john's thoughts

reflections on art and life, society etc

  • The Ghosts of Movies Past–The Uninvited

    I originally thought of this title for a series about old films some time ago and I guess the title came to me by way of memories of “A Christmas Carol.” But I waited long enough to begin, that it now fits the season of Halloween. By “ghosts” here, I mean mostly the former, the lingering effect of films, both in the minds of individuals and in the rather ephemeral but I think important national subconscious-at least the subconscious of movie fans. So I begin with two kinds of ghosts to talk about, the effect of a movie and the subject of the movie itself.

    “The Uninvited(1944), is, technically, an American film but it sure seems like a British one. Set in Cornwall in the spring-summer of 1937, it concerns a brother and sister(Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey)who, while on vacation, discover a large, long deserted house and become determined to buy it. He is a London music critic and composer and she is, apparently, independently well to do. They pool their resources and succeed in getting the house, purchasing it from the owner, a crusty old carryover from Victorianism(Donald Crisp), and also come into contact with his overprotected and somewhat intimidated granddaughter, Stella(Gail Russell).

    The film, like most at the time, and fortunately, I think, in this case, is in black and white. It begins with a wide-vision shot of the sea and the audience gets to see white caps as the waters come ashore on the rocks. They also get to hear the sound of this. Meanwhile, they hear Milland doing a voice-over regarding the coasts of lands that border this part of the sea and their propensity for providing a background for ghostly events. This all sets the scene nicely and puts the viewer in an agreeable tingly mood.

    I will not go into the film in great detail here, but you need to know a little of what happens. The granddaughter, much against her Grandfather’s wishes, makes friends, barely, with the two Londoners. She and Milland seem to have a quick, closeness between them, and the stage seems set for romance, particularly when Milland writes her a song. But instead there is uncertainty and fear(“Stella By Starlight” became a jazz/Great American Songbook hit–you still might hear Miles Davis’s and other versions of it on Sirius “Real Jazz”)

    On the first night brother and sister are together in their new home, Milland hears the sound of a woman sobbing. His sister explains that during the weeks he was cleaning up details in London and she was civilizing the house, she heard this several times, and no, it’s not Lizzie, the housekeeper, whose cat behaved oddly and refused to go upstairs. “It comes from everywhere and nowhere,” she says. Yes, indeed.

    Without going into revealing details, I will merely say that this is the beginning of a tense and compelling ghost story that does not terrify you with nut cases running around with chainsaws, but may make your hair re-arrange itself a couple of times and send through you a couple of chills, so you feel as if you had just come inside on a cold winter day. Questions are asked and not, immediately, anyway, answered. The history of the house is studied and eventually, after quite a bit of tension and suspense, there are a number of ghostly manifestations(along with some explanations, too).

    If you check this out on-line you will find many people praising it. But some regard it as weak stuff, nothing like today’s “shock” films with noise, blood and violence. This is, in my opinion, a good thing. This movie is not about physical violence. It is about subtle, spiritual and psychological haunting and the different but still chilling fear it can bring. It is way more sophisticated than the gross chop ’em to bits type. It is by far my favorite supernatural film–“The Haunting” from the 1960’s would be second, but for all its qualities it is not equal to this.

    Part of the reason for this film’s excellence is found in the efforts of the director, Lewis Miller. Every scene seems to fit, to be an integral part of the story. The appearance and atmosphere of the house are allowed to play a significant role, but one you see or sense in the background, just part of the scenery of chills. When the manifestations do appear, they are not clear–they are foggy and indistinct, like something from a dream or a surrealist artist, as if telling us that this is not just a matter of other people, it’s other people from outside our reality, but real and perhaps threatening all the same.

    Given the movie’s age you might expect to creak a little bit–and it does, but only slightly. Some of the romance is a bit contrived and the attempts at humor are clearly several decades behind the curve. But these count little, they are a small part of the overall story, maybe 5% or less of the movie. And there is the brief presence of the elegant and unusual Cornelia Otis Skinner who in a very busy life acted a little bit and maybe should have more. Her teacher/counsellor is a combination of authoritarianism and doubtful sanity that you won’t forget.

    This is not a movie for people who want to be “shocked” by violence and mayhem and screaming. It is about the mystery and spookiness of encountering the supernatural and trying to figure it out, and being both afraid on one hand and anxious to learn on the other. It’s a film for people who like mystery in the most serious and meaningful sense of the term, the kind that sneaks up on you after midnight, and spooks your mind and soul rather than threatening your body. In an era where so many movies have the grossest violence with almost no subtlety at all, it is a reminder of civilized behavior and presumes it can exist among both those of flesh and blood and the wandering spirits. Try it, you might really like it.

    (Other than the common title, this film has nothing to do with the one made in the late 2000’s, maybe 2009 or thereabouts. I watched about 20 or 25 minutes of it once which was enough to determine that 1) The stories are not connected and 2) I was wasting my time)

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  • The Hays Office, the movies and the censorship issue-Part 1

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    The first thing is to discuss the word “censorship.” What does it mean? We all know it has to do with the suppression of ideas, pictures, writing, etc. We all know that some people are concerned by too much censorship restricting what the public may write, read, see, etc. Others think there should be more to protect society from negative influences After a bit of thought and research I want to start with these main points.

    Censorship does not necessarily mean government control. There are other kinds of censorship, too–economic, institutional, social, moral etc. But government censorship is at least potentially the most powerful because it carries the threat of legal sanctions with it. Also, there is the question of what is being censored–views, language, arguments,? I would argue(as one who usually opposes censorship) that the worst kind is ideological censorship because it effectively prevents ideas from circulation. I also think that government ideological censorship, in other words the government having the right to dictate thought and belief, is the most dangerous kind of censorship to freedom and a free society.

    Another question is in some ways the most important. If there is to be censorship, who gets to do it? This is why I find it difficult, in more cases than not, to accept censorship as part of our society. Whom should we trust that much? Should there be boards of censors with competing views? If so, who gets to pick the board? The issues sometimes seem endless.

    I raise these questions to show how difficult this issue might become. I do not intend to settle them finally, or maybe at all. Possibly there will be a hint here and there–or the opportunity to draw a conclusion

    My main concentration here, however, is much more narrow. I wish to write about movies and the American past and particularly the influence of something you may have heard of called, informally, the Hays Office. Though a private rather than a public(government)office it had great influence over what appeared on US movie screens for more than a generation, from the mid 1930’s to about the middle or late 1960’s, though its power was declining in its later years for a number of reasons that may be suggested later.

    The process of filming things is dateable to the late 19th century and seems to have begun with a pair of French brothers, ironically named Lumiere.(light?) The knowledge seems to have spread around the globe rather quickly and by the end of the 19th century or at least the early 20th, movie industries were emerging in different places. The American movie industry, which eventually settled in Hollywood, and stayed there for at least half a century, was one of the earlier but not first in everything.

    By World War I the American film industry was on its way to becoming a serious economic influence. It provided employment, entertainment and a fair amount of money for the Gross National Product. But it was not until after the war, in the 1920’s that things in Hollywood really took off. It became a “fast town” in many ways, reportedly full of wild parties and wilder movie stars. The content of the movies in the 20’s was somewhat wild too.

    I do not care for silent films a lot(Exception-“The Big Parade”-WWI story) and haven’t seen too many but by all accounts they exhibited a lot of behavior, particularly regarding sex, drinking and overall raunchiness that seriously bothered a number of people around the country. This was true in all areas of the US and certain states and cities began to set up their own censorship rules. Films exhibiting certain things were not allowed to be shown in specific cities or states. Of course this varied widely from state to state and within states, so there was little consistency and motion picture companies were in a bit of a bind. The wanted some regularity and they wanted as little interference as possible,. They feared more and more local/state censorship and certainly did not want the US government to get involved.

    The only role the feds had played up to the middle ’20’s was that in 1915, by unanimous vote, the Supreme Court ruled in “Mutual Film Corporation v Industrial Commission of Ohio” that the constitutional guarantee of free speech did NOT extend to the movies. That was why the censorship boards had appeared–could appear– in the first place.

    By the middle or late twenties there was a feeling that the old ways were going out of style(true in a number of cases)and being replaced by no standards or bad ones(arguable-endlessly arguable to both sides, or however many sides there were). Politics seemed to have gone downhill. There were gangsters and gang influence almost everywhere(likely not quite as widespread as the popular imagination had it, but definitely there). The movies seemed to be a part of this and now it became known that the corruption extended even to baseball, when it was revealed that the 1919 Chicago White Sox, or rather some of them, had taken money to “throw” the World Series. This was the infamous Black Sox Scandal which I am calling by its real(then used)name and risking not being politically correct. A bit more on this in a moment.

    Movie companies feared federal intervention as noted above, and by the mid-1920’s the feeling was becoming entrenched that “Hollywood” ought to police itself and thereby forestall having the government do it. So, enter on the scene Will H Hays, a Presbyterian “elder”(this meant he took part in running the church-Presbyterians are governed by elders rather than by bishops from above–Episcopalians–or the Congregations from below–Congregationalists, now UCC). He was also a one time campaign manager for Warren Harding and had served as US Postmaster General and as chairman of the Republican National Committee(so he likely had a certain mental orientation. but that is possibly not very relevant here)

    Some people pointed out that this was similar to the sports world. If you are a baseball fan you may recognize the name Kenesaw Mountain Landis(I guess you’d have to be spectacular with that kind of name). A retired federal judge, he had become the first Commissioner of Baseball after the Black Sox mess and was determined to rid the game of corruption–he ruled with an iron hand and stood for no nonsense from players or owners. Hays was similar in that he was a man with experience in government now coming to the rescue of some kind of private enterprise. I doubt that he had the power, character or sense of Judge Landis, but he was there.(Some thought Landis extreme, both as a judge and as commissioner and likely he was–but baseball was likely cleaner because of him– for what it’s worth)

    For more than twenty years Hays held the job of President of the MPPDA(Motion Pictures Producers & Distributers of America-later the Motion Picture Association of America-MPAA) where he tried to protect the industry from outside interference and negotiate with people who, for whatever, reason, appeared to be opponents. Backed by several powerful studio bosses he pushed the idea of self-censorship and in 1927 some of the studio leaders drew up a list of “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls” which were guidelines to be followed in making films. There was nothing imperative about them, they were just advice on ways to make your film safe from attack from the outside

    Three years later, in 1930, Fr Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest and Martin Quigley, a Roman Catholic layman who was editor of an influential newspaper, the “Motion Picture Herald,” created a code of movie standards and presented it to the movie studios. Irving Thalberg of MGM had been on the Dont’s-Be Carefuls group in 1927 and he was one of the studio bosses involved now. After some negotiations and perhaps a few changes, they accepted the code. Keep in mind that the studios main object here was TO AVOID DIRECT GOVERNMENTAL INTERVENTION. It appears that they thought this was the way and as things turned out they were mostly right.

    The MPDDA would enforce the code and was commonly known as the “Hays Office” though no actual organization of that name existed. The code also acquired his name and became “The Hays Code” even though Hays had no really active part in writing it. He did, however, invite it and and urge it upon movie studios and for more than 20 years he was MPDDA(later MPPA)President so he played a large role.

    The code had two parts, the first of which was a statement of “principles” which stated a movie should not cause “lowering the moral standards of those who see it.” It particularly seemed to concentrate on the life styles of about anyone who deviated from middle-middle class WASP behavior and it had a near hysterical fear that movies would cause a loss of respect for “correct standards of life.” (By the way, there was, obviously, a heavy Roman Catholic influence in all this, but middle class Catholic and WASP values in many ways were similar, though with significant exceptions).

    There was also a very strong dislike of “ridicule” of the law and any encouragement of law-breaking behavior. Though not as evident as the above in the “principle,” there would also be a very restrictive(not to say abnormal)view of sex and a hesitancy to allow anything sexual get into moves. We will likely look at this a little more closely later.

    The second part of the code was the “particular applications” which rather specifically forbade the inclusion of a number of things in American films. There are too many to list specifically, but we will deal with some as we go along, and I hope to suggest a realistic understanding of the code by this method.

    The code was accepted and officially put in place by the MPDDA in 1930, but it had little immediate noticeable effect. In fact, from 1930-1934 American films were in a sense as “racy” as many of those which appeared on screen in the 1960’s and later. There was not the more or less graphic display of sex and violence that has been seen in recent decades, but in plot and values some of these films were extremely different from the kind of morality the code was intended to celebrate and extend. I will try to cite a few relevant examples when we get to comparisons of “before” and “after” movies.

    The reason for the above was that while the code had been officially promulgated, the MPDDA did not make a consistent, serious effort to enforce it. This changed in 1934 with the appointment of Joe Breen as the chairman of the PCA(Production Code Administration)which had been created by the studios to enforce the code.

    He announced that beginning July 1, 1934 any film released in the US had to obtain a certificate of approval from the PCA. The PCA(acting as the Hays Office’s enforcer)would then be able to rule the roost of American movies– nothing they did not approve would be certified. This made a huge difference in American films. You may have noticed that occasionally TCM will reference something as being a “pre-1934 film.” I will note this difference as we go along, BUT PLEASE KEEP IN MIND–the Hays Office and its PCA were creatures of the film industry itself. They were NOT formally connected to the government and their real purpose, at lest originally, was to keep Hollywood free of government censorship. The Hays Office had NO LEGAL AUTHORITY to prevent a film from being shown.

    The only weapon the Hays office had was its prestige and making use of its prestige to intimidate film makers who might be threatened with not receiving a certificate of approval if they did not toe the line. Apparently the office figured this would be enough because the studios would fear a public boycott of any film released without a certificate. This, presumably, would prevent the film’s success at the box office and possibly would affect the public attitude toward other works by the director or studio or both. For more than 2 decades they were nearly always right

    From 1930-July 1, 1934 the Hollywood bosses did largely as they pleased–the Hays Office would occasionally negotiate with them and they would occasionally change a plot item or a candid film shot to please the office, but there was no serious censorship. Though not having the frank scenes of sexual activity of the after the Code era, the films produced at this time often reflected the more relaxed attitude toward sexuality(and the discussion of it) that had come along in the early 20th century, particularly in the urban US, partly as a result of World War I, the Roaring ’20’s, etc.. It is a mistake to maintain the code was solely or almost exclusively about sex, but sexuality was likely the biggest difference noticeable in the pre-1934 films.

    IN 1932’s “Red Headed Woman” Jean Harlow plays a gold-digging young woman who will gladly seduce whomever she needs to, to get wealth and social status. It is not really a very good film, one of its weak spots being that Lillian Hyams(who??)played the wife of Harlow’s main seduction target. She was a lovely, cultured blonde and it is hard to imagine a guy with any taste preferring the obviously willing and sexy, but also obviously shallow and hardened Harlow character. There are some other weaknesses in style and story-telling skills(this was 1932)but the film is a good example of the point regarding what movies could get away with pre-July 1, 1934. A character such as Harlow’s in this film would later have had to be watered down and her moral shortcomings merely hinted at after the 1934 change.

    Two 1933 films come to mind. In “Baby Face” Barbara Stanwick(one of the greats of early films) plays a girl not too unlike the one described above. Like her, she uses sex to get to the top. Although her morals are about the same, she seems(at least to me, anyway)to be more likeable, for what that’s worth. But the point is, again, a young woman uses her desirability to men to advance her social-economic status and the screenplay is not shy about being fairly explicit about what is going on. This is actually a good film, much better than “Woman.” (If you get the chance watch it, and keep an eye out for an extremely young John Wayne whose voice was apparently the same throughout his movie career)

    Also in 1933 there was “When Ladies Meet.” This largely ignored but occasionally shown on TCM choice is one of my favorite films. It has a few of the technical glitches of most movies of the times and the 1941 remake is much smoother. But I think the original is a little deeper and overall better, though I strongly recommend both of them.

    To perhaps oversimplify the plot–the main character is a young novelist(Myrna Loy)who is having trouble finishing her latest book and is in contact about it with her publisher(Frank Morgan, a few years before he succeeded in becoming a wizard)who is also her lover. Her gentleman suitor(Robert Montgomery) is jealous and urges her to behave differently but without success. His character is handled with some subtlety, not all outrage but some sophisticated restraint. He eventually arranges for her to meet her boss/lover’s wife(Ann Harding)without the wife’s knowing who she is and therefore unaware that she is her husband’s lover.

