How did Nixon win reelection?

[CatWoman]

Wasn't Nixon in a similar position as * prior to the end of his term?

I was not into politics or world events then, so I'd appreciate a little education.

[bryant69]

1. part of it was a succesful negative campaign

As I recall. Watergate hadn't happened yet--I think he had China under his belt. He had gotten us out of vietnam. Actually Nixon had some interesting ideas, but his paranoia kind of doomed him.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[TacticalPeek]

6. Watergate had happened, actually. Sirica and Ervin had not yet happened.

IIRC.

[bryant69]

22. Fair point

But the story hadn't broken yet, was my point. Or broken in wide enough circulation that people knew what was happening.

Except those who committed the crimes, I suppose. But I'm pretty sure they were going to vote for Nixon anyway.

[yardwork]

15. He had not gotten us out of Vietnam.

One reason Nixon lost was because McGovern was painted as a weak candidate. There was a lot of negative press about McGovern. His first VP choice had to step down when it was revealed (gasp) that the man had once been treated for depression.

Nixon was reelected with a lot of help from his dirty tricks campaign. And guess what - a lot of those exact same people are on Chimpy's side.

[0007]

29. Your 100% right

They smeared the living shit out of McGovern.

The Panda Bear thing from China was also a big lift. Especially at that time when China was considered to be a big threat. the Panda Bears were suppose to to taken as a peace offering. Nixon poll numbers went up.

[amazona]

2. oh you know ... hysteria

If McGovern got in, he was going to legalize marijuana and the withdrawal from South Vietnam might be disorderly or some such. It isn't like anyone even still hoped to win in Vietnam, it was just a lot of junk slogans about "Peace with Honor" but no substance behind it.

But mostly it was personal slams against McGovern and rumor-mongering IIRC.

[TacticalPeek]

3. Brilliant strategy. (Still echoing)

Ruthless execution. (Same)

[Jacobin]

4. He had a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war.

After he was elected, he escalated the fighting, and bombed Cambodia and Laos.

The country went bonkers (me included) and it was as close to civil war as I've ever seen in this country.

In other words, he was a lying fuck

[stevebreeze]

5. Nixon won going away

of course he stole it by setting up the democrats with dirty tricks. One of those was to charge on candidate of being a homosexual on the letter head of another democratic candidate.
Kick:

[DoBotherMe]

7. Dirty Tricks

crimes, lying. Segretti. Look it up.

DONALD SEGRETTI
Headed the "dirty tricks" campaign for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, which might have benefited from information the Watergate burglars were seeking at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Segretti served four and a half months in prison on three misdemeanor charges for dispensing false campaign literature. A lawyer, Segretti had his California license suspended for two years. Now 59, he practices in Orange County where he briefly ran for a judgeship but withdrew because of Watergate publicity.

BERNSTEIN: “You mean like when you sent out on Muskie’s stationery that Senator Hubert Humphrey was going out with call girls?"
SEGRETTI: "Listen, if anything, it helped his image."

[Mz Pip]

8. Nixon also had

a secret plan to end the war.

I do see similarities. Both Bush and Nixon had secretive administrations. Also the riots at the 68 Dem convention didn't help much. Middle America got scared that some Commie revolution was about to happen.

MzPip
:dem:

[librechik]

9. "Southern Strategy"

they appealed to Southern voter's racism to turn from Democrat into Republicans. The Liberals are into miscegenation and letting Coloreds into public life. Vote GOP!

Thanks, Kevin Phillips! Happy with your little brainchild nowadays?

[DancingBear]

10. He tied a patriotic tail to the SIlent Majority

and used the us vs. them strategy currently being employed by the Undertaker-In-Chief.

If you haven't yet, read "Worse Than Watergate" by John Dean.

The parallels will scare the hell out of you.

[indigobusiness]

11. Lots of quasi-nazis had voting priveleges

back then, too.

[RoyGBiv]

12. Nixon's Problems

The extent of Nixon's problems didn't surface until after his election. The Washington Post and to a lesser extent the New York Times were working on the Watergate story before the convention, but it didn't seem like a big deal to the public at the time.

