and talent to turn the great wheel of political fortune, the gods have to be with you—and so far, it seems, they are letting Nixon wing it on his own Five score and eight years before Nixon was elected, another Republican entered the White House as a minority candidate of a minority party Abraham Lincoln was elected with only 39 8 per cent of the vote in a four-way contest Nevertheless, this man with his uncertain popularity turned a brand new party into the Grand Old Party that reigned over the country for three generations Why can't Richard Nixon be another Honest Abe7 Because, apparently, the gods just won't have it so Lincoln didn't start the Civil War, but he won it He did not set out to liberate the slaves, but he did It was never his intention to take Federal power away from the plantation aristocracy and turn it over to a bourgeois plutocracy, but that's what happened As unplanned by-products of his un-conmving years in office, Lincoln created a new nation—and, consequently, a party that subsumed the new relationship of forces Behind the GOP stood the new masters of finance, trade and manufacture, the fanners who won a bloodless peasant revolution through the Homestead Act, the newly emancipated Negroes, the abolitionists, the patriots who loved the Union, and the Grand Army of the Republic, the GAR that became the machine of the GOP at the precmct level All this happened not because Lincoln plotted it so but because the times made it so The political wheel took another turn in the 1930s when FDR was in the White House Out of the profound trauma of the Great Depression—as out of the Civil War?issued a new nation containing new classes with a sense of collective presence and a will for collective power Hence, a Democratic coalition that was more a happenmg than a plan emerged to compose a majority party that has dominated American politics for 40 years Nixon's slipping into the White House, though, was not marked by the kind of dynamisms that remake people and reshape nations True, Vietnam was a heartache to millions, but in terms of personal experiences it was not at all comparable with either the Civil War or the Depression Nor has Nixon's response to the Vietnam challenge been as dramatic or decisive as Lincoln's response to secession or Roosevelt's response to economic rum The attempt to gain a new mass base for his party has not been as easy for Nixon as it was for Lincoln and FDR, the Middle American constituency is far more elusive m life than in literature Unless the President can find some vast new class owing its prime allegiance to the GOP, both he and the party face an uncertain future Nixon would appear to be the current analogue for Grover Cleveland, the head of the Democratic party in 1884-96 Cleveland ran for President three times, was elected on the first and third tries, always got more votes than his opponent, but nevei won a majority He was a Democrat who slithered into the White House in a Republican era His party controlled Congress for only two of those 12 years Still, there is no denying that the gods frequently work in strange ways Nixon could be the new Franklin Delano Roosevelt—the beginning of an era The outcome in 1972 will not simply tell us something about who will be in the White House when the Bicentennial rolls around, it will also reveal the fundamental direction of American politics for the next generation or more...