    I leave to your imagination what follows, but this is a barebones description of the plot. This film contains some of the most civilized, serious and profound dialogue ever in movies when it comes to the questions of relations between the sexes, betrayal, friendship, love and loss, and other very adult and profound matters(I use the word “adult” advisedly here, this really is an adult film–what a pity that word now means “porn.”)

    OK-so this was the sort of movie that sometimes appeared before the Code cracked down. What about after it did?

    As previously noted, the Hays Code is too long and forbids too many things to do an item-by-item breakdown. It is easily accessible on the internet and if you want to check it out it may help a bit with understanding all this. But here is the important stuff–

    The Code was very concerned about both propriety/morality AND lawbreaking, among other things. Although I am NOT one of those who completely despise the code and think no one there ever had a good idea or intention, I do believe it was foolish in many cases, both beating its head against a wall at some times(and therefore looking very foolish indeed) and even causing the opposite effect of what it wanted.

    Regarding sexuality, the code forbade any extra-marital sex to be portrayed as good or beautiful. If a character committed adultery or engaged in single premarital sex then they had to be portrayed as bad or at least foolish and deluded. Siutations in which it would have been natural in the course of events for two people to have had sexual relations had to be skittered around. Often directors and writers would find a way to do this, that is to suggest sex was going on but without directly mentioning it and leaving the movie at least technically subject to both interpretations.

    This led to some changes in scripts or causing the script to diverge considerably from the original play or novel. In my favorite movie, “The Maltese Falcon,” it should be quite clear that Sam Spade(Humphrey Bogart) and Brigette (Mary Astor)have developed a sexual relationship in the early part of the story. This is handled subtly enough and without a lot of mental /behavioral gymnastics. The idea that these two would NOT have a sexual relationship is less believable than that they did, so any change had to be–and was– done carefully so as to preserve both the code’s integrity and the believability of the plot. It worked by leaving an affair as a possibility, at the same time not being explicit enough to be violate the code. This kind of messing around with the story happened often over many years, sometimes to unfortunate effect but not always. As I said, it’s about my favorite movie, and certainly is one of the greats.

    (By the way, it has been alleged that while the code guys insisted on toning down some of “Falcon’s” language which they thought too suggestive, Director John Huston put one over on them He used the term “gunsel” and got it through without a peep from the censors. They likely thought that it meant the Elisha Cook character carries a gun. Actually, it has a sexual meaning which I will not pursue here–you can find it easily enough on-line. The code guys would have blanched if they had known the truth.)

    It has been suggested that in another of my favorite films, “Casablanca”(I do like Bogie movies)there were a couple of quarrels with the Hays Office and one of them may have led to an improvement in the movie. In the first instance, apparently the original script came close to out-and-out stating Rick and Ilsa had had an affair when they first met in Paris. The script was changed a bit to make this less explicit, though it is still an obvious likelihood considering the people involved and the times in which they were together.

    The other quarrel was about the ending(SPOILER ALERT-IF YOU.VE NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH). Apparently the original had Ilsa going to bed with Rick to get the letters of transit. This would have made her an adulterer and therefore violated the code. So they changed it to make Rick even more heroic in giving up the girl and the letters of transit for nothing except honor and beating the Nazis. Actually, this was likely a better ending and played well into Bogie’s outwardly cynical but essentially heroic persona in the movie.

    (A couple notes for “Casablanca ” fanatics–nearly everyone who loves this movie knows it was based on a play entitled “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” by the now forgotten Murray Burnett and Joan Allison. They were quite a pair, more so than I want to take time and space on here–suggest you google “Joan Allison-writer” for the details. Also, that famous end line about a friendship, which we all love? That was created after filming had ended and they had to get Bogie to record it via telephone!)

    Speaking of World War II films(which people of my age never tire of seeing)I think Fred Zinneman’s “From Here to Eternity,” which won the 1953 Best Picture Oscar is a great movie. I recently watched it again on TV for about the 45th time. But it is one of the few instances in which you may actually point to something more or less obvious and not debatable , that shows the code at its most fanatic and, in this case anyway, working against great art(this charge, often made, I’d say was seldom true, but here, in this case, it likely is)

    For the uninitiated, this story has five main characters, one of whom is(in the James Jones novel)a prostitute. In the movie they changed her(Donna Reed, several years younger and about a thousand miles from her character on “The Donna Reed Show” where she realistically scrubbed the floor in a cocktail dress) to something like a dime-a-dance girl who works at the New Congress Club where soldiers go & where no alcohol is permitted and you mustn’t touch the girls except to dance a bit and maybe get a quick hug. (A bunch of tough soldiers on a weekend pass–right)

    This is so obviously absurd as to be ridiculous and I imagine was seen as such as such, by much, perhaps most, of the audience.(Many of the viewers had to be WWII veterans) Suprisingly, in a way, Zinnemann still got a lot of the raw and gut wrenching emotion out of her relationship with a lonely and persecuted soldier. (Prew, played by the supremely talented Montgomery Clift) Maybe it’s even a little better in that the slight softening of the characters makes the emotions a little more accessible to the viewer. But I still think it would have been more powerful to have stuck with Jones’s original.

    Another issue with the code was crime and immoral(and not limited to sexual)behavior and the people who did this in movies. Essentially, the code’s view was that out and out crime, and to some extent bad behavior, had to be punished. This was supposedly an example of the heavily religious, particularly Roman Catholic influence upon the code. I am not aware that Christianity actually teaches that good behavior on earth will be rewarded by wealth and happiness, nor that evil will necessarily be punished by the lack of them. That has never been my impression, but I yield to the fact that this idea may have influenced the code.

    If you watch a movie from this era and you see a crime committed early on in it, you may assume that character is doomed– to at least some time in jail, maybe worse. You can actually see this developing BEFORE 1934, possibly the roots of what happened later. In a Code Era movie, anyone who commits a criminal act has to be killed or in jail or at least arrested and facing jail by the movie’s end, as noted above. A couple of obvious examples(SPOILER ALERT THIS PARAGRAPH) come from a couple of terrific films that, for whatever, reason, seemed to anticipate 1934. In 1931 two of the great gangster films, “Public Enemy” and “Little Caesar” were released. “Enemy” is best know to film fans as the movie in which James Cagney shoves a grapefruit into his girlfriend’s(Mae Clark)face, but this piece of domestic violence did not create noticeable controversy. Cagney’s character, Tom,. rises to the top by his ruthlessness and is eventually killed by rival gangsters. This is hardly a surprise, but serves as an example. Just as obvious, but I think worthy of mention, is “Little Caesar.” another sort of small time criminal to riches story starring the ever magnificent Edward G Robinson. As he is killed by rivals at the end he says “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?” HIs killing, had it been in a later movie, would have satisfied the code’s requirements and the line became one of the best known in film history. I have heard it alleged that, code or not, they made the line “Mother of Mercy” rather than “Mother of God” which seemingly was considered blasphemous.

    So, these two films were from the pre-1934 era, but in some, by no means all ways, anticipated it. They did NOT anticipate it in that the gangsters they offered were in some ways dashing and attractive characters. Pre-1934 the gangster was often portrayed as a sort of off-the-wall hero. To some degree this may have actually reflected much American public opinion in the early ’30’s. This was the worst part of the depression and the nation’s leaders were held in contempt by a larger than usual number of citizens. The gangsters, many thought, were guys who thumbed their noses at the people who had gotten the country into this mess.(“I’ve been all around this country, I’ve seen lots of funny men–some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen”–from, I think, “The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd”–anyway, Joan Baez had it on one of her earlier albums).

    Hollywood did a quick change on gangster films, somewhat due to members of the public who complained that gangsters were too glorified in the earlier films. Mostly however, I think pressure from the code caused this. In 1935 in “G-Men” Cagney made another gangster movie. But there was a change now–this time he was on the side of the law and the gangsters were despicable, not heroic. Cagney was still tough-talking and somewhat glamorous (I won’t say he was suave)but this time on the side of the law. This was a huge change.

    Gangsters were portrayed as being pretty terrible in almost all films after 1934. In 1937 Bette Davis and Bogart starred in “Marked Woman.” Like Cagney in 1935, Bogie now was bringing his singular character to the side of the law as a good-guy District Attorney(it is said that his character was based loosely on Tom Dewey’s rise to fame and Presidential ambitions by prosecuting hoods–see my earlier article on Primaries and the Presidency). So Bogie is the lawman/hero and the gangsters are truly evil–after murdering one sister who irritates or threatens a crime boss, they beat the other(Davis)and then carve a cross in her face as a warning to those who would testify against the top man.

    To take 2 or 3 other examples, not quite so obvious, I mention “Strange Cargo(1940) mostly because it is a strange movie and one of my sort of hidden favorites(I guess “When Ladies Meet” would be too). It is, to give a very short sketch of the story, set on Devil’s Island, the French Prison camp off the coast of South America. It has to do with some prisoners including Clark Gable, and a nightclub singer(Joan Crawford) who is also a prostitute(her prostitution naturally just hinted at) who get involved in a mass escape and make their way through the jungle. They eventually find a small boat on which they hope to get to the mainland. Among the prisoners is a very unusual man named Cambreau(Ian Hunter) who apparently has some subtle and possibly supernatural powers, though this is kept mostly implicit. Not wanting to create a big spoiler alert at this point I will not go further except to say that basically good is rewarded and evil punished, though not as obviously as in some cases. This is really an interesting movie and I strongly recommend it. It only minimally qualifies as being in the category for our subject matter here, but see it anyway if you get the chance. I really like it!!

    By the way, the producers had a lot of trouble getting this movie through with the code’s approval. The code folks demanded a number of changes and I have read that some complained–or at least some members of the public did– that Cambreau’s character was blasphemous. Huh? Because he practiced mercy and showed wisdom? Did I miss something? I guess it was because he was portrayed as being Christ-like and they felt it might imply he actually was Christ–I guess that would be unacceptable to the church but it’s an around-the-barn way of condemning a beautiful character in a very good film. Well, maybe I did miss something.

    OK, one more SPOILER ALERT. In 1944 came “Double Indemnity.” which I would select as one of the great films. If I ever drew up a best 10 of all time list DE would be on it, or at least on the list of the next 10 as also-rans. It is about 2 clearly sinful people, a beautiful and seductive bored wife of a Dull Rich Guy(Barbara Stanwick) and an insurance salesman(Fred MacMurray.) At the beginning, MacMurray is pretty much an ordinary guy who sells insurance–Stanwick, on the other hand, in the words of an early Agatha Christie novel, has already “given herself over to evil.” She seduces Mac and he quickly goes from ordinary insurance salesman to killer as they plot to get rid of her husband. They do so, then more or less fall out dealing with the aftermath. They are thwarted because of the efforts of Edward G Robinson, this time playing one of his good-guy roles as an insurance investigator. In the end they wind up killing each other,(the code would not countenance their survival, naturally) though each is given a moment of grace in which they both express love or something like it. Remade today, the plot would likely not be changed much, but it is worth including as an example of adherence to the code, though adherence was likely not too difficult on this occasion.

    Jumping to the 1950’s, the playwright, Maxwell Anderson, had taken a rather obscure novel entitled “The Bad Seed” and written what turned out to be a fairly successful Broadway play from it. It was a disturbing story about a little girl who was obviously a budding serial killer and had already begun her career. For the details of this, see an excellent on-line article by Audrey E Lorber, “The Bad Seed and the Hays Code.” I will not reveal much of what she says here nor much about the movie, But I will point out that if anyone tells you the code was only interested in sex, this is a good one to mention. Truly, the code seemed obsessed with sex at times,(see above and below) but it also addressed other issues and this is one of them. “The Bad Seed” was duly released but not without a lot of discussion and negotiation. It also demonstrates the Code’s use of what came to be known as “adaptational karma.” This meant that if the original play or story or whatever the source was had something in it that seemed to allow evil to go unpunished–well, there was a way around that. The screen writers would bring in some unforeseen (and not necessarily too believable) event that punishes the evil doer. This is more or less what happens in “The Bad Seed,” and one thing to be said for it is that in this case it worked. It worked, that is, in meeting the code’s requirements without seriously violating the original work and/or idea. If you like them grim and tense this is a good move. See the above mentioned article for great detail.

    One of the biggest(and most understandable)jokes about the code was its apparent twin beds rule. Early on it seems to have been decided that the actual taking place of sexual relations could not be even very strongly implied and this restriction applied, ridiculously, to married couples as well as others. So from the mid- ’30’s on for 2 or 3 decades you will not find a married couple in the same bed in almost any American-made movie. They nearly all had twin beds and while I guess twin beds were popular then–and still may be sometimes–it is doubtful if everybody had them.

    This particular restriction managed also to become an obsession of TV, although the code had nothing to do with television productions. But note all those “I Love Lucy” segments with Lucy, Dezi and their twin beds. Also, when Lucy was pregnant it was decided that they could not use the word “pregnant” in the show–“expecting” was as far as they could go. This represented another influence of the code where it had no real power at all.

    Of course, sex is important enough in human life that there’s a limit to the number of reasonable stories you can tell without at least hinting at it. And, as I’ve already said, it was hinted at a lot, with sly looks, convoluted language and maybe more convoluted plots. Movies eventually dealt with rape, teenage pregnancy and other such matters and got a lot of them through the censors. But they had to be careful.

    The code also had an odd blindness to some kinds of misbehavior which didn’t seem to concern it. The most obvious here is alcohol abuse. After the repeal of Prohibition in late 1933(the 18th Amendment’s repeal has to be one of the fastest actions in US Constitutional history–FDR took office in March and it was booted in December)you could portray people drinking without making them lawbreakers. Apparently you could also make them lushes without bothering the Code enforcers..

    The very next year saw the release of “The Thin Man,” the first of the myriad Thin Man movies which went on for more than a decade. (Trivia note–The “Thin Man” in the original story and movie is NOT Nick Charles, but the guy he’s looking for. But the name stuck to Nick in the movies). Anyway, Nick comes off as a heavy drinker and remains one throughout the film and, to the best of my recollection, the series.

    I’ve seen a number of these lately and actually they are rather mediocre. Nick’s pursuit of the bottle is overemphasized, sometimes to the point of embarrassment, and the mysteries are only adequately mysterious. The attempts at sophisticated comedy work sometimes–sometimes.

    It was, I believe, fairly common to treat over-indulgence in alcohol as a matter of humor and/or little importance. In Eugene O’Neil’s “Ah, Wilderness,” the Uncle of this extended family is a heavy drinker. My wife once pointed out that this play is actually O’Neil’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” perhaps America’s greatest play, done as a comedy. I would say this is right, at least for the movie version. Uncle Sid just drinks too much and this is not ignored but does not become a serious part of the story. That is OK, of course, and the author’s choice, but it would also be in keeping with the times and the code’s indifference, from what I have seen of films of the era.

    I also remember a film I saw as a child, with my mother , no doubt in downtown Akron at the Colonial or Lowe’s or one of the other Big Theatres, a film which certainly treated drunkenness as funny. If it had kept it within a house and had people just making fools of themselves that would have been one thing. But extending it to making a big joke of drunken driving was quite another. Unfortunately I have no idea what film it was.

    One more place where the code allowed things which would not pass muster today, was in treatment of women, particularly violence toward women. I will mention one instance of the latter. In “The Philadelphia Story,” early in the film there is a scene in which Cary Grant goes to the door of his ex, Katherine Hepburn and, after a frustrating conversation, puts his hand in her face and gives her a shove. It is not really bad violence compared to beating, for example, but it would not be allowed today, (for good reason)by everyone’s mutual agreement. Please note that I think “Story” is a great comedy, in fact a great movie, with many wise comments in it, especially regarding men and women. This irony is worth noting and perhaps reflecting on. But it is beyond doubt to any fan of old films that a lot of behavior which would be considered sexual harassment today was assumed to be normal and women were presumed to accept it.

    This is the end of Part I. I hope to be back with Part II shortly and to deal with the later years of the code, particularly its decline and fall when it came down, rather like the Roman Empire, one metaphorical brick at a time. I want to go into reasons for this and examples of its decline, and then reflect briefly on movies before the code ended and movies since then. Were films better in one era than the other? We’ll see-maybe.

    ,

  • Leave or change–the filibuster & the electoral college

    

    Compared to my reflection on the Primaries this one will be fairly short. I wish to discuss these two topics because they are much in the news, at least sporadically, and I think the public discussion of them has been over-simplified. Politicians, editorial writers and others just shouting/writing “Dump It” or “Keep It” seems to me a trivialization of complexities.