Also, as was said, he was running a very effective negative campaign against his opponents that extended back to the primaries. As it turned out, this was the larger picture of which Watergate was a very small part. It's notable to realize that Karl Rove was a player in that campaign, and his performance is what brought him to the attention of the senior Bush.

It's more than a little disquieting to think about, actually. Supposedly, Nixon wanted to run against McGovern, but during the primaries, it didn't initially appear that McGovern would be the nominee. Then there were a lot of "dirty tricks" tactics leveled against Humphreys and Muskie, and sure enough, McGovern rose to the top. I don't mean this as a criticism of Kerry, because I firmly support him, but it makes me wonder a bit about the "Dean Scream."

[bobbieinok]

13. election of 72

The Watergate break-in occured during the campaign; supposedly they broke into the democratic party headquarters to get info on the party's plans, donors, etc.

There was a plan to use call-girls to entrap democratic politicians and convention goers at the Democratic convention. I think Liddy was involved in that.

There was the Campaign to Re-Elect the President (CREP pronounced by everyone as 'creep') The presidential advisors, aides, etc, who worked on this committee were supposed to quit their WH jobs. It was illegal for there to be an overlap.

The Atty Gen John Mitchell was involved in a lot of the shady activity. His wife Margaret blew the whistle several times; finally he claimed she was 'distraught' and there was an attempt to institutionalize her (I don't remember if it was successful.)

There was a lot of hanky-panky with campaign contributions, eventually leading to at least the suspicion of money-laundering through Mexico. Maurice Stans, secretary of the treasury (?) was involved in that.

There was a guy Danial Segretti who had a long history of pulling dirty tricks on democratic candidate campaigns for the republican party.


















w

[bobbieinok]

18. (additional info)

Eward Muskie was a strong democratic contender for the nominee; the republicans set him up with an attack on his wife in a RW newspaper in NH during the NH primary. He gave an emotional press conference defending her during which he cried. I think he was of Polish background; supposedly it was OK for Polish adult males to cry in public. In 72, that was a major no-no in American culture, so Muskie lost any chance of being the democratic nominee.

There are 2 major books about the campaign - Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and another The Boys on the Back of the Bus.

[bobbieinok]

23. (more info)

The 2nd is a true classic that everyone interested in politics should read and re-read.

TV news was still somewhat new. The book shows that the republicans had figured out the new media world and the democratic party didn't have a clue.

The republicans would issue statements, claims, etc, with just enuff time for the reporters travelling with them to get it into shape for the major nightly network broadcasts but with no time to fact-check the info or get democratic comments. So the networks broadcast the republican info 'as is' or were scooped.

Makes one think about how long the republicans have had their act together and have been manipulating the media and the public perception.

[DenverDem]

14. Like current publicans, lies and dirty tricks.

lucianne goldberg did some deep cover work in the McGovern campaign and found out Eagleton had been to a psychiatrist and blew that wide open so that McG had to replace him and the campaign never recovered. (yep, the same lucianne who set up the whole clenis entrapment scheme with linda tripp and monica. the same lucianne who spawnned the reprehensible jonah goldberg.)

much more dirty tricksterism and demagoguic prevaricating to whip up the sheeple into voting their fear. Didn't last long, though. By summer of 74 it was all over for Nixon after the CIA threw him under the bus.

[yardwork]

17. "after the CIA threw him under the bus." LOL!

Maybe the CIA will help us out again. What a world when we count on the CIA to bail us out.

[DenverDem]

24. Where do you think "Deep Throat" was from?

The CIA could have protected him, but instead made sure he was toast. Nixon was an outsider, not a bushlerco power elite lodge member.

[nefarious]

26. Nixon's CREEPs got a lot of mileage out of Eagleton

They made sure the word was out that the senator from Missouri had been receiving electric shock treatments for psychological disorders. Who would want McGovern if he selected a crazy man to be his closest advisor?

