General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Party Loyalty [View all]MFrohike
(1,980 posts)I don't have two walls of text in me this weekend, so I'm going to respond quickly.
1. The comparison of Flowers and Stevenson was to point out the silliness of harping on the ADA. If that rally had any effect on the election at all, I'm not aware of it.
2. The Stevenson rally is mentioned in histories of the election, but I've not seen it referenced when it comes to analyzing the outcome of it.
3. The south didn't break because a stupid freshman GOP congressman had his rabid followers attack LBJ and Lady Bird in the Adolphus Hotel. The entire incident was on TV and was reported widely in the south. LBJ figured it helped them win Texas and several other southern states. That's quite important because, but for that stupidity, the south, the bastion of the Democratic right, was going to break in 1960.
4. I understood you fine on Dewey and I didn't quote you. You pointed out that Dewey's people stayed home. If that's the biggest reason for Truman's win, then why harp on Wallace? I pointed out the states where you could conceivably claim he cost Truman electoral votes and only one of the two is likely to be a strong argument (Maryland, not NY). Given that Truman won without NY's electoral votes, most in the country at that point I think, while fending off a challenge from the right wing of the Democratic party that did win electoral votes, I have to wonder why you bother with Wallace. He didn't matter.
5. Al Smith was hamstrung by right-wing Democratic pastors who told their congregations not to vote for him. Yes, he did carry the south. The south is not the only place with a history of extremely influential churchmen. The south didn't break because it didn't threaten the elites. The midwest and the northeast did.
6. Electoral votes matter for the process. The popular vote matters for legitimacy. If it doesn't matter, then I'd say Democrats shouldn't be bringing up 2000 and the popular vote total.
7. Texas went for Ike because Stevenson agreed with the Supreme Court's decision that the offshore oil and gas belonged to the federal government, not the states where it was located. There were other reasons to be sure, especially with the margins, but that was the issue that broke the Democratic leadership for Ike.
8. Connally's support for Nixon in 72 and beyond is well-documented. The allegation that he supported him in 68 is not conspiratorial nonsense. Connally had been pushing to the right for years, partly because it was his natural bent and partly to get from under Johnson's shadow. Johnson brought him to DC in the late 30s to be part of Richard Kleberg's staff. Johnson is the guy who introduced him to Sid Richardson, who would make him wealthy and introduce him to the radical right. With that kind of history, there was no way in hell Connally would do anything but endorse LBJ's guy publicly in 68. I'd note that LBJ endorsed McGovern in 72, but in a very weak way (he wrote a letter to a local paper). LBJ thus did endorse McGovern, but not in any kind of substantive way that might help him. I note that to show that a public endorsement is no guarantee that a person actually means what they say.
9. Goldwater took 5 southern states because southern Democrats voted for him.
10. Reagan re-broke the south because southern Democrats voted for him. To be fair, a lot of Democrats voted for Reagan. It's kind of hard to take 43 states in one election, then 49 in the next and not have Democrats voting for you.
11. Daddy Bush dominated the south because southern Democrats voted for him.
12. George Wallace indeed did not run as a Democrat in 1968. He sure did siphon a ton of right-wing Democratic votes, though.
13. There's more, but I do want to this quickly, so I'll end with Nader. The issue of Florida is a sore one after all these years, as we can see pretty much daily on DU. The fact that one writer for National Journal assumes that Nader cost Gore Florida is cool and all, but it's dispositive of nothing. The assumption is that if Nader did not run, that all of those votes would have gone to Gore. There's no equivalent assumption regarding the Democrats who voted for Bush. What if McCain had won the nomination, rather than Bush? Would those 200k have voted for him? You might regard that as a silly line of inquiry, but it's no less silly than your source's writing off of those 200k voters and instead only focusing on the 100k who voted for Nader. Let's be honest, votes in a given election are fungible. There's no way to differentiate on a macro level between a vote cast in Miami and one cast in Jacksonville. So why all the focus on one particular group and the resulting judgment without an equivalent examination of the other large defecting group? It makes one wonder whether the analysis was written after the conclusion was reached.*
Sorry if I missed some stuff, but it's late. Thanks.
*People on this board are apt to assume to you support a given person if you don't rant and rave, scream and curse about them. I have no love for Ralph Nader and never really have. Sure, he did some good work way back when, but that doesn't mean I have to be a fan. I personally view 2000 as a confluence of a gullible electorate and a badly run campaign, capped off with a routine overstepping of the court's boundaries. I am amazed, though, at the venom directed at those who voted for Nader when twice as many voted for Bush. I would understand being pissed at both groups of people, I would understand being pissed at the people who voted for the guy with a chance to win, but I don't get solely being pissed at the people who voted for the least inspiring candidate of that election (which is saying a lot). It smacks of hypocrisy.