    By the way, most of the information I use in writing is available on line and if you want to know more about these subjects or others that way, have at it–but the on-line information is sometimes frustratingly incomplete. I am going to go with what I have so far and try to give you my insights, but only a swift history of each of these issues. The history of the filibuster is extremely complicated and reconciling the differences in varying opinions next to impossible without an output of time and energy worthy of a Ph. D dissertation. I think the following is basically true, but there are varying ideas available and some of the accounts of what has happened in this Senate conundrum seem contradictory, at least in what they consider important . If you look far, online or elsewhere, you will find explanations that do not enrirely agree with mine.

    The filibuster was not in the original US Constitution and is not in our current one, as amended. It is the result of a Senate rule, the changing of that rule and a lot of opportunism and silliness since. Originally, the Senate rule was that debate could be stopped by a simple majority vote. All you needed was a majority of Senators present to say, “OK, we’ve heard enough” and debate stopped.

    For reasons too complex and technical to go into here this was known as the “previous question” rule(see “Roberts’ Rules of Order” if you are going to insist on pursuing this). In 1806 Vice-President Aaron Burr suggested to the Senate that this was not a good rule and should be dispensed with. The Senate seems to have agreed and with remarkably little hesitation or debate they dropped it and replaced it with–nothing!

    After this there was disagreement and fairly wide use of something like the filibuster for about a century(Linguistic note–“filibuster” comes from a Dutch word meaning pirate or having something to do with pirates, but today is used only in its political/US Senate context). In 1917, after a particularly irksome(to President Woodrow Wilson, anyway) Senate quarrel over the issue of arming American merchant ships, the Senate made a new rule(only 111 years after the above change). This one said that debate could be ended by a 2/3 vote of those present and voting. The 2/3 is a pretty high bar and was even then, but it was not impossible to reach, particularly if you had a “little group of willful men” to use WW’s words, trying to hold captive the US Government and seriously delay important business.

    With few exceptions, this rule held until the 1970’s when another change was made. The number of votes to stop debate was reduced to 3/5 of the sworn members of the senate. The 3/5 is obviously smaller and all other things being equal would be easier to reach. But as often in Washington, DC(and in life for that matter)all other things are not equal. Making it 3/5 or 60 of the sworn in members of the Senate would work, in most cases, anyway, to make it more difficult to stop debate. A 3/5 majority of those present and voting would have been feasible, if not guaranteed, but 3/5 of the whole Senate, absent or present, was another matter. As any careful observer knows, many members of the Senate(also the House for that matter)are absent much of the time. There are often good reasons for this and I am not attacking anyone for it, but it is a fact to be considered regarding this issue. On anything that has the slightest smell of partisanship or political philosophy about it, it is possible(maybe easy)to get an argument out of nearly any Senator. With a roughly evenly divided Senate getting 60 of them to agree on anything is like herding cats at a mouse convention.

    So this rule change has had 2 huge effects. It has created the need for a super majority of 60 to pass most(not all)important bills and thereby guaranteed that the majority will frequently be frustrated entirely or at least will have to expend great time and effort to get its way. The other effect is the “silent filibuster” which means that if you can get 41 Senators to state publicly they will oppose a bill, then the bill is effectively defeated without a vote. Knowing that there will be a tiresome and time wasting filibuster, the Senate Majority leader at this point usually stops pursuing the bill and the battle is over. The 41 have more or less said, “Hey, we’re filibustering, let’s go have coffee.”

    This is a long way from the traditional filibuster in which the Senator doing the filibustering was required to keep talking or yield the floor to someone who would. I am aware this was often put to uses that might be seen as useless or worse, the most dishonorable example being the many times Southern Democrats used it to weaken or spike legal guarantees of racial equality. But it could also serve(and occasionally did) to give an honorable minority of at least 1 Senator a chance to protest something he or they thought wrong. Of course the most well-known example of this is a fictional one, Jimmy Stewart’s noble if somewhat unbelievable effort in Frank Capra’s “Mr Smith Goes to Washington.”

    On the whole, and trying to consider all the aspects of this, social, political, etc., I feel the best choice is to go back to the older method which required that one Senator keep talking. This way if a Senator really feels strongly about something that is likely to become a law he may say so along with others who agree. But they will have to expend time and effort to do this and will NOT be able to stop serious and important matters in the Senate simply by announcing that 41 of them agree to a filibuster. (A “silent” one or maybe the better description would be “phony.”)

    But, some will, with reason, say, what if this reversal of things cannot be accomplished? What if, for whatever reason, there is no possibility that the old filibuster may be returned? Well, I like the old filibuster, but if this is the case then I have to agree with those who want, I think somewhat precipitously, to end it altogether. If there’s no chance of a morally meaningful filibuster, then I think the right thing would be to get rid of the meaningless one. I don’t see that this should require a long debate, something that ties up the political and journalistic consciousness of the US for months. Each side should have its say, then change it or get rid of it. Let us be finished with this.

    The Electoral College is a somewhat more complicated matter but one with similarities to the filibuster. One of the similarities is that I would like to keep the Electoral College but to change it seriously. If this cannot be done then it, too, should be dispensed with, though I don’t much like some of the possible outcomes of that choice.

    I have a strong tendency to believe that if things are running reasonably well in a country, a business or whatever, then it may be better to accept annoyances or imperfections rather than change them. If you begin changing things no one can tell what will happen and you could end up making things worse. So I am usually willing to put up with the merely good without insisting on perfection. My favorite of President Obama’s sayings was ‘Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

    But there are limits and the Electoral College AS NOW ESTABLISHED AND FUNCTIONING is beyond them. But I would like to keep the College with some fairly radical changes rather than eliminate it and go to direct popular election of the President. I will try to explain why.

    First of all, nearly everyone who has paid much attention to US Presidential elections “knows” that every state gives all it’s electoral votes to the candidate who wins the largest popular vote. I use the quotes because this statement is not fully true, though it is substantially true for figuring what happens in a Presidential election. The statement is true in 48 states–Maine(4 Electoral Votes) and Nebraska(5 Electoral Votes) use a different rule by which it is possible(but it happens less than half the time) for the Electoral Vote to be split. This has been so in Maine since the 1970’s and Nebraska since the 1990’s.

    But first, what about the winner take-all method that determines nearly every Presidential Election? Where did it come from? It took me years to grasp the fact that it is NOT FOUND IN THE CONSTITUTION. The Constitution originally gave a great deal of authority to the individual States when it came to voting and voting rights. To some extent it still does, though there are more limits now. But the Constitution has never stated how Electors will be chosen. Each state has the choice for itself. For about the first 40 years of the Republic the states split all over the place on their choices and Electoral votes were frequently split within states.

    There were originally several possibilities–1) State Legislature 2) Districts within state–3) Statewide 4) Hybrid- a no doubt confusing mixture of 2 or 3 of the above. No 1 meant simply that this was a matter for the state legislature to decide and the voters had no part in it at all(except of course that they did vote for the legislators); No 2 used the already established Congressional Districts OR created new districts for this purpose only, and the voters of that district chose the elector(s); 3) The current system in 48 states–ALL the state’s electors go to the candidate receiving the most popular votes–that candidate’s “slate” is elected and presumably will vote for him in the Electoral College(sometimes they don’t, but it’s unusual); 4–Don’t ask–I’ll bet it drove people batty.

    So, it is not written in the stars, or in the Constitution, that electoral votes all go to the candidate with the state’s most popular votes. It could be changed. It has been. From the beginning of the Republic until about the second decade of the 19th century there was a lot of back and forth about this. In the 1812 election the number of states using the statewide system actually decreased and the number using the legislature increased. But this turned around in the 1820’s when it appears to have occurred to many political leaders that one way to preserve their state’s power was to guarantee all its Electoral Votes to whoever got the most popular votes. This seems to have been particularly an attractive idea in VA, MA and other states with fairly large populations and therefore more Electoral Votes than most. In any event, after 1824 the winner-take-all system prevailed almost without exception until ME and NE jumped off the bandwagon(to a very limited extent) a generation or so ago.

    Now the current method has some things to be said for it. For one, it is pretty well burned into the American collective subconscious and is an identifying mark of our country. To remove it would somehow be giving up some of our identity. These things are important, particularly at times of strife and unusual division. It also worked to protect the power and importance of certain parts of the US and certain states. Of course, it usually benefited IL and FL and the other big Electoral vote states which got a great deal of attention from contenders for the White House. But it also made the candidates, particularly in close races, pay some attention to smaller sates, After all, if you think you and your opponent might come in just about tied, then it matters where Nebraska’s 5 electoral votes or North Dakota’s 3 go.

    In addition it needs to be pointed out that for over a century, this system brought political peace and stability the the country. But this may no longer be entirely true. From 1888 to 2000, over 100 years, the popular vote winner was the electoral victor and became President.(1888-Grover Cleveland beat Benjamin Harrison in the popular vote but lost the Electoral College–2000 Al Gore did the same with George W Bush-2016-Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in the popular vote but still lost the Electoral Vote) So it could be argued that this thing is beginning to fail. There was outrage both in 2000 and again in 2016(when Gore & Clinton won but lost) and that outrage is likely to grow if this happens again anytime soon. If this does happen, there will be consequences and I suggest these will be unsettling to the whole polity and to the state of civility and cooperation within the US. With the country badly divided over so much now there is no point in making it worse. Both doing nothing and doing the wrong thing could possibly do that.

    I also would argue, though with somewhat less confidence, that the founding fathers’ policy of putting a sort of restraining wall(the Electoral College) between “the people” and the Presidential vote was not entirely a bad idea. In any event, the country has gotten used to it and to go from this indirect but usually accurate method to a direct popular vote would be a shock to the constitutional system.

    For all of these reasons I am against radical change, that is a direct popular vote for President. But I have not yet stated my biggest concern. What if there were a very close election? Say the popular vote split something like 49% for one candidate and 49.5% for another with the other 1.5% going to fringe candidates. This would require a recount and not just for one state as when Gore and “W” fought it out in FL. This would have to be a NATIONWIDE RECOUNT–not just around 6 million votes to be recounted as was the case in FL but somewhere in excess of 150 million(roughly the combined number cast for Biden and Trump)

    How screwed up could this get? Very, I think. After several days and more than 1 recount the FL case was still not clear(Bush officially won the state eventually by 48.5-48.4% of the votes)and it wound up in the US Supreme Court. It is impossible to know for sure how long a national recount would take, but say at least a week and maybe a lot more.. During that time no one could start making cabinet appointments. Both sides would no doubt make plans for cabinet and other appointments and various other important matters, but no one would know which side would eventually get to do it for real. There would be an overall feeling of drift and uncertainty throughout the country. Tempers would flare(I’d bet)and all kinds of inflammatory and noxious things would be written and said by both sides.(What an opportunity for real social media mischief) And remember, they would have to recount every last vote! You couldn’t dispense with all the votes in one state just because it was obvious who had won the most votes there. That would be an irrelevancy.

    Then, again, suppose that the first recount were inconclusive? What if it showed a closer race than the original election had? Or reversed the outcome? What then?? Another recount? How long does this go on and to what effect?

    Now, clearly, you could(would have to)put some kind of legal limits on this as to the number of possible recounts and how much time could be used– and maybe some other things. These could be determined by legislation and such legislation might work. But even it it “worked” in preventing a constitutional collapse or crisis, what would be the price? If the election were as close as I have hypothesized it could be great in national unity. The losing side in an election that close would surely feel cheated and its more hysterical members would likely start wild conspiracy theories as to what happened. Short of a nearly miraculous improvement in both common sense and education in the US, many of these theories would be believed by a large number of people. This is hardly a recipe for civil peace. Just consider the trend of American thought since the 2020 election.

    So what do I suggest? Well, several suggestions have been made in the past(just google “suggestions for Electoral College Reform ” if you want to see how many and exactly what) My own suggestion is by no means original with me. It has been suggested by others.
    For what it’s worth, here it is, including one or two ideas of my own tossed in with previous ones. (Now, keep in mind that each state has the number of Electoral Votes as it has members of the House of Representatives, plus two, allowing for the two Senate members.) I suggest that the means for selecting the winner of electoral votes be changed so as to reflect much more accurately the popular vote and the will of the voters. I suggest this be done by using the old “District Method.” I would have each Congressional District in a state select, via popular vote, whom that district votes for for President. Now, since each state has more electoral votes that it has Congressional Districts(allowing for the two Senators), what about them? I would have the two others chosen by the statewide vote just as all electors are chosen now in 48 states. This would preserve a little of the old method’s provision for the importance of states.

    As an example, suppose a state has 18 Congressional Districts and therefore 20 Electoral Votes. Suppose candidate “A” wins the popular vote in 6 districts and candidate “B” wins it in 12. And suppose candidate “B” wins statewide. As a result of winning statewide candidate “B” would get 14 Electoral Votes(the 12 districts he won plus the other 2) and candidate “A” 6. Of course in most cases this would not exactly reflect the popular vote but it ought to come very close, close enough that it might entirely prevent a popular vote winner from losing in the Electoral College in the future. It would preserve certain parts of the old system including the Electoral College itself and this might serve as a comfort of sorts to those who would dislike seeing the old system go. But most importantly it would provide a system that would give the victory to the candidate favored by the majority without risking a lengthy and potentially ruinous nationwide recount.

    Regarding the Electoral College and its Electors I would leave it alone for the most part. Each state would have its own delegation of electors and they would meet in December in the State capital to cast their votes as is now the case. The big difference would be that they would be required by law to vote for the candidate they were pledged to support. If an elector jumped to someone else it simply wouldn’t count–his vote would be counted as going where the voters had a right to expect it to go.

    As a sort of governmental liberal but societal conservative I believe it is often important to retain old forms even after they are no longer of what many would describe as “practical” use. But holding the US together and keeping the peace among our various peoples, seems to me, well, “practical.”

    If, however, it is impossible to get this done and retain the actual Electoral College, then there is another course. You could get rid of the whole Electoral College and just decree that Electoral votes go to whoever wins them in the popular vote, (district-by-district as I explained above) The advantage would be that this would be slightly less expensive and, more importantly, the result of the election would be legally established quickly, likely the same week as the vote takes place. Once a State’s vote was certified there would be nothing left to do and the election would be over, except maybe on TV talk shows and the internet. I much prefer my suggestion, but this one at least would get rid of the present situation which includes the possibility of serious trouble. At least the second suggestion would eliminate that and more or less guarantee domestic peace after a Presidential Election. That alone would be worth the compromise involved.

    There may well be other suggestions later on that will be better than this. If so, I hope one of them succeeds. But something needs to be done. This issue, which has now appeared only 3 times in about 130 years, but twice in the last 20, is a time bomb in the Constitution. Someone needs to defuse it before there is a political explosion.

  • How we got here–contemporary USA, 1980-present

    It appears to me that we have reached the turning point in our quest. Though one could make arguments for earlier or later depending upon the criteria and the interpretation, I will stick with my original idea that the 1976 election was the election where the primaries importance became truly “Primary,” though not exclusive.

    Jimmy Carter was a brilliant man and a disciplined worker. But he arrived at the White House door inexperienced in the ways of Washington and made a number of early mistakes. The worst was not to be careful to cement a good, cooperative relationship with his presumed Congressional ally, House Speaker Tip O’Neil, or other leading Democrats. He also faced severe inflation, the roots of which lay before his administration began. So he was stuck dealing with inflation or “stagflation”(rising prices and rising unemployment.). Additionally came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Soviet Olympics where Carter made a huge mistake; and worst of all the Iran Hostage Crisis which might be considered a bigger one.

    As the 1980 election approached the President seemed in deep trouble. He had responded to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by announcing a total boycott of the Moscow Olympics which meant no Americans would be allowed to participate. This unwise decision was a deep disappointment to many Americans, particularly sports fans, and to the athletes and their families.

    Another crisis had erupted, more or less simultaneously with the Olympics. In Novemeber, 1979, exactly one year to the day before the next Presidential election, a group of radical Iranian students had stormed and taken over the US Embassy in Tehran, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the effective power in Iran, backed them. This led to a real international crisis. Carter made a couple of speeches in which he was tough on Iran and Khomeini and his slagging popularity soared–for awhile. But these two issues–particularly the hostages–would dog Carter throughout the campaign and eventually, I believe, cost him re-election.