You beat me to it DenverDem. I love imagery, "the CIA threw him under the bus," especially ironic after the way Nixon passionately attempted to destroy Daniel Ellsberg for exposing them and the Military Industrial Complex with the release of the Pentagon Papers.

[ronnykmarshall]

28. I didn't know about Lucianne in 1972.

Wow! She's a scum now and was a scum then.

What a shame Whoopie has the same last name as that gutter snipe.

[izzie]

16. He did not seem as bad as he was.

We are seeing it all after all the stuff is known.

[opihimoimoi]

19. Ask Larry Sabato...DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS

[Elidor]

20. A supine media

It's funny how people think the media were a bunch of muckrakers back in Nixon's heyday. It's a myth. The media were just as cowed and craven and dependent for access as they are today. Coverage of the Nixon White House was largely uncritical and credulous. FAIR's Media Extra did a story on this a while back. I don't know if it's online.

It was left to hungry beat reporters working outside normal channels to start to uncover the story. (David Broder thought Watergate was a non-story and at one point voted to spike it.)

If there are modern-day counterparts to "Woodstein" they would be people like Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall, as well as a handful of advocacy groups like FAIR, and a few blogs.

But Nixon had the media cowed and most reporters back then did not have the courage, the - forgive me, Skittles - cojones to publicly criticize the administration. A supine and complicit media is absolutely essential for a criminal administration to ramrod their perverted agenda while keeping the populace in line. This is why I fervently believe that the Wolf Blitzers and Bob Woodwards of this world are even greater scum than the monsters they enable.

[whistle]

21. Nixon was bombing the crap out of North Vietnam....

...and told Americans he had a secret plan to end the war. CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) was covering up vast campaign abuses which became known as Watergate, and there were was a war chest of almost unlimited cash that the republicans had with no legal requirement or obligation to account for or tell anybody about. But mostly Nixon and company lied.

[BeatleBoot]

25. His October Surprise

was his "secret plan" to get us out of Viet Nam.

All I remember was my Dad just hissing at him every time he came on our new color TV.

Smart, my old man. Still is.

[ronnykmarshall]

27. A lot.

I was only 11 in 1972 and my parents were Repugs at the time, so it's hard to remember.

But by going from what I've gone back in read, it was a lot of things.

First off, Nixon's trips to China and the USSR helped him. The so called end of the war in Vietnam busted Mc Govern's main point in the campaign.

It didn't hurt that Mc Govern was painted as some out of touch hippie, liberal that would ruin 'murica.

The Democrats were VERY divided in 1972. The primary race was UGLY, thanks to the GOP. I have to say that I think Muskie or Humphrey would have been a better nominee than Mc Govern.

[immune2irony]

30. He ran against McGovern

Nixon also co-opted a lot of Democrats by embracing the Great Society, Civil Rights, and paying lip service to ending the war in Vietnam.

[KG]

31. because, the US was just as sick a nation then as it is now.

the level of denial among the populace seems to be about the same.

how anyone could look around them, see and understand what happening around them and to them, and still pull a lever for the chimp, is beyond bizaar.

[Octafish]

32. Nixon cheated, lied, stole and murdered his way to re-election.

The only diff between his ski-sloped nosey ass and the Chimperror is that today's traitor wasn't elected the first time.

Remember, Nixon extended a war by four years after he promised he wouldn't. The press went along with him. Only after the plane with Dorothy Hunt crashed in Chicago did the press turn against him. Sort of like what we have now.

[DieboldMustDie]

33. "Aug. 1972 The last U.S. combat troops leave Vietnam.

"Oct. 1972
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger announces “peace is at hand,” after he and North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho reach a tentative agreement on a cease-fire. South Vietnamese President Thieu rejects the agreement.

"Nov. 1972
Nixon wins reelection."

http://www.chipublib.org/003cpl/oboc/things/timeline.html

Of course we were still bombing the crap out of Viet Nam, Cambodia & Laos, but, sad to say, few American voters care very much about foreign casualties.