Nixon, McGovern and A Chance to Win

I met Richard Nixon once.  I was at the Western States Young Republicans’ Convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico my freshman year of college.  A group of us had driven down from Colorado State College in Greeley, Colorado to the convention.  It was a good time.  The dynamic Barry Goldwater (fresh from his Presidential drubbing) was the keynote speaker, but the person I remember most is Richard Nixon.  Even knowing everything I do now about all the demons this man fought and gave in to, I can say that he was warm and charming in person.  I was with the group introducing him and as we waited off stage he was chatty and gracious.  He was, frankly, good at the things Presidents are good at: he could make you feel as if you were part of his inner circle just by making eye contact.  There was no doubt that Nixon “had” each of us when he regrouped, reinvented and ran for office again. 

            My very first Presidential vote was cast in 1968 for Richard Nixon.  Then came Watergate and I realized that my vote had been cast for a man who did the one thing I don’t accept from anyone, he screwed with my Constitution.  I voted for George S. McGovern in 1972.  Actually I didn’t vote for McGovern so much as I voted against Nixon.  I knew the vote was wasted as far as electability went, but I thought there was a point to be made.  There is a moral to this story. 

            The Democrats had a chance to win that election.  I wasn’t the only person who thought Nixon (a talented and successful President) had irrevocably lost his right to rule by breaking the laws he had vowed to uphold and defend.  There were more viable candidates than McGovern, none of whom stood a chance because the party had been taken over by the radical activists who took over the streets of Chicago in 1968.  These zealots wanted free love, legal drugs and an exit at any costs from Viet Nam.  The Democrats lost in 1968 and repeated the same mistakes in 1972.  They had hot heads with a set of principles they loftily placed above winning, as if being a righteous loser would get anything accomplished.  Politics gives absolutely no power to losers.  But the Democrats didn’t care, and they didn’t win. 

            I am very worried about the Republican Party making the same mistake in 2012.  The best gift we can give the opposition is a candidate who will be rejected by the vital center of the electorate.  In the poem, The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats, there is a line, “…Things fall apart; the center can not hold…” This is a plain political fact.  We need to win this election and the media and the Democrats are hoping we choose a McGovern.  They want baggage; they want vulnerability; they want someone who they can use to alienate the vast majority of center line voters.  William F. Buckley used to say that he would always vote for the most conservative candidate who could win.  Win!  I’m hoping for a Presidential victory in 2012.  I recognize that legislation comes from Congress, but leadership comes from the Oval Office, and I want a Republican in that post. 

            There are ideologically pure Republicans out there who can’t win.  I applaud their thinking, but they will not have my vote.  I do, desperately, want to keep them in Congress, however.  Our new President is going to need good lawmakers helping him out. 

            Choose wisely grasshopper, and keep the faith.

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