    Late in 1979, Sen Ted Kennedy of MA, the surviving Kennedy brother, announced he would challenge Carter for the nomination. Surprisingly the usually poised Kennedy got off to a bad start with a clumsy interview with CBS newsman Roger Mudd. For once Kennedy appeared indecisive and lacking in self-confidence. He did better later, but never quite made up for his bad start. He did, however, succeed in reducing Carter’s chances of getting re-elected.

    Kennedy won a moderately impressive series of primaries against the President, including vote-rich NY, which was enough to make the Carter people squirm a bit. Unsurprisingly Carter got the nomination, but with about the same amount of optimism and hope that Ford had.

    On the Republican side, Reagan tried again, this time successfully .After a spirited spring campaign he beat out of number of other primary contestants, the most prominent of whom was George H W Bush of TX, son of one time Senator Prescott Bush of CT. The most interesting of the others was Rep John Anderson of IL an intelligent and fairly charismatic moderate/liberal Republican who made no bones about his opposition to Reagan’s apparent conservatism. But the center of gravity for the party had now shifted to the right enough that Bush’s chances would flame out early and Anderson would not really have any chances within the party. Bush had won two big northern primaries, PA and MI and perhaps partly in recognition of his vote getting in non-conservative states he got the VP nomination. Anderson would run as an independent. I think it could be said that RR’s victory for the nomination came as a result of his obvious actor’s ability to communicate, pretty strong support among the bosses and an undeniable record of primary victories. Nearly from the beginning he won a large majority of delegates.

    During the campaign hopes for a hostage release rose and fell frequently. Less than two weeks before the election they were dashed again by a lack of US-Iranian agreement and whatever hopes Carter had were gone. Some early gaffe’s by RR and his staff had made things closer than some had expected, but in the end the result was no different. Whatever foolish things some of the Reaganites had said, Carter could not shake off the hostage crisis and RR won an electoral landslide taking 44 states(Carter won GA, his home state, MN, his running mate’s home state, WV,MD, DE and RI, also taking DC. Carter got only 41% of the popular vote, but RR’s 51% was really not that impressive. This almost-not-a-majority percentage, however, was largely eclipsed by the overwhelming victory of RR in the Electoral College. Anderson carried no states but got about 6 1/2% of the popular vote, slightly better than average for a third party candidate. Clearly the primaries played a large role here, boosting RR and helping to ruin Carter. The day of the primaries had finally arrived.

    In 1984 there was great activity in one party re :the nomination and just about none in the other. RR was perceived by nearly all Republicans as a charismatic and successful President. This was to some degree true, though there were soft spots in the economy when it came to the disadvantaged, never a favored group by the Reaganites. Most Americans seemed to feel optimistic, however, and no one seriously questioned Reagan’s re-nomination, certainly not from within the Party

    On the Dem side there was considerable anger about what they considered the Administration’s callous attitude toward the poor, plus doubts about US foreign policy. There was also some liberal contempt for what they considered a low-brow and anti-intellectual administration, a view which was somewhat snarky and not a popular one, but also not one completely without reason. There were a number of willing contenders to take on Reagan, but fairly early it came down to a two-man race. The favorite was former Vice-President and long time Sen Walter Mondale of MN. His main challenger was Sen Gary Hart of CO, who seemed a whole new and different kind of candidate. Hart was hard to define as more conservative or liberal than Mondale. What many voters thought, particularly younger ones, was that he was certainly “cooler”‘ a position easier to define according to sociology than to traditional politics. Hart was highly intelligent and a good speaker and he was willing to fight the former VP every step of the way.

    In June, on the day of the last two significant primaries, Mondale won a solid victory in old-fashioned, working class NJ, as expected. But Hart scored a big victory in less orthodox, quixotic California. Mondale had expected to have the nomination bagged now, but instead(though still the overwhelming favorite), he was a few votes short. He spent the next few weeks largely on the phone, exerting pressure, reminding people of political debts owed, and asking for their support at the convention. By the time of the convention he appeared to have it nailed down, and in fact he did. It would be the last “old-fashioned:” convention(albeit with a definitely new fashioned candidate in Gary Hart) in which there was still a smidgen of doubt about what would happen when the clerk called the roll. Mondale won amid underwhelming suspense, and Hart bowed out fairly gracefully. Mondale caused a great stir by choosing a woman, Rep Geraldine Ferraro of NY as his running mate, the first female VP candidate for one of our two main parties. A feisty, articulate and likeable NYC blonde, she was, if anything, an asset to the Dem campaign, but VP nominees seldom make much of a difference and Mondale took a shellacking, winning only 1 state, his own MN(point of interest, but not of great importance–in the twenty years, 1964-1984, there was a Minnesotan on the Democratic Presidential ticket every election but one–name, always, Humphrey or Mondale).

    The 1988 election was a much different situation. In would be another no incumbent running election, so the voters would be electing a new President. On the Republican side the leading candidate was VP George HW Bush. After two terms of serving the Reagan Administration, he was in a sense the Administration candidate, thought RR carefully refrained from getting involved in the race most of the time. Bush had a number of rivals, the most serious being Kansas Sen and former VP candidate Bob Dole, and Televangelist Pat Robertson. Both had some popular support, but so did Bush because, for one thing, he was Reagan’s VP and presumably RR’s man. He also had the Republican establishment behind him and this was important.

    Bush began badly by losing both IA and NH. But his better experienced and competent team managed to pull together a well organized campaign while Dole failed to shine as hoped(by his supporters) and Robertson got caught in a mini-scandal from his military service–he appeared to have claimed combat service when he had not so served. By persistence and organization, Bush outflanked the others and won enough delegates that well before the convention he was the assumed candidate. Inexplicably, he chose IN Sen Dan Quayle, hardly a national figure, as his running mate.

    The early favorite in the Democratic race was Gov Michael Dukakis of MA. The son of Greek immigrants, he could play heavily on his immigrant background and his rise to success. He had several challengers, most importantly Sen Paul Simon of IL, Rep Richard Gephart of MO and Black leader Jesse Jackson(Jesse had tried once before, a brief, unsuccessful campaign four years earlier). It was a free for all for awhile and all had at least some small victories to claim, but it came down to Dukakis and Jackson. It was fairly obvious that the Democratic Party was not yet ready for a Black candidate(nor was the US for that matter)and Dukakis’s wins in some important states, mainly NY, iced the nomination for him. It was another race in which the primaries played a serious role, this time for both parties.

    At the Democratic convention there was a sense of excitement as the delegates waited to be addressed by their immigrant oriented candidate, who had quickly chosen Sen Lloyd Bentsen of TX to run with him. Someone got the idea of playing Neil Diamond’s rousing “Come to America” as Dukakis took the stage to make his acceptance speech. It was a moment of almost magical joy, but it was rarely, if ever, matched in the campaign again. Dukakis failed to expand his original base very much, or to take many voters from the Republicans, and Bush won a startling victory, about 54% of the popular vote and a 426-112 edge in the Electoral College(One of Dukakis’s electors deserted him and the final vote was 426-111. I believe this is the last time to date that an elector did not vote for the candidate he or she was pledged to support).

    In 1992 on the Republican side it was literally no contest. The Gulf War was over and won, the economy a bit sluggish, but not bad and there was no immediate serious threat at the door(or so it seemed anyway). Just about no one in the GOP was interested in possibly ruining the Party’s chances of another 2 term presidency. .Nor did many–if any-feel motivation to do so.

    The Democrats, however, had other ideas. They had a feeling that despite HW’s high poll ratings, there was discontent in the background and they were not comfortable with the direction they felt things were going, domestically or in foreign policy. They also had an open, large field with a number of seriously qualified candidates in it, and they felt that HW’s rather bland personality might be exploitable. There were several more or less serious candidates in the Democratic race. Fairly early it appeared that the one most to be reckoned with–if he didn’t destroy himself first–was the youthful and charismatic Governor of AR, Bill Clinton. He did not begin as a winner and for awhile he looked like a loser due to the revelation of his number of affairs, particularly one with the strait forward and willing-to-talk Gennifer Flowers. This wound up putting Bill and Hillary Clinton on 60 minutes(right after the Super Bowl) for an interview. The Governor handled himself well, and began to refer to himself as “the Comeback Kid.” The name stuck and so did the change of image as he looked a winner again. Handsome and polished and with an easy going sense of humor he charmed audiences and began to win delegates.

    But he was not without opposition, both from those who decried his lifestyle and those who (at least claimed)that he simply couldn’t win. His most serious opponnet was, ironically, a man many refused to take seriously, Jerry Brown, the unpredictable and flashy Governor of California. Brown won some delegates himself and particularly took the CT primary, leading some to think he would trash the Clinton campaign. But Clinton rallied, and, helped by a gaffe or two from Brown, won primary after primary, following his loss in CT .Well before the convention he had the nomination secured. He chose TN Senator Al Gore as his running mate. No attempt at geographical or political balance was noticeable in this choice. But it did provide the Dems with a ticket of two smart, photogenic, young southern moderate-liberals who would be hard to take down in debate(or news conferences).

    The campaign was complicated by the third party candidacy of TX millionaire Ross Perot, who admitted being an amateur at politics and frequently showed it. But his opposition to the tax structure and the whole way the US taxed its citizens resonated with many. It is difficult to say what, if any, effect he had on the outcome of the election. It appears he took votes from both Bush and Clinton, Bush likely losing a few more. Clinton sounded better than Bush in the debates(Bush was memorably caught on camera glancing nervously at his wristwatch).

    On election night Clinton emerged with a solid if not spectacular victory. He got 43% of the popular vote which is not bad in a three way race in which the third party candidate actually swings some weight. Perot did, getting about 20%.

    In 1996 there was no question of a Democratic race. After a lot of “rookie” mistakes had damaged his popularity, Clinton had begun to connect with citizens and to offer ideas they liked. No Democrat was about to challenge his re-nomination.

    The ‘Republicans had a large field led by KS Senator Bob Dole who had sought the nomination before and twenty years earlier had been the VP candidate. He was well known around the country and party, perhaps a bit too well known, and perhaps a few considered that he’d already been around the track too often. He had a number of challengers, most of them not extremely serious threats. One who was a serious threat was conservative columnist and commentator Pat Buchanan, a one-time Nixon speechwriter and favorite of many in the Goldwater wing of the party.

    Early on Dole did not do well, with Buchanan and others sniping at him and his Primary victory record was unimpressive for awhile. But after this temporary floundering he began to win primaries in the late spring and soon he was the assumed candidate. His nomination at the convention was assured but not very exciting. Dole was not a match for Clinton’s stylish and witty campaigning and besides ,Clinton now had a strong economy, falling unemployment, and a fairly peaceful world, at least for the US, on his side. Perot tried again to less effect this time(a common pattern with third party candidates who insist on doing it a second time) To almost no one’s surprise Clinton was re-elected by about the same margin as before. The primaries were characteristically unimportant in incumbent Clinton’s re-nomination. They were very important with the Republicans and it was not until Dole showed the ability to win consistently in the primaries that he wrapped up the nomination.

    By the time of the 2000 campaign things had changed a bit. The country had had four years of prosperity, despite the collapse of the dotcom bubble on Wall Street. Unemployment was low and investments and stocks were high. There was an overall good feeling about the economy and there seemed to be more peace both within the US and abroad.(little did we know then). The Democrats should have been a shoo-in for at least one more term, but they had one big issue against them. Bill Clinton, though widely admired and liked, had a penchant for getting into trouble with women, something that had, we remember, been an issue eight years earlier. His affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, led to a huge public scandal made worse by the fact the the President publicly lied about it. Though the Dems surprisingly won a slight victory in the 1998 midterms, the Lewinsky thing led to an impeachment vote against Clinton. He was acquitted fairly easily but the clamor and stench lasted and seemed to affect the national political atmosphere as the campaign for the nominations began.

    On the Democratic side the obvious candidate, with at least tacit White House support and a slew of political IOU.s, was VP Al Gore. He was bright and educated, he understood the rising internet and the loudly debated issue of global warming, and he seemed loyal to Clinton and yet independent in his thinking. Although there were several possible challengers, only NJ Sen Bill Bradley had the prestige and political presence to be a real threat. Intelligent and highly principled, Bradley managed to create an understanding that he was somewhat more liberal than Gore and would be somewhat more generous with public money for good causes. He did this without being extremely confrontational, though it led to at least one nasty exchange between the two men in a debate. Bradley may have come off as too moralistic and his message, while exciting to some, never got through to enough. He generated some enthusiasm and ran up a fair number of primary votes, but he never beat Gore in any primary and in the spring he dropped out Gore chose another man of upstanding reputation, Sen Joseph Lieberman of CT, as his running mate.

    On the Republican side there were several willing candidates, but only two who generated much support and/or enthusiasm. TX Governor George W Bush(“W” to many), son of HW, had the experience, both in his family and in being a two-term Gov of TX. Some early doubts were raised about his character and capabilities, but he largely overcame them. His real competition was John McCain, US Senator from AZ, a sort of maverick Republican in that in that he sometimes refused to toe the party line or pay the mostly expected homage to party leaders. A Vietnam vet, he had spent several years in a North Vietnamese prison camp and was popular among the military. Unusually for a military hero, he had a large number of moderate followers too, many of whom were impressed with his independence.

    He turned out to be an effective campaigner in the Northeast, but his campaign foundered in SC where he lost badly after some clearly nasty and unethical lies were told about him. The Bush campaign denied complicity in this, but it sapped the energy from McCain’s campaign. Bush rallied to run up a number of Primary victories in the South and Midwest. McCain’s people saw the writing and so did the candidate. By early summer it was all over and Bush was the nominee apparent. He chose former Rep Dick Cheney, a long time party loyalist who had been Secretary of Defense for his father, as his running mate.

    The campaign was a curious one with Bush emphasizing Democratic scandals even though there were few significant ones other than the question of Bill Clinton’s sex life. There were three televised debates and Bush seemed better at these than many had expected. Gore, at the same time, seemed off balance in the first two, once moving over near Bush who was answering a question and appearing to invade his space. He finally got back on track in the third debate in which it appeared to me he was the clear winner. Election night came down to a long count and the crisis over who had really won FL. This eventually wound up as a Supreme Court case, Bush v Gore, and until it was settled there was a wait of nearly a month to decide for certain who would be the next President. Most Americans found this weird, which it was, and assumed nothing like it would ever happen again in their generation. Twenty Years later they would be proven wrong. Meanwhile, Bush became the 43rd President of the US(He and his father referred to each other after this as “41” and “43”)

    In 2004 there was no contest for the Republican nomination. George W Bush was clearly going to be re-nominated after successfully leading the response to 9/11. Part of this included the 2003 US invasion of Iraq which turned out to be a disaster, but this was not yet plain during the campaign.

    The Iraq war and a rather stagnant but overall not too bad economy were the main issues and the Dems had a stable of candidates willing to go. The early leader, before the Primaries began, was Gov Howard Dean of NH. Dean was a poised speaker with a sort of introverted but engaging personality and what appeared to be an unusually honest approach. He led the polls through most of 2003 and entered the new year clearly the most popular candidate in the party. Among Dean’s challengers were three formidable Senators, John Kerry of MA, John Edwards of NC, and Joe Lieberman of CT, the VP candidate from the previous election. Lieberman’s candidacy did not take hold much, but the other two did. There was also Rep Richard Gephardt of MO a man of apparently unimpeachable character and a skilled political tactician, but without the public personality charisma of most of the others. Another possibility(still seen on CNN commentating) was Gen Wesley Clark, a liberal-oriented military leader who was an opponent of Bush’s policies.

    Early on there was a veritible logjam of candidates in which Dean, Kerry, Edwards and Gephart all appeared to have a chance. The polls were close and Dean, whom many still considered the favorite, made a serious if odd mistake campaigning in IA. He made a concession speech which was quite optimistic and engaging but finished with a loud, enthusiastic shout which appeared to irritate many in the media and perhaps some others. One network pointed out that Dean’s mic was specially programmed for his special situation(in the midst of an enthusiastic crowd)and that if this had not been done the shout would have sounded more or less normal and/or gone unnoticed. But, rationally or not, noticed it was and after a media frenzy about it Dean’s campaign went into a sort of snit from which it never recovered. In my opinion this was one of the most stupid and irrational of reasons to lose a campaign, but once the speculation started there seemed nothing that the campaign could do to stop it.

    The primaries were a back and forth affair in which John Kerry made the best showing and certainly seemed the leader in Gravitas. He received the nomination and went not too far from the mainstream in choosing the handsome and charismatic Edwards as his running mate. They made an attractive and well-spoken team and “W”‘s tendency to gaffes gave them some targets, but it didn’t work. It had all come down to FL in 2000 and now it was all OH. The day after the election Kerry conceded that OH was beyond his grasp and so was the election.

