[lbo-talk] Profiles In Spinelessness

[Dennis Perrin]

> CB wrote:
>
> > CB: They reorganized pretty fast , since they won the presidential
> > election
> > in '68.
>
> I don't think that that was the real point at which the GOP showed new
> strength (except in its nascent Southern strategy). Remember that a lot
> of the swing vote was afraid of the growing strength of the left
> (especially after the Chicago unpleasantness of the Democratic
> convention), Humphrey was not a strong candidate (and alienated most of
> the left wing of his own party), and a lot of the voting public bought
> Nixon's line that he had a "secret plan" to end the war. So I think that
> 1968 was an exceptional year. After Tricky Dick had to resign in
> disgrace, the GOP didn't get back to the White House until Reagan in
> 1980 (again, against a very unpopular Democratic candidate), and it was
> really during Reagan's reign that the Republicans consolidated their
> power. So the Republican come-back took 16 years, from '64 to '80


> Jon Johanning

Remember also that during the Miami Repub convention in '68, Reagan was
first trotted out as a possible challenger to Nixon (though he'd been
California Governor barely two years). The New Rich of the Southwest were
already backing that horse, and were essentially told that then was not the
time. They were told again in '76, when Reagan challenged Ford in the
primaries. So yes, it did take some 16 years (actually, 20, if you factor in
the organizing after Nixon's loss to JFK in '60). But then it was all undone
by a combo of Gorbachev, perestroika, glasnost, Nancy's opposition to Donald
Regan and her attachment to astrology. Recall Howard Phillips's slam of
Reagan -- that he was an "unwitting dupe of Soviet propaganda."

DP