Reply #26: Nixon won 49 states [View All]

[Jane Eyre]

There was a popular bumper sticker at the time that said "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts." That was the only state not to fall in line behind Nixon in the 1972 election.

The difference really is that Nixon did get the votes needed to be elected, even got them in a landslide election. Watergate was about dirty politics and a direct effort to "fool the people." People felt angry that they were had, and they felt some anger towards themselves for voting for him.

Another big difference was the role of the media. Woodward and Bernstein became household names. They were big role models. Walter Cronkite was the most respected man in American. Enrollment in journalism schools jumped up. People had faith that the press would do their jobs.

And one more big difference was the composition of the Congress. Not only were the Democrats in control, but there were enough Republicans with ethics that they did what had to be done. Think John Dean, Barry Goldwater and Howard Baker. Senator Sam Ervin was my personal favorite, a slow-talking bible-quoting country lawyer and a Democrat from NC.

Nixon operated outside the Republican party establishment via his Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), so there was not the solid unified support for him among the party establishment to protect him. The religious right was in its infancy with Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority," so devout Southerners did not have the entrenched belief that God's Own Party could do no wrong. Many religious types that I knew in NC were happy to vote for Jimmy Carter because he was a good Christian and Nixon had done bad things. Carter may have been the last Democrat that they voted for.