    In 2008 both parties had high hopes in that the incumbent was not eligibal to run and it would be new tickets for both sides.

    On the Republican side there were several candidates, but it came down pretty much to AZ Sen John McCain, already a veteran of one try for the WH, and AR Gov Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, not previously a national figure, had a pleasing and common touch on TV that won over many as did his straight forward appeal to a sort of old-fashioned conservatism based on faith and individual integrity. McCain, always a complicated person and candidate, was the conscience of some more sensitive Republicans who wanted their party to appeal to a wider set of voters, partly out of a belief in justice and equality and partly because they saw it was the winning way.

    The campaign could have been complicated and long lasting. Huckabee started out strongly winning the IA caucuses and setting McCain’s and other campaigns back on their heels. But his appeal did not hold up nationwide, and as he was fading McCain was rising, bouncing back quickly with a victory in the NH primary and then taking a number of others shortly thereafter. By late March he had an apparently unshakeable grasp on the nomination, earlier than expected.

    Among the Dems there were two serious contenders. It had been assumed for some time that former former First Lady(and Senator) Hillary Clinton would be a leading contender and would get the nomination becoming the first female candidate to have a real chance of becoming President. This changed when IL Sen Barack Obama announced in 2007 that he was running., Obama, 40ish, sleek and sophisticated, had become an instant national figure after a rousing keynote address at the 2004 convention. Many assumed he would be the first black Presidential candidate with a real chance of winning–sometime later.

    Obama did well in the very early campaigning, before the primaries and caucuses, and demoralized Clinton and her campaign with a victory in IA. He was about to take on front runner status when the surprise was returned as Clinton won the NH Primary. After that it became a fairly(not always)polite two person race with Obama winning many delegates in the South where the party was now strongly Black influenced if not dominated, and in the East. Hillary held up her hopes by winning some big ones, including PA, OH and TX. But her margins of victory were small and while giving her and her supporters bragging rights, these did little for her delegate count.

    The Republicans, in some cases at least, still used the old winner-take-all rule (remember that Goldwater won the California primary by a smidgen but got all of the delegates), but the Dems had reformed their primlary voting in a number of ways. One of these was to make the delegate counts more accurately reflect the percentage won in the primary votes. This was doubtless more democratic and I would not advocate that it be changed. But it was a cause of great frustration for Clinton and Clinton supporters to see her win several important states by small margins and barely inch closer to Obama’s delegate count. In the early summer his number of delegates began to close in on the majority needed for the nomination. Clinton, seeing the writing on the wall, and not wishing to be the cause of a bitterly divided convention and party suspended her campaign. The Primaries were obviously very important this time.

    The VP choices are worth noting. Obama picked former Presidential aspirant and veteran DE Sen Joe Biden and in doing so created a future President. McCain, apparently taken with a desire to do something extraordinary picked Gov Sarah Palin of AK, largely unknown and unheard of outside that State. A photogenic woman with some speaking ability and charm, but almost no noticeable knowledge of anything outside that State, she also seemed to have few coherent opinions on much of anything relevant to governing. For an aging candidate with a dicey health history, she seemed a wildly chancy and to many, inappropriate choice.

    Obama won with 52%-53% of the popular vote, a fairly substantial,though not landslide-type advantage. In the Electoral Contest he was much stronger, winning 345-126.

    In 2012 there was no contest for the Dems–it was a virtual certainty President Obama would be re-nominated without resistence from within his party. For the Republicans the leader as the campaign began was former MA Gov Mitt Romney, whose father, George Romney, Governor of MI, had tried for the nomination in the 1960’s.(He pretty much sunk his own chances when he complained that he had been “brainwashed” but the US military in Vietnam). Romney had been a moderate Republican MA Governor and had helped to establish “Romneycare,” a somewhat government oriented health care system that to many conservatives smacked of socialism and to many liberals didn’t go far enough but was a least a beginning.

    Having finished a surprising second in the 2008 contest, Romney had more or less spent the next three years campaigning and had a substantial but not huge lead when things got started. He had two serious challengers and one semi-serious one. The serous ones were PA Senator Rick Santorum, a somewhat moralistic sounding conservative and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the loudest of the right wing Republican voices. The semi-serious one was TX Rep Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican who could wow many on the right and, because of his anti war rhetoric, some on the left .He was good at raising enthusiasm but not at gathering a lot of voters.

    The early part of the race looked close and possibly leading to a long run for the nomination. Santorum barely won the IA caucuses, Romney the NH primary and Gingrich the important SC Primary. Romey’s victory in Fl gave him a lead but not a clear one and the race went on through March. Each candidate had victories and defeats, but Romney hung onto his delegate lead and began winning Primaries with something approaching consistency. By sometime in April he had an apparently insurmountable lead and Gingrich and Santorum both quit campaigning. Paul’s effort was not a serious challenge. Romney chose Rep Paul Ryan of WI as his running mate; he had made taxes his long time concern, not to say obsession.

    Romney ran a closer race that his party had four years earlier, but still lost the popular vote by more than 3%. Obama had a fairly comfortable 332-206 edge in the Electoral College.

    2016 was very different, perhaps genuinely unique in some ways. This was partly because there was a serious female candidate who had a real chance of becoming President and because there was also a very unorthodox candidate and a campaign that was strange itself and led to a bizarre outcome.

    On the Democratic side there were orginally six serious contenders, but the only ones who would stay that way long term were Hillary Clinton, representing more or less the moderate wing of the party, and NH Sen Bernie Sanders, a self-styled socialist representing the “progressive” wing.(I have never felt Bernie is really socialist in any sensible meaning of the word. “Liberal Democrat” would be my description.)

    At the beginning the results were mixed as Clinton won a close victory in IA and Sanders a strong one in NH. He won more states after that, but Clinton scored in ( the newly recognized as diverse) NV. Especially, she won with a large victory margin in SC showing both her appeal extending to the South and, more importantly, to Black Americans. Sanders continued to campaign hard and won some delegates, but by June Clinton was uncatchable and Sanders suspended his campaign. Later, Clinton chose Tim Kaine, a somewhat obscure US Senator from VA, as her running mate.

    Despite the mark Clinton made regarding women in American politics, the bigger story lay with the Republicans. NY millionaire and entrepreneur Donald Trump was the leader in polls of Republican voters from his announcement he wa running, about a year before the convention. He was a very unusual candidate in that he eschewed ordinary behavior and caution, and often used language which in vulgarity or degree of extremism had heretofore been unheard in US politics. But he touched a deep feeling of dissatisfaction running through Middle America, particularly the Midwest and the South, but by no means entirely absent elsewhere. He also appealed to Whites of a Protestant background, but pulled in a fair number of people from other backgrounds. Many people, some of whom did not necessarily like Trump’s personality or style, felt he was speaking for them and that no other politicians understood them. Others, both ordinary people and politicians, were outraged by Trump’s flirting with bigotry, his vulgarity, his condescending attitudes toward women and his overall lack of what they considered correct behavior.(To be fair, most of the attitude toward women quotations came from earlier , before the campaign, speeches and sound bites.)

    Trump appears to have appealed mostly to people form the right wing of the Republican Party or people who were not party members but who identified with a certain brand of conservatism. He started his run for the nomination with more than a dozen opponents, but by early 2016 the field had been largely narrowed down to Trump and three others–Sen Ted Cruz of TX, Sen Marco Rubio of FL and Gov John Kasich of OH.

    At first it looked close as Cruz, who came off as about as conservative as Trump but slightly more normal, won in NH. Trump won in SC and several other states, but Cruz stayed competitive with a big WI win. After that, however, Trump’s apparently almost perfect communication with certain portions of the white middle class took over and he reeled off a string of Primary victories. Eventually the others dropped out, Kasich being the last to do so. Kasich had begun to finish fairly consistently second in later Primaries, and if this had started earlier it might have made a difference. I do not mean that Kasich would have stopped Trump becoming the nominee, but he might have roughed him up badly with only the two of them on the stage. The smart and sincere Ohioan might have made a difficult opponent in such circumstances and might have sent Trump into the fall campaign with diminished confidence.

    As it turned out, however, by late Spring Trump had pocketed the nomination. At the Cleveland convention his opponents made one loud but totally unsuccessful attempt to establish themselves as a serious group, and when they failed, faded quickly into obscurity. Trump chose Gov Mike Pence of IN(and largely unknown in other states)as his running mate. A restrained, morally and politically conservative man, he may have steadied Trump’s support with some more traditional Republicans. Trump may have regretted his choice in 2020-2021 when Pence honorably refused to take part in the plethora of odd actions by Trump and others , trying to find a way to overturn his 2020 loss.

    Clinton seemed to win the debates, She was clearly Trump’s superior in knowledge and understanding and mentally ready to deal with the Presidency. Trump sometimes behaved boorishly, once walking around behind her as she was speaking. This apparently made no difference in the end; On election night it soon became apparent Trump was running better than the polls had predicted. In fact, he did lose the popular vote by a lot, about 2%. But his geographical distribution of votes was such that for only the second time in over a century(but also the second time in less than 20 years)the Presidential victory went to the candidate who won fewer popular votes. Trump bested Clinton by about 20 Electoral Votes and was duly and officially elected the following month.

    The 2020 campaign was unique in that it was the first (and we may hope and pray the only)campaign waged against the ever-present background of the covid virus. For the Republicans it was an easy choice. Nearly all Republicans thought President Trump had done a good job. Many, though I think a smaller number, admired him as a person. Both parties dispensed with the large gathering type of convention because of covid and did everything connected to the conventions on television. The Republicans announced that Trump himself was their platform and didn’t bother to write one. This was considered weird by a number of people then but seems more or less forgotten now.

    The Dems began with at least 29 theoretical candidates, a ridiculously large number which dropped to 11 by the time the Primaries began. The only serious ones were Sen Elizabeth Warren of MA, Sen Bernie Sanders of CT, trying it again, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend IN and former VP Joe Biden. Biden had led the polls almost consistently in 2019 but things did not go well for him early in the Primary season. The IA caucuses led to a split decision with Sanders winning the largest number of votes, but Buttigieg winning the highest delegate count. Sanders also won by a slight margin over Buttigieg in NH and a larger one in NV thus acquiring the front runner mantle. Biden ran behind in the early Primaries and seemed to be dropping as Bernie ascended. But Rep Jim Clyburn of SC, one of the South’s most respected Black leaders, announced his support for the former VP and his influence was enough to make a huge difference. Biden won a big victory in SC, slowing down the Sanders bandwagon and re-establishing himself as a formidable candidate. He already had name recognition and experience and now could add the all important factor of momentum which so often determines a candidate’s fate in Primaries. After SC his campaign clearly gathered steam and he won about 2/3 of the remaining primaries. By April he was obviously the presumed Dem candidate for President and the rest dropped out or at least stopped, the feisty Sanders being the last to give up.

    Biden chose Sen Kamala Harris of California as his running mate. making her the second woman and the first Black person ever chosen for the second spot on the ticket. Biden won the election after a bitter campaign. He won by about 4 1/2% of the popular vote and took the Electoral College by 306-232. This led to weeks of controversy, arguing, false claims by Trump and his people and eventually the terrible riot of Jan 6. But this is, fortunately from my point of view, beyond the purview of our inquiry. It is, rather, time to stop and reflect.

    So, what lessons, if any, are to be gleaned from the past century plus of Primaires and politics? I suggest that the way to approach this is to review the Presidents both the old system and the new Primary-oriented one gave to the US. It occurs to me that the old system produced three Presidents who could be considered “great.” Nearly all historians agree that FDR belongs in the top three of all time along with Washington and Lincoln. His cousin, Theodore, used to be one of the “near greats” and I think still should be(or higher) by any rational judgement. I disapprove of some of his foreign policy, but he was a very unusual and I think, great, leader. The one doubtful choice of this trio is Lyndon B Johnson. Because of his foreign policy troubles, mostly the unpopular Vietnam War which tore the country apart, some consider him a failure. But his domestic accomplishments, Civil Rights, Medicare and the rest of the “Great Society” legislation could have been done by no other 20th century President in my opinion(and perhaps at no other time). Richard Nixon who, if nothing else, was a sort of expert in Presidential power, once said that only the 2 Roosevelts and LBJ dominated the Presidency in the 20th century and I think he was right.

    Some others deserve mention. Both HST and Ike I think could be considered “near great” for their judicious handling of foreign policy security issues and for their personal honor and integrity. They also both pursued basically sane and attainable(if not attained)domestic policies. Neither was without error, but they stand high in comparison to the rest.

    More than half a century later, JFK remains an enigma and maybe always will. The glamour and the glitz often dominates , but it is difficult to get to close to his history without realizing the presence of a remarkable mind. His soaring rhetoric was certainly the best(and remains so)of any President since recording was invented. Whether future generations will think him great or near great or whatever I do not know, but I am willing to leave him and his tragically and violently cut short time in the WH with at least the benefit of the doubt. The one thing we can say about his tenure in office is that he guided the country through the most dangerous crisis of the Cold War and, face to face with Khrushchev he pulled it off, saving world peace and the reputation of the leaders on both sides.

    Very well, what then of the Presidents who came from the other system, the Primaries dominated one that gave the voters more direct choice of who got the nomination? This is difficult to say, but I searched the records of Presidents of this later era in vain for anyone to match the two Roosevelts and LBJ. If anyone had told me 30 years ago I would one day write this, I would have been very surprised, but I think that only one who can match(or come close to it) the qualifications of great Presidents of the past is Ronald Reagan. No, I didn’t like his Presidency. I voted against him twice and likely would do so again if given the opportunity. He represented the wing of the Republican party I have never liked(even when I was a Republican). I thought his domestic policies though, strongly approved by conservative pundits and commentators, did not take into account the many people left out or at least left behind in our country and who clearly needed more help. I haven’t changed my mind on these things, but I do consider now some other things about him—

    First of all, though not a great intellect, he had the ability to influence and lead thinking and opinion in many cases. I was not among those who responded to this part of him, but it is clearly true. Furthermore, one writer once said the first test to tell if a leader is great is, “Does he fill up the space around him?” Reagan did. To many Americans, myself not included, he provided a symbol of the American past that they thought should and could be nourished into the future without changes. I doubt this was so, but it comforted many and he served another role of a leader, he was for many a symbol of the nation.

    I was appalled and to some extent still am by his early years in which he succeeded in slowing down and sometimes reversing the “intrusion” of the welfare state. I thought most of these “intrusions” were good and not harmful and should go on. He did not agree and his political victories in his first term were remarkable and he seemed to be turning a society around(In the end this was, fortunately in my opinion, only partly true). But he did dominate the political scene and show leadership ability that had not been seen in the White House since LBJ and which is rarely seen.

    Looking at his successors, I think that only two stand out and should be considered–Bill Clinton and Barack Obama(not coincidentally, perhaps, two of the most intelligent Presidents in American History.) But I cannot quite say either one was “great.” Clinton, slow to start, but a fast learner, turned out to be the most capable Dem Party leader of the era and the only one who, in sheer political skills, could match Reagan. Despite enormously bitter Republican opposition he guided the country on its journey into the digital age, ably helped by VP Al Gore. They appear to have been the first two significant US political leaders to grasp the internet’s importance, particularly its economic implications. Clinton gave the nation two terms of a rising economy, particularly in the second term when the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%. He had no disastrous encounters as a foreign policy President and helped lead the NATO air war on Serbia at a time when many were at risk over the break up of what had once been Yugoslavia.

    But with Clinton you must considered his lackings, particularly with truth telling, most particularly in the Lewinski case. The lying about what had happened was about as bad as the event itself and it left behind a reek of bitterness. This limited what Clinton could do in office(though he did a lot), and particularly his ability to lead a united party to a victory in 2000. (An interesting sidelight here is that LBJ and Clinton were largely successful as domestic Presidents. Each spent the final months of his Presidency vigorously pursuing peace, LBJ in Vietnam, Clinton in the Middle East where he nearly pulled of a deal between Israel and the PLO, but which was thwarted by the stubbornness of Yasar Arafat. Clinton had already helped Tony Blair to bring something approaching a reasonable settlement to Northern Ireland.) I continue to admire Bill Clinton who I think was a very good President, but not quite a great one.

