We are about to vote in one of the most consequential elections in American history. I know, that is what we hear every four years. However, this year, we are faced with a man who makes up stuff every day, who promises not to tax the income of any audience he is addressing, and who cannot tell truth from fiction and apparently does not care. So, why is it even close?
Every time we face a national election for president, I think back on those elections of the past. The first one I remember was 1956, when I wore an Eisenhower button to school for the third-grade class. Four years later, I put a Nixon/Lodge poster outside the second floor of my house, and cried when my father told me Senator Kennedy apparently was the winner.
Imagine how different that world was than today, when Chris Mathews’ new book, “Count Down to 1960” recounts that election with the possibility that Nixon actually won, given the suspect votes in Cook County, Illinois, and the southeast part of Texas, where more people voted Democrat than there were people, reportedly. Vice President Nixon, given the chance to challenge the result, declined, knowing the trauma it would impose on the country. Test that against the Nixon of Watergate and history.
After the trauma of the Kennedy assassination, the 1964 Johnson–Goldwater election was supposedly sounding the death of the Republican Party. However, notwithstanding Johnson’s remarkable accomplishment as a master in getting legislation passed, Vietnam tanked his chances for 1968, and on March 30, he withdrew, after the New Hampshire primary that saw Eugene McCarthy tag him (even though Johnson got more votes, but not more delegates).
After a tragic spring that saw the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and a hectic Chicago convention that nominated Hubert Humphrey, the aforementioned Nixon beat Humphrey with the help of George Wallace, the American Party candidate. Go figure.
Nixon won in 1972, only to resign in 1974 after Watergate. His successor, Gerald Ford, lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976. Carter struggled for four years, only to lose to Ronald Reagan in 1980 when New Hampshire sent Warren Rudman to the Senate as part of the first Republican majority in a long time.
Reagan restored the status of the presidency for eight years, although his reputation is better in retrospect than it was at the time. In a rare continuation, his vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush, perhaps the best-prepared candidate since Nixon, both of whom had served as vice president for eight years, won the presidency and served with distinction, ending the Cold War and creating new international alliances.
Other than Eisenhower, Bush One is my favorite president of my lifetime, so far. A recession, which was receding, and not the best talent as a candidate, resulted in Bush being defeated by the bright governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, in 1992. Clinton, talented but flawed, served for eight years, beating Bob Dole in 1996, while surviving impeachment. The 2000 election, famous for its months-long recount and court cases, resulted in the younger George Bush being elected from the office as governor of Texas.
In the new millennium, Bush served for eight years, with decidedly mixed results, as an attractive person who led the nation into the Iraq War and other international disasters for no discernable reason.
The 2008 race pitted John McCain against Barack Obama, which should have been a victory for McCain until he discovered the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who was, to be kind, a candidate who could not be explained for vice president. Obama’s victory was greeted with grace by McCain, and he served for eight years, defeating Mitt Romney in 2012. Although in retrospect, where is Romney when we need him?
The 2016 election was supposed to be Hillary Clinton’s coronation, as the first woman president, except she did not know how to ask, and Donald Trump, who entered a crowded primary race, emerged as the GOP candidate and won the race.
Trump’s victory changed American politics and government for those of us born in the last half of the 20th century. Our country was the beacon of hope in the world; it was leader of the free world and the hope for those seeking a better life. Trump, on the other hand, brought the fears of foreigners, prejudice and hate to the Oval Office, and for eight years represented what many of us, and even those officials who worked for him as loyal to their country, could not understand and ultimately came to reject.
When 2020 came, Joe Biden defeated Trump in his attempt for reelection in a tight race. Rather than think about his nation, as Nixon had in 1960, Trump fought the clear result and still does. Scores of his administration’s officials have refuted his claim that there was something wrong with the election and claimed he is unfit to run again.
Which brings us to next week, when the American people get to pick a new president. Given the history recounted above, is there any question who should be selected? Not for me. How about you?
Brad Cook is a Manchester attorney. The views expressed in this column are his own. He can be reached at bradfordcook01@gmail.com.