    Obama is in a way harder to explain. He has to stand with Jimmy Carter as one of the most morally upstanding and honest men ever to be President. In the face of mostly subdued but nonetheless noticeable vicious hatred because of his race, he pursued his goals with courage and precision. He turned the US government to the most of the serious of the problems the country faced. Among a number of victories, his greatest was the passage and maintenance of “Obamacare” which is now the most popular of his actions.

    Absolutely unflappable in public, he stayed at the helm for eight years with sharks gathering around him in the various international terrorist groups. He also fended off many irrational and gross attacks from his domestic rivals.

    His weakness is foreign policy and he was not terribly weak, but left a record that could have been better. Most obvious among the mistakes was Syria and its terrible civil war in which he threatened to intervene with American troops. He drew a line in the sand and when the line was crossed he did not respond. Possibly this, non-intervention, was the right action, but if so, the line should not have been drawn in the first place. Likewise, the situation on our southern border was not much better when the left office than when he arrived. This is a hideous issue for our country and perhaps no one could have solved it, but it would have been another great credit to him if he had pulled it off. I rate him more than a good President and would give him a B+, maybe an A-. But I cannot quite say he was great.

    So, may we reach a conclusion? Well, no, not a certain one in my opinion. It does appear that the old, presumably less democratic and less honest system gave us 3 great Presidents out of 14, a considerably higher percentage than the newer system’s 1 of 7. This is a strong point but not the only point. It is also necessary to consider the times. Though leaders do make the history(usually, in my own opinion)the times of their power also makes leaders. It has been pointed out that most of our great or near great Presidents(those so considered in the past, anyway)held the office at times of crisis, national, international or both. In fact, it has been pointed out that among the 11 Presidents considered “great” or “near great” in the past, only Theodore Roosevelt did not serve at a time of something that might be considered crisis. We must at least take this into account, when we think about our past.

    I would like to have some piece of existential wisdom to leave with you on this subject, but unfortunately I have none. I have laid out my thinking and there is little left to interpret. I will merely say that both systems produced winners and losers and the difference in number and quality, though not negligible, is not so large as to be overwhelming. I suggest no change to make the process of becoming President less democratic. I suggest, really, nothing except honesty and clarity of thought.

    I do have some thoughts on the Electoral College which I may share sometime. In the meantime, reflect and express your opinions. But when trying to make final judgements on our country, be cautious as Steven Vincent Benet was as he wrapped up “John Brown’s Body,” his great American narrative poem. “Say not ‘ it is blessed’ or ‘it is cursed’ –say only, it is here.”

  • How we got here–the(more or less)midentury primaries

    The 1920’s brought serious changes to the society and the world and this included the US Primary system. In the 3 elections of the decade the old, boss-run system produced, for the GOP, candidates, Warren G Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. For the Dems in was Ohio Gov James Cox, WV millionaire John W Davis and NY Gov Al Smith. Here’s how it all happened …

    The ailing and frustrated WW was not a fit candidate for another run although he considered going for a third term. His health was poor, his League of Nations Dream largely shattered(US didn’t join) and his idealism going out of style(WW, incidentally is often denounced as a racist today–I feel this is unfair for while his views then certainly would qualify as racism now, he was, after all, a white southerner who could remember the Civil War—Virginian by birth, NJ came later– and in making judgements I think you need to consider the whole man or woman and the whole career)

    Instead of WW or several other candidates, and after a number of primaries showing a divided and maybe disillusioned party, the Democrats nominated Gov James Cox, a more or less routine OH politician who no one expected much of except that he win and keep the White House for the Dems. His running mate, by the way, was a wealthy New Yorker, FDR, who was handsome, charming, a former Ast Secretary of the Navy and most of all, bore that magic name, “Roosevelt.” The Republicans had many choices, one of which might have been TR, but Teddy died in 1919 and this likely changed history. He was still the most popular and beloved man in the US and had he lived and been in good health he would very likely have gotten the nomination. He would almost certainly have beaten Cox(after all Cox lost to Harding)and a third, perhaps a fourth TR term might have made all the difference. He would likely have intervened in the orgy of display and over spending that characterized American business during the decade and what if he had been successful?

    Well, so goes speculation–perhaps another time. The Republicans had several serious though hardly over qualified candidates and reaching a compromise among them proved impossible. After an interview in(maybe)a smoke-filled room, OH Sen Warren G Harding became the nominee. He was, I think, a better man and a slightly better President than he has usually gotten credit for, but he was surely no prize. His main trouble seems to have been that he trusted people and he found it difficult to refuse anyone anything, particularly people he at least vaguely liked. He eventually came to realize that his friends were ruining him but but was too late to do much good. Although personally honest, he ran a crooked administration in which he allowed all kinds of corruption, the most notable example of this being Teapot Dome. Cox might have been a little better. He likely would not have been great. Ohioans were said to be cynical about these two running against each other, figuring that whoever won would be unqualified. The whole election seems to be an argument for the primaries and more power for the average voter.

    Harding died in 1923, still beloved and most of his Administration’s corruption still unknown to the public. They found out soon enough. “Silent Cal” is actually best known for a couple of things he did say. “The Man who builds a factory builds a temple.” was one of them. And “The business of America is business.” Personally honest, he was not inclined to use his power to do much of anything for those in need and for about 5 1/2 years he ran a frugal, business friendly, and mostly do-nothing government.

    Of course, in 1924 Coolidge had to run for the Presidency himself. No one was seriously interested in challenging him within the party, however, except for a few out-in-left-field progressives. The Democrats were something else again. They were divided with several candidates running in primaries and with Wm McAdoo, WW’s son-in-law and Gov Al Smith of NY emerging as the leading candidates. McAdoo more or less represented the conservative wing of the party. He did not endorse the KKK but he refused to renounce its public support. Smith unashamedly led the northern, urban and largely Roman Catholic wing, But there were other candidates, some serious, some not. The big early controversy at the convention was over the platform and a plank the northerners wanted condemning the Klan by name. After days of shouting, sweating in the NY summer heat and insulting each other, the delegates defeated this plank by approximately 1 vote.(Approximately? The Dems had a practice that at least some delegates could cast portions of a vote rather than the whole thing. Don’t ask why, if I could figure it out I would).

    They then went on to become the longest convention in American political history, about two weeks. They ran through 102 roll call ballots without anyone getting the necessary 2/3 and finally nominated John W Davis of WV. Davis was a distinguished man, a former Ambassador and a very successful and influential attorney. He appears to have had little familiarity, however, with the give and take of national politics. And, for the record, he was NOT an announced candidate for the nomination at the beginning of the convention. He apparently appeared to be qualified and not to have enough of a public record to have offended anyone very much. My guess is he would have made a better President than Coolidge who beat him in a landslide. Running after a divided convention with a viciously divided party sort of behind you is not the way to win.

    In 1928 the situation was different. Al Smith won victory after victory in the primaries and was clearly the choice of the more northern, urban wing of the party which was likely a bit larger than the other. He was, of course, bitterly opposed by the somewhat fading but still strong KKK, but the liberals for the moment held the upper hand and Smith got the nomination, the first Roman Catholic to be the nominee of one of our leading parties.

    The Republicans, faced with a variety of choices, settled on Herbert Hoover, who hade won a large plurality but not quite a majority of the votes cast in the primaries. He was a self-made millionaire and mining engineer and a non-military hero of WWI, for organizing the food supply effort that saved millions of Europeans from(often literal)starvation. He represented a business oriented conservatism within the party, but not the extreme right.

    In the end about the only real issues were prohibition, which Hoover cautiously, sort of supported and Smith cautiously, sort of opposed, and Smith’s Catholicism which was rarely spoken of in campaigning but was well known to be a factor. The KKK strongly opposed Smith but Southerners were often in a very difficult position.. One candidate was a Roman Catholic, the other a Republican–what’s a southern Dem to do?

    As a campaigner Smith had a quick, feisty entertaining quality about him which solidified his standing among the urban dwellers. He did not play as well in rural and small town America, however, while Hoover’s less expansive conservatism did. At least outside the South Hoover was what a lot of middle class Americans wanted and some of the southerners did too. HH won in a landslide although Smith ran up impressive popular vote totals in many big cities.

    Very few things “change everything” but the Great Depression came about as close as one public event could. In 1932 the world and the US were way different from 1928. The Depression, more or less, started with the US Market Crash of October, 1929. Depression was not necessarily inevitable after this, but the economic circumstances throughout the industrialized world were much changed and the seeds of trouble were there. A series of selfish and basically stupid actions by several economic powers, the US included, made things worse and by 1931 it was clear there was a real depression.

    US unemployment was likely around 25% and has been estimated as high as 1/3 of the workforce. Many others were underemployed, their take-home pay much reduced, and millions thought, sometimes correctly, that their jobs were insecure. This was the situation confronting the US as the next Presidential election loomed. The period of 1932-1940 is fairly easy to explain. IN 1932 the Dems had at least 8 candidates for the nomination including the now more or less perennial Al Smith and former VA Gov Harry Byrd who was the current leader of the state’s Byrd Dynasty . After a brokered convention, a lot of boss influence, and a boost from William Randolph Hearst(Hello, Citizen Kane-uh, I mean Hearst)Franklin D Roosevelt, distant cousin of TR and Governor of NY got the Democratic nomination. The Republicans felt they had no choice but to “Press on with Hoover” which was the campaign’s slogan. FDR’s campaign song, “Happy Days Are Here Again” sounded a lot better to the voters even though those happy days were not yet evident or obviously on the way. FDR won in a landslide.. He would go on to be considered by nearly all Presidential scholars, one of the three “Great” Presidents.

    IN 1936 the Depression was still there and many people not doing well, but the unemplopyment rate had dropped to around 14 or 15% and clearly things were better. And now, there was hope. So no one was going to oppose FDR(now that Huey Long was gone)for the nomination. The Republicans had been blamed, (more or less fairly, I’d say) for the Depression and needed to bounce back. It didn’t happen. They had two main possibilities, Sen Borah, the Idaho old progressive and current isolationist, and Alf Landon, the fairly dynamic Governor of Kansas. Borah did much better than Landon in the primaries, but the party leadership may have been distrustful of his one-time progressivism and perhaps doubtful about his personality. Landon seemed a good man and was given the nomination. It is difficult to judge what kind of a President he would have made. I’d say not bad, but no FDR. In any event, he lost in a historic landslide, carrying only Maine and Vermont. FDR got about 61% of the popular vote, a near record, even today. (I remember seeing Landon interviewed on TV as an old man in the 1960’s. He was one of the most intelligent and reasonable Republicans I can remember–too bad the US has often had two really good men in a race someone has to lose and other times 2 other types in a race one of them has to win).

    The 1940 situation was more complicated for both parties. WWII had broken out in Europe and almost every politician in America had declared himself neutral and promised not to support American involvement. Also, the Democrats had an anomaly of their own in their very popular President who decided to break precedent and seek a third term. A lot of people, including quite a few Democrats were unhappy with this non-traditional choice, but FDR, maintaining he needed to be there because of the war, stuck to his decision and the party, for the most part accepted him for a third run.

    The Republicans, maybe smelling a chance for victory in exploiting the third term issue, had 3 leading candidates. Leading the conservatives was Sen Robert A Taft of OH, very conservative and not very charismatic, but known for personal integrity. Leading the Eastern/Midwestern- urban/suburban moderate wing was Manhattan DA Tom Dewey who seemed charismatic and handsome and had put in jail some big time criminals including the notorious Lucky Luciano.(Forty years later another New Yorker would ride the same crime-busting horse to fame–until he finally fell off)

    Sen Arthur Vandenberg of MI was considered a “favorite son” of that state(Usually being a favorite son meant a candidate had pretty much no chance of getting nominated)but a lot of people admired his intelligence and integrity and he seemed a possible compromise choice. Dewey did best in the primaries but as the convention loomed no one had anything approaching a majority of delegates. Enter, stage left, Wendell Willkie of IN, a wealthy businessman who had been a Democrat until he became disturbed by what he apparently regarded as the excesses of FDR’s New Deal. He was a talented public speaker with a pleasing personality and was soon being considered a real possibility. When the convention met in Philadelphia his people managed to get a huge number of his supporters seated in the gallery where they screamed, shouted and tried their best to intimidate delegates. Apparently they succeeded, Willkie got the nomination. The bosses may have mistrusted him but they seem to have seen in him something they’d long wanted-a candidate who just might beat FDR.(Adlai Stevenson’s people would try the same gallery tactic in Los Angeles 20 years later–it was a noisy failure)

    FDR apparently thought Willkie looked like trouble. He ditched his rather crotchety VP, John Nance Garner for the very liberal(or at least very leftist) Henry Wallace and took the GOP challenge seriously. It paid off. Willkie ran the best race a Republican Presidential candidate ever had against FDR, but came nowhere near winning..

    In 1944 the war was nearing its end although this was not too obvious to the public. Republican primary votes were split all over the place and the party went for the now Governor of NY, Tom Dewey. The Dems re-nominated FDR but (because of the President’s health)took serious care in choosing his running mate. They dumped incumbent Henry Wallace and chose Harry S Truman to replace him. Truman was a moderately well-known Missouri Sen who had investigated government waste during the war and who seemed to be able to waltz with some unsavory Democratic bosses without getting engaged to them. Dewey lost the election(of course)but not the desire to be President.

    In 1948 the war was over, FDR was gone and Harry Truman was President. The US, and of course each political party, faced the new national and international situations with some uncertainty. Both of them tried to recruit Gen Dwight Eisenhower, commander of allied forces in Europe during the war, as their candidate. But Eisenhower was not ready to enter politics and actually, neither side knew which party he favored. Truman had presided over a fairly smooth transition from war to peacetime economics. There had been a largely predictable outburst of unemployment 1945-’46 as millions of servicemen were demobilized and dumped on the job market, but this proved temporary and prosperity soon returned. Truman was rewarded by the bosses and genuine reformers agreeing that he deserved a full term of his own and he was renominated at the convention. There was division in the party, however, with former Vice-President Henry Wallace leading a rebellion on the left while SC Sen Strom Thurmond led one on the right. Both would challenge Truman by running races of their own, meaning the voters had three different “Democrats” to choose from

    The Republicans had several possibilities but it all came down to Tom Dewey, the previous election’s candidate and still the dominant Eastern Republican, and Harold Stassen, the Gov of Minnesota. Stassen would run almost every election for decades and eventually become a national political joke. But in 1948 he was a serious candidate and one of the non-Eastern leaders of Republican moderates. This is the last time the GOP choice would be between two candidates, neither of whom was very popular with the right wing.. The primaries were very even and finally went Dewey’s way when he had a radio debate with Stassen before the important Oregon primary. Dewey was perceived by most to have won the debate and he was the victor in Oregon. After that he was not stoppable. He and running mate, Gov Earl Warren of California formed one of the least conservative Republican tickets in history.

    Dewey was the odds on favorite since Truman’s party was split three ways, and many people seemed ready for a change. But Dewey’s overconfidence and seeming complacency eventually ruined his chances and HST won one of the biggest upset victories in Presidential History.

    1952 led to one big surprise. Nearly everyone expected Truman to go after a second term for himself. He chose not to do so. Primaries did not in the long run play a large role here. The leading candidate, with HST on the sidelines, was Estes Kefauver, a TN Senator but not a typical southern Democrat. Flexible on racial issues, he had made his name attacking big time hoodlums in politics and this led to exposing some questionable relations between big city Dems and the mob(s). Kefauver won most of the primaries and led in the polls. He was obviously the choice of the national rank and file.

    But the bosses, north and south hated him. His flexibility on race made him unacceptable to the southern bosses and his anti-gangster investigations had done the same thing with the big city northerners. Despite a decline in their power the bosses still could exercise great power if they stuck together, and they had enough power here to get their way. The power was negative, stopping something, rather than positive, causing something, but it worked. They managed to block Kefauver as a convention choice. The nomination went to Gov Adlai Stevenson of IL who had not competed in primaries. Hardly the typical big city candidate, he was brilliant, witty and a good speaker. He had an admirable record as governor and the bosses were willing to accept him.

    The Republicans had several candidates, but really it came down to two. Sen Taft, the OH conservative was still the ideal of the Republican right and Dwight Eisenhower, who now emerged as a Republican, represented the mostly Eastern-Great Lakes area moderates. The race was complicated slightly by the fact that Warren, Dewey and Gen Douglas MacArthur were all interested, but it was largely a two man race. The primaries were very close and Taft held a small lead but not a majority of pledged delegates, as the convention approached.

    The Republicans, heretofore know for sedate conventions, at least compared to Democrats, held one of their wilder ones in Chicago(which must have made a lot of money by hosting both parties’ conventions).The clever Eisenhower team managed to challenge the Taft delegates from three states and through the credentials committee won more Eisenhower delegates. The two sides were angry with each other and among the bad feelings a two man fist fight broke out of the floor. Finally the roll call began and Eisenhower led but without a majority when it ended. Then states(one of them the Stassen-led Minnesota)began changing their votes and Eisenhower(“Ike” to many now)e merged with a first ballot victory. He sought to soothe the feelings of the vanquished conservatives by his choice of running mate, and he changed the future history of the nation and the world with his choice–Richard Nixon.

    Though not as witty or well educated as Stevenson, who won the intellectual vote, Eisenhower made a likeable candidate and many were ready for a change. There was a bump in the road with some allegations about Nixon’s money raising activities, but Ike stayed back and let Nixon handle it, which he did with one of the best known–and maybe the most despised–of American political speeches, the Checkers speech. This was an early indication of the talents of a rather private type candidate who might one day become a clever TV candidate. Eisenhower won in a popular landslide and pulled in three of the eleven states of the Confederacy, thus beginning the real part of the GOP rise to southern power. He also pulled in a short-lived Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. The Democrats would win back Congress two years later.

    In 1956 Eisenhower had no serious oppostion for the nomination. He had encountered serious health issues, but seeemed to have overcome them and to be on the mend by the election campaign. There was no real doubt among most Republicans that he should be nominated again, although a small core of convinced conservatives may have thought he was too willing to accept too much of the America the New Deal had created.

    The Democrats were faced with pretty much a two man race between the old antagonists, Stevenson and Kefauver. The latter looked like a winner in the first months as he won most of the primary popular vote and most of the delegates. But the Stevenson people, having experience now, pulled themselves together and helped him to win some late primaries. This, plus the prestige of being a former candidate, albeit a losing one, was enough the get him the nomination again, although it took three ballots(The last time–to date–a nominating convention took more than 1 ballot to choose a candidate). Stevenson made no choice for VP, instead encouraging the convention to make the choice. Sen John Kennedy of MA put up a spirited fight for the VP nomination, but it went to Kefauver. Finally, he and Adlai were a team. Predictably they lost in another Eisenhower landslide, helped along, likely, by the Suez crisis in the Mideast and the Hungarian Revolt against the USSR, both of which gave the President a chance to emphasize his foreign policy experience & talents.

    In 1960 there was a new decade and a new approach to politics. though not yet the big one my hypothesis suggests for the 1970’s. The media were more active now–in 1963 ABC, CBS and NBC–hello, Huntley-Brinkley–would go from 15 minutes to a full half hour of national news every weekday evening.(Rather difficult to imagine now) The 1960 election race would be between two non-presidents as Ike was forbidden by age and health, and for sure by the 22nd Amendment from seeking a third term.

    On the Republican side there was not much of a contest. The obvious candidate was Vice-President Richard M Nixon, a one-time Red Hunter from the now gone McCarthy era, but one who had usually stopped a bit short of full McCarthyism. He was now an 8-year veteran of the Eisenhower Administration and had developed a reputation as “Tricky Dick” but also as a willing deal maker and perhaps a moderate. This last one irritated some conservatives and a few of them began to talk publicly about Barry Goldwater, the very conservative Senator from AZ. Goldwater, however, while welcoming the upsurge of Republicans who wanted to repeal most of the New Deal, made no overt attempt for the nomination.

    Gov Nelson Rockefeller of NY represented the Eastern, internationalist and moderate(some conservatives might have said “liberal”)wing of the party, once dominant and still rich but fading somewhat in influence. He had more charisma than Nixon and considerable stature in the East(and, of course loads of money), but Nixon won the hearts and minds of the the mid west, the West and the increasingly important Republicans in the South. He also had a lot of political debts he could now call in and a natural affinity for politics. Despite Rockefeller’s good looks, charisma and huge fortune he never really had a chance. It was clearly Nixon from the start with a few platform concessions to Rockefeller and the moderates. There was hardly an exciting primary race at all.

    The Democrats situation was far different. After eight years of Eisenhower they were chomping at the bit to win back the White House and there were a lot of them who wanted the job. There were at least four serious candidates and as many or more lesser knowns who hoped to score a breakthrough. Based strictly upon experience and political skill it would appear that Lyndon B Johnson of TX, the Senate Majority Leader had the edge. But although LBJ was a dominant power in the overall Democratic party, many Northern liberals saw him as mainly a Southerner and likely an opponent of civil rights legislation. Johnson was actually a fairly moderate segregationist and was a segregationist only in public because he knew it was the only way to win in TX. But the Northern doubts about him stuck and were perhaps pushed along by the near-hysterical support he got from many frightened Southerners who apparently saw him, rightly or wrongly, as a bulwark against northern liberals, particularly if not exclusively on matters of race.

    Early on in this race the polls picked up the fact that it looked like a fairly even contest beteen Johnson and Sen. John F Kennedy of MA. Many pundits gave a slight though cautious edge to JFK. He was a 40ish WWII hero, the scion of a wealthy family, immensely charming and handsome and one of the best speakers in the history of American politics. Erudite, well-informed and self-confident, he would win the the intellectuals as well as Adlai Stevenson did, but also pull support of the uneducated who found him exciting rather than boring. In his second term as a US Senator he was not nearly as politically experienced as LBJ, but his seemingly boundless self-confidence made him a worthy and dangerous competitor to the majority leader. His only disadvantages were his Roman Catholicism which was still a very big deal in much of the US, and the low opinion many had of his aggressive and hugely wealthy father, Joseph, who was thought by many to have amassed a fortune in unscrupulous ways.

    In addition to these two there was Hubert Humphrey, the liberal Senator from MN and longtime favorite of the Democratic left. Naturally, he was disliked and mistrusted by the South. Known for talking too much and defining himself too closely on some issues, he had an impressive record of accomplishments and could sometimes be a a very effective campaigner. Also, there was Stuart Symington, Senator from MO. A moderate Democrat with a strong record on national defense and security, he appeared a possibility to rally most northerners without driving away the South. He was sometimes referred to, not entirely derisively, as “everybody’s third choice.”

    The primaries were of great importance in making sense of all this and a great help to the party. They were not yet totally dominant–the day of the bosses was not yet gone–but they were important now, perhaps more so than ever before.

    In the first really telling contest, WI, JFK defeated HHH in a close race that left them both battered and their people plagued with doubts. JFK had won by running up big majorities in heavily Catholic areas, mostly in and around large cities. This left questions as to his ability to win without a lot of Catholic support. HHH, at the same time, failed, for whatever reason, to win the state which was next door neighbor to his own. WI Dem values were thought to be similar to MN ones and HHH was well-known and presumably well-liked there. If he couldn’t win WI, where could he win?

    West Virginia was next and looked like being an answer to some questions. It was. The Kennedy machine spent much time and money in this 90% white Protestant state and HHH was simply outgunned. JFK scored a big victory and put aside one of the big doubts about him. If he could win poor, Appallachin Protestants, then his Catholicism was not a handicap everywhere. HHH’s campaign began to collapse after the WV defeat and ceased to be a large factor in the fight for the nomination.

    The primaries were very important here. But LBJ had passed on the primaries and still had the second highest number of delegates pledged to him, ahead of everyone but JFK. He had done this through boss influence, calling in political IOU’s, exercising the famous Johnson personality, etc. But he had not won any primaries or even tried. So the leader as the convention began had a large number of delegates, mostly won in primaries. HIs closest competitor had about half as many delegates, none won in primaries.

    When push came to shove at the Los Angles convention, JFK prevailed, just barely getting the nomination on the first ballot. Wyoming, at the end of the alphabetical roll call gave him his victory and provoked several minutes of hysterical and chaotic joy. Due to the time difference most Easterners and Midwesterners would get only a look at the tape on the news the next day, but for those present or tuned in it was quite a moment–the beginning, surely, of a new era. But the question of the primaries was not really answered yet, though they had certainly showed signs of becoming the new power they eventually would. The new era was not to be, however. It crashed to an end 11/22/63 in Dallas, TX. The Democrats, shattered and dismayed, licked their wounds and made plans to recover. Perhaps some Republicans thought they smelled an opportunity. After all, the previous election(JFK over Nixon)had been very close.

    In 1964 the Dems had an almost primary less campaign. The new President, LBJ who succeeded from VP upon JFK’s assassination, was a master of politics and maneuvering and was not about to founder on a simple political power issue. His foundering would come later on foreign policy and his inability to communicate with many young Americans and their heroes. But there was never any real doubt about his re nomination in 1964 and no primary race to explain.

    The GOP case was far different. A long smouldering intra-party quarrel came to the fore, a quarrel between the Republican moderates, mostly, but not entirely eastern and Great Lakes area people, and the conservatives, mostly but by no means entirely, western and southern.

    The conservatives wanted essentially to repeal the New Deal, which was basically, though not quite so brazenly put, Goldwater’s Position. Despite a brief, gallant and hopeless run by William W Scranton, governor of PA, to rally the party behind a moderate to liberal Republican, it quickly came down to a two-man race, Goldwater v Rockefeller The candidates traded insults and victories and defeats until early June and Goldwater seemed to hold a slight, not invulnerable lead. So it all came down to the California primary, 88 winner-take all delegates that both candidates desperately needed.

    If Goldwater won, he would just about wrap up the nomination. If Rockefeller won, they could be close to even and he and Barry Goldwater would duel for the heart and soul of the Republican Party at San Francisco. It was close. The vote-counting suspense outlasted the night and by dawn’s early light it was appearing that Goldwater had a small lead that would likely last. It did and the nomination was all but his.

    The convention was clearly Goldwater country but with many angry and depressed Rockefeller backers in attendance and willing to make noise, literally and figuratively, about their disappointment. The convention also hearlded the beginning(or maybe it had already started) of a long-standing feud between the Republican right and the media. Eisenhower, in his address to the convention, included a short statement about ignoring “sensation-seeking columnists and commentators.” He apparently felt this strongly but thought it was little more than a throw-away line in his speech, and was surprised when it roused the delegates very strongly. Many screamed and shouted their approval and some shook their fists at the press box.

    Goldwater’s victory did show the primaries as extremely important. It had almost all come down to California and those 88 delegates. Most likely, most of the bosses were pleased with the results if not, perhaps, with the way they were achieved. So the bosses and the conservatives celebrated, while the moderates and many “Establishment Republicans” sulked or worse. Goldwater turned out to be an effective campaigner when it came to inspiring conservatives. He was not, however, particularly good at persuading those who opposed him to consider him, to reconsider themselves, and maybe to change their minds. LBJ found Goldwater’s questionable statements and denouncing of popular government programs, fodder for his cannon and he and HHH won an easy victory. Goldwater carried only 5 southern states and AZ. The LBJ landslide pulled in large Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress and the way was open for the President to go ahead with his programs for a Great Society.

    Four years later many changes had taken place. The Administration had pushed through Congress much of LBJ’s Great Society legislation and Medicare was now law as were a number of other liberal ideas. But the Democratic Party was badly split by LBJ’s involvement of the US in the Vietnam war and the split appeared to be irreparable, at least for the time. The anti-war Democratic hero was another Minnesotan, Sen Eugene J McCarthy and in the NH primary he surprisingly ran about even with the now beleagured seeming President. Whether this jolt of reality about his invulnerability had anything to do with LBJ’s next move I am not certain, but it might have. In March he made a famous TV speech in which he said he wished to spend every possible moment pursuing peace and had no time for politics as such. Therefore, “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for President.”

    The main beneficary of this surprise appeared for awhile to be McCarthy, but he soon had company Shortly after LBJ dropped out, Robert F Kennedy, 1-time US Attorney General and surviving eldest brother of the martyred President announced his entry. This meant two significant American liberals challenging the LBJ foreign policy and particularly the war. It also meant a nasty split within the party, for there still were Dems who respected LBJ and a few left who loved him. His main defender now would be another candidate, Vice-President Humphrey, who like LBJ earlier eschewed the primaries and depended on his influence with the liberal community and his many outstanding IOU’s within the party,

    While Hubert and his people worked behind the scences, RFK and Gene M put on an exciting and even thrilling show in trying to snatch delegates in the primaries. While HHH gathered delegates(lots of them) out of the public view, RFK and Gene M ran in several different primaries. They came to largely a draw though it is worth noting that where they directly opposed each other RFK won 3 in a row. But in Oregon, Gene won and it was pretty even approaching California. RFK won in California but after his victory speech he was assassinated, and everything seemed to stop for awhile. The US which had lost his brother to assassination about 5 years before, then MLK to the same thing a couple of months earlier, now went into shocked mourning.

    McCarthy would contiue his quest for the nomination, but with just him and his fellow Minnesotan at the fore he had little chance. HHH, through LBJ, controlled those levers of power and the nomination in Chicago was clearly his. Other than that the Chicago convention, one of the most famous in American History now, was a disaster for HHH and the Dems. Contention and bitter quarreling within the hall and riots in the streets outside gave an impression of disorganization and chaos and diminished the reputations of both the Party and the candidate. The bosses had prevailed in the long run, WITHIN THE PARTY, but the fruits of their victory there were disaster and defeat elsewhere.

    The Republican race was mostly boring. Nixon was back, now the “new Nixon,” offering himself as the man who could pull together the various parts of the party; There were some primaries and his 2 main adversaries, Rockefeller on the left, and newcomer Ronald Reagan of California on the right won a few votes and some delegates. But there was never much doubt about who would win and Nixon easily grabbed the nomination. The primary voters and the party bosses were likely largely in agreement.

    Nixon won a close race in the fall. Questions still remain about LJB, Nixon and the Vietnam War and whether there may have been dishonorable behavior or worse approaching election day. But the case is closed. No one is likely to demand reopening now.

    In 1972 Nixon was, in the opinion of most Republicans, a successful President Many other would have agreed, The War in Vietnam went on, but the society at home had quietened. One columnist said, President Nixon and his men may have succeeded in “putting the monster to sleep.” Maybe, but it proved a short nap. Of course there was no serious opposition to Nixon for the nomination. The Dems, however, had one of the messier and more bizarre primary seasons anyone could remember.

    At the beginning, the acknowledged leader was Sen Edmund Muskie of ME who had run with HHH the previous election and was considered by many the superior of the two. Wise and(usually)contained with a thoughtful and approach and pleasing personality he seemd to be on his way early. He would encounter, however, bad luck, personal failings and a slew of other issues down to bad weather and personal malice. The other candidates were HHH giving it another try, George McGovern, a liberal SD Senator who had jumped in at the last minute four years earlier, and George Wallace of AL, back in the party after and Independent run for President and still representing the racist leaning southern Democrats and their supporters. There were others, but these were key.

    During the campaign Wallace would suffer a crippling assassination attempt and Muskie would be attacked for his personality and presumed personal weaknesses and emotionalism. The most notable Muskie incident came when his outspoken wife, Jane, was accused of public drunken behavior and shooting off her mouth. The Sen leapt to her defense and gave a press conference in which he may have broken down and wept(Yes, I agree- no, big deal if it was true–but some thought that it was). The conference, held in a NH snowstorm was the beginning of the end for Muskie’s campaign. He maintained that those were melted snowflakes, not tears on his face, but the idea of him having an emotional collapse in ;public wouldn’t go away.

    “Gonzo” journalist Hunter S Thompson did not help by falsely claiming Muskie was on some kind of drug and was hallucinating during the conference. There have been many assertions that Nixon’s team of dirty tricksters had targeted Muskie as the most difficult to defeat of the Democrats and tried to ruin his chances.

    It was not all over yet–McGovern was mounting what looked like a serious campaign this time. HHH and McCarthy were fading along with the outrage about the still continuing war in Vietnam. According to the conspiracy theories the Nixon tricksters pulled the right strings in primary states and other parts of the country and managed to guarantee the victory of McGovern whom the GOP was pretty sure they could beat. The primaries played a role of some importance in that near the end of the race McGovern did increase his chances by winning a number of them. But the whole thing seemed to manage to be confusing, fairly close and boring all at the same time.

    At the Miami Beach convention the Dems put on a show that was not as damaging as four years earlier, but still did them little credit and less good. This was the beginning of what is now known as “political correctness” and they went out of their way to see that everyone, even semi-extremists got their say. At the same time, old boss types(for example Chicago’s Mayor, Richard Daley) were shut out. Daley may well have deserved this treatment but it made for bad optics for Dems watching at home to see radicals they’d never heard of and not see old familiar faces.

    McGovern got off to a bad start when his original VP choice, Sen Tom Eggleton of MO, admitted he had been treated for depression. While one might argue that this was a rational and reasonable thing for a politician, it ruined his chances and he was dropped from the ticket. His replacement, Kennedy relative R Sargent Shriver, was a pleasant and bright man and a good speaker. It appears to me his main contribution was to make his presumed boss, McGovern, look dull in comparison. To the surprise of just about no one, Nixon won a landslide victory, with McGovern carrying MA and DC, But rumors were circulating about the Republicans and certain happenings at Washington’s Watergate Hotel. Pretty soon the whole country would find out about them. And Nixon did not have solid congressional support. The Dems had kept both Houses.

    The following Presidential race of 1976, turned out to be pivotal.. with each party having a serious contest and the primaries once again playing an increassing role. On the Democratic side it began with some chaos, more than a dozen announced candidates, ranging from the well known to the not known. One important change was that Iowa had moved its caucuses to early in the campaign season, before the first primaries. Some supporters of former GA Gov Jimmy Carter suggested he try to break out of the pack by using this new opportunity.

    Carter went to IA and ran a real campaign and it paid off–he won the majority of delegates chosen and went from “Jimmy Who?” to his own name. It did not end there of course, but it was an auspicious start for a largely unknown southerner. The campaign took several months to sort things out and a number of candidates won primary victories. Although Carter remained in the lead most of the time, it was close and there still were doubts about a mostly unknown figure. The nomination was not clearly his until June. A late entry into the race by the always unpredictable Gov Jerry Brown of California shuffled the cards a bit, but in the long run had little effect.

    Carter, already ahead in both primary votes cast and delegate count, scored a big victory in OH a northern industrial(mostly)state and this largely wrapped it up for him. As a “southern outsider” he tried to balance things as much as possible, by choosing respected MN Sen Walter Mondale as his running mate.

    On the Republican side it should have been an easy job for President Gerald Ford(Nixon had resigned in 1974 rather than be impeached for Watergate)to get the nomination. It wasn’t. Ford had been perceived as a likeable but unspectacular and had ruffled feathers early with his pardon of Nixon This was likely the right thing to do, both morally and politically since it may have prevented a national crisis between the parties, but it had a smell of “a deal” about it and some of that stayed. Furthermore, there was trouble within the party. The vicious moderate-conservative battle of Rockefeller-Goldwater memory reappeared, with many conservatives thinking the fairly moderate Ford was too liberal.

    Two-term Gov Ronald Reagan of Calif saw an opportunity and pounced. He was likeable, handsome and if not exactly articulate, very good at reading from a script or simply memorizing the lines. He was, after all, a one-time Hollywood star.

    Reagan never got close enough to the required number of delegates to look like an immediate threat, but he got enough to be worrisome. It is possible, at least partly, the result of his campaign that Ford ditched his VP, Nelson Rockefeller and replaced him on the ticket with Sen Bob Dole of Kansas.

    It is something of an axiom of American politics that a President who gets a serious challenge from within his own party when seeking re nomination is likely in trouble with the electorate. This seemed the case, although it was very close. On election night Jimmy Carter won with about 51% of the popular vote to around 48% for Ford.

    If I am correct in my assumption about the primaries and when they became indeed “primary,” then we have reached the end of the second part of our quest. Next we will take up the issue of the primaries in the context of what we may broadly define as “contemporary America,” that is from the Reagan era to us.

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  • How we got here–early primaries

    My early efforts convinced me that I could not do both my comparison of older and newer ways of picking Presidential candidates and my study of older and newer movies in one blog. In fact, it may take several–depends on how wordy I get. I will try not to be unduly prolific as I wish to avoid boring both you and me. What follows is going to sound a bit like a history book, one of the more interesting ones you have read, I hope. It may be slightly repetitive, a fault I intend to hold to a minimum. I will focus on the choosing of party candidates almost, but not quite, to the exclusion of other American political issues. My main concern will be with the 20th century and its changes, and what those new changes and the new century may portend. I shall begin, however, with a brief review of US political history, particularly the role of political parties.

    Party politics was not something that most of the Founding Fathers favored much. George Washington was the most prominent of many men in the new country who disliked “factions” and hoped the new nation could and would do without then. Vain wish! There have been few societies in recorded history which have not developed at the very least what we would think of interest groups, in which like-minded people tried to influence public policy. This seems to be true to some extent even in tight-fisted dictatorships where such groups are likely to be limited in their success and possibly dangerous to be a part of. In most societies, particularly those which we are likely to call Liberal Democracies or at least Free Societies, these groups are likely to exist, perhaps even inevitable.

    This became obvious in the US in the 1790’s when powerful Congressional politicians tended to belong to the “particular friends” of Mr Hamilton or Mr Jefferson. At this point, American politics had begun, at least semi-officially as well as practically.

    The US has really had only 5 significant parties which were important for at least a couple of decades, usually much more. The first of these was the Federalists of Hamilton and John Marshall and(and later and somewhat reluctantly, Washington).Their opposition, organized at about the same time, was Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans. The former group, of course, constituted the conservative party of the time, the latter the liberal or what we would called liberal today in contrast to the Federlists. But it would be well to keep in mind that assigning contemporary names to groups and individuals of more than 2 centuries ago is a dicey business. Sometimes the names mean the same in both eras but sometimes not as I think we shall see.

    In any event, these were the first two American “political parties” if we may, in at least a loose sense, assign them that name. The Federalists dominated at first and they served the new country mostly well for a decade or so. But they began to ossify in the later ’90’s and particularly after the death of Alexander Hamilton in the(in)famous duel with Aaron Burr. this process proceeded apace. The Federalists eventually died out, largely because of lack of any principles other than obstructing the future. The Democratic Republicans, , left as the only really functional party in the country, quickly split into different factions, which might have been new parties but in the long run were not, at least not permanently. Eventually, most of them more or less morphed into The Democrats, this at the time of the Andrew Jackson Presidency. Jackson is often considered the founder of the Democratic Party and a fairly good case can be made for this assertion, though it is hard to imagine him at a gathering ot today’s “Progressive” Democrats.

    The Whigs arose at about the same time, taking the name of the anti-monarchical party in Britain because of their opposition to “King Andrew” Jackson. They were the conservatives of the time, the inheritors of the Federalists. They had a short run, roughly a quarter of a century. They disappeared in the 1850’s or at least by the early 1860’s, mainly because of their inability to deal with the slavery issue and the fratricidal civil war it engendered. The Republicans followed the Whigs, organizing in the middle-1850’s, and indeed many of their leaders were one-time Whigs. They are still with us as are Jackson’s Democrats, although the lines of descent from, say, Stephen Douglas to Joe Biden or Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump, are, to put it mildly, indistinct. Neither side today is easily recognizable through the prism of the 19th century.

    How the parties chose their Presidential candidates was not determined for a long time. For some decades it was catch-as-catch can choosing. But my concern is with what happened later on. By the mid-19th century, both parties had developed a system that included a national convention which chose the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates. It is hardly necessary to say that the men who attended these gatherings were people of influence and, usually, wealth in their states, and that the choices could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered “democratic” or representative of “the people.” In other words, the choosing was done, for good or not, by the party bosses.

    While not necessarily as corrupt as it may sound, this system clearly had some lackings, both apparent and substantial. This was particularly true as time, industrialization and immigration changed the US and people began more and more to expect their political system to reflect the people and their needs. There was, however, a way(partially)out of this. This was the primary system which gave the members of both parties some say in who got nominated for office.

    The primaries were mostly an outcome of the Progressive Movement which dominated or at least seriously affected American politics for a generation or so, about 1890-1920. Mainly a middle class movement, and found in both parties and almost all states of the union, it led to a number of reforms which were designed to reduce the power of the very wealthy and the party bosses(who were often the same people)and “restore”(or establish) power in the hands of the middle class. The Presidential primaries essentially created another Presidential voting choice within the party and within each participating state. This meant that NY Republicans got to vote on whom their state’s delegation would support at the national convention. VA Democrats would do the same.

    At the beginning, the fairly small number of primaries and their lack of effectiveness much of the time limited their influence and left the bosses largely in charge. But the bosses power was being affected. It was true that at first the primaries were almost entirely advisory and had little influence on nominations. But as time went on and the media paid more attention to them, the primaries importance increased. Now candidates had to both secure the backings of a number of boss-types and persuade a large number of the rank and file members of their party to vote for them in the primaries. By the 1970’s they had become the most important element in getting the Democratic or Republican nomination and shortly they would be almost totally dominant.

    This is not to say that the parties are not still run in many ways by political professionals, It is more or less impossible for that not to be the case, and a candidate who irritated and offended all of the people at the top might still find it difficult to get the nomination. But there is no doubt now that, beginning with the Iowa caucuses and going on into the spring and even summer, the primaries constitute the most most important element in chasing the nomination. It is now more or less an accepted fact that with respect to both parties, a candidate who can’t succeed within this system has no chance of getting the nomination.

    Let us begin, then, by looking at the first few elections of the 20th century, those before the US entrance into World War I. In 1900 the GOP renominated the incumbent President, William McKinley with a new running mate, NY Governor Theodore Roosevelt whom the party bosses hoped to kick upstairs into the Vice-Presidency and out of their hair. The Democrats re-nominated their previous election candidate too, William Jennings Bryan. McKinley was a basically competent if unspectacular man who had once been a very effective Republican leader in the House of Representatives. He is remembered today mostly as a weak and vacillating President, but that was mainly due to his attitudes and behavior regarding Cuba and the Spanish-American War. Getting involved in this war was his biggest mistake and largely ruined what might have been otherwise considered a moderately successful presidency.

    William Jennings Bryan was almost a legend in his own time, one of the dominant figures of American public life in the 19th-early 20th century. H L Mencken once wrote of him, “He was born with a roaring voice and it had the trick of inflaming dolts.” This is not exactly an out and out lie, since you could argue there is some truth in it. But it ignores a lot in that WJB was more than just a rabble rouser. He genuinely sympathized with the poor and near-poor, pious people of the rural south and mid west who were his main constituency and it can at least be said that he had good intentions which is more than can be said for some.. He was not a great intellect and his rather simple-minded approach to economics and later diplomacy did not distinguish him. One excepton–during his brief run as Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State he told the President that during wartime money is the worst contraband of all “because it controls everything else.” This appears to be a a piece of genuine if fairly obvious wisdom which he apparently thought had not occurred to WW.. Mostly, he was a decent but unsophisticated man who would likely not have been up to being President. He did, however, accurately reflect the views of about half of the Democratic Party, the rural/small town southern and midwestern half. In the cities one would have to say, well, not so much.

    In 1904 President Teddy Roosevelt(McKinley was assasinated in 1901) had become the most popular man in the country and was easily re-nominated without an argument. The Democrats chose Judge Alton B Parker of NY. Parker appears to have been a sober and honest man with very good understanding of the law and very little of practical politics and the daily life of the people. Another good man who was a poor choice. TR easily defeated him in a landslide. He(TR) went on to be one of the most popular Presidents in history and perhaps the strongest personality ever in the White House.

    TR largely chose his successor, his friend and cohort, William Howard Taft. WHT was a lawyer with a good record in non-elective political offices, but no history of being elected to anything. The Democrats, apparently entirely out of imagination or energy again nominated WJB for his third run. Though not a great man at charisma WHT easily defeated WJB who was now likely beginning to sound like a song you’ve heard too many times at one dance. In office Taft was a good administrator and an honest and decent man . But he lacked the popular touch and instinctive political sense of TR. His policies, thought similar to TR’s were not accepted by many, nor was he. Another good man who shouldn’t have been President. Thanks to the generosity of his fellow Buckeye, Warren G Harding, Taft would spend his last decade as Chief Justice of the US, a post he handled with dignity if not brilliance and for which he was much better suited.

    1912 was one of the most notable of Presidential elections. The old friends Taft and TR were now quarreling and TR took advantage of the now rising primary system to try to wrest the nomination from the President. But whatever his lackings, Taft had his hands on the Republican levers of power and despite an impressive string of primary victories for TR, WHT got the nomination. TR became the “Bull Moose” candidate and ran the most impressive third party race in history. The Democrats, after a lot of thought and contention chose the progressive Governor of NJ, Woodrow Wilson. Compared to bouncing Teddy WW was sober but he was, like TR, an intellectual, a published writer and, somewhat surprisingly,. sometimes capable of attracting public enthusiasm.

    Taft realized he had no chance against these two and didn’t try very hard. TR became the only 3rd party candidate in history to beat a Democrat or Republican and he beat the President in both the popular vote and the electoral vote(By the way, if you add together the votes for TR and WHT you get a total popular vote about the same as WW received. This would have been a close election if there had been only one Republican in it). Wilson finished first in the popular vote, though well short of a majority. He won by a landslide in the Electoral College.

    In 1916 Wilson was an apparently successful progressive president. He had gotten a new tariff, the Federal Reserve Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act through congress. Unfortunately, WWI had broken out in Europe and was a distraction to everyone in politics. Wilson’s re-nomination was never seriously questioned. On the Republican side, the party regulars and the Bull Moose Republicans more or less made up, with with some lingering resentments. There was, at least a tenuous sort of party unity in opposing the Democrats.

    On choosing a candidate for President the Republicans were split all over the place with several potential possibilities. One of them was Charles Evans Hughes, a Justice of the US Supreme Court and still the only one ever to have run for President while on the court. He won only two of about 20 primaries, so clearly the primaries were not controlling here. This issue is muddied somewhat in that no one really showed strength in the primaries and so the convention had to sort it out. Hughes got the nomination, at least in part because of his high reputation for personal integrity. He turned out, however, to be a stiff and rather uninspiring candidate and furthermore he offended some of the wrong people including California’s Progressive Governor, Hiram Johnson. In the end it was a close race and President Wilson squeaked through because he won–California! Evans returned to the court and later became Chief Justice.

    This seems to me as good a place as any to pause. We will next take up the middle period of this era, the 1920’s which saw the decline and fall of the Republican Party through the 1980’s which saw its(partial)resurgence.

  • Saturday thoughts

    It is ironic that I chose this time to start a blog. I meant it to offer an opportunity to share some things I had long considered and maybe some new ones. I had no idea I might wind up starting at the time of a terrible world crisis. Here I am all the same

    Recently I got into my car and started out somewhere and tuned into one of my favorite Sirius Radio stations. I hit Edie Gorme doing “Blame It On the Bosa Nova” from 1963. It was a favorite of mine then as a youth and still is as an elder There is–or was-a small bar near the University of Minnesota where my girlfriend(now wife)and I used to dance to it. I have no idea what its name was or if it’s still there. But the place and the music and the feeling of it all still sticks in my mind like a memory of a movie or a dream.

    Music has a way of transporting us to another time and place, real or imaginary and “Bosa Nova” did so. It took me back to a time when Edie and her husband, Steve Lawrence, were the epitome of sophisticated chic in American pop music.(There was still an American pop with real sophisticated chic then ) It also reminded me of the past-my own, my country’s, the world’s–and when you think this way you can see or at least feel the time passing. You may measure it in Presidential Administrations or in pop songs or in favorite movies or–well, nearly anything I guess. Anyhow, I thought of all that had come and gone since 1963 in my life and the world’s. I thought of the many changes and how today’s world would look to some if we could pluck them out of 1963 America and bring them here.

    The one thing that would strike them first, would likely be change, great change. But In a very serious way we are still much the same country and I am, I maintain, still the same person, completed and I hope rounded out a bit, but still the same “I” that had thoughts in the JFK Administration and ever since.(“After changes we are more or less the same.”-Paul Simon) My idea of starting a blog was to reflect upon the past(among other things)and to ask some questions and maybe, humbly, to suggest some answers. I had no idea what would be going on when I started it and though circumstances may change my feelings a bit they will not change my mind.

    I will not start now, but, I hope to, fairly soon. I intend to begin by reflecting upon the USA, more specifically on its manner of choosing Presidential candidates, and on that leading American art form, the movies, and how they have changed over the years, partly because of what they are and are not allowed to put on the screen. In each case I plan to ask what the effects of the changes were and to look at what was and what is and perhaps draw some careful and always tenuous conclusions. As a former history teacher I have to say I always liked compare and contrast questions. So here is another chance. Please join me.

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