John J. Pitney Jr.: Wishing for 1976
[John J. Pitney Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College.]
Representative Tom Cole (R., Okla.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, made a revealing but little-noticed comment to the New York Times. He said of the presidential race: “I don’t need the nominee to win; I just need him to be competitive enough that we can win behind him in the places that should be ours. I need him to be Gerald Ford.”
Conservative readers may have blanched at that name. But Cole was not talking about Ford’s policies. He was referring to the 1976 election. In the aftermath of their huge losses in the 1974 midterm, Republicans feared for their party’s survival. And early in the 1976 campaign, they appeared to be dinosaurs looking at an incoming asteroid. Ford was heading for a wipe-out that would doom dozens of GOP lawmakers. Yet by Election Day, he had pulled almost even with Carter, enabling House and Senate Republicans to hold their own.
It was the perfect defeat. Its narrowness kept the party from going deeper into the hole, and its aftermath was GOP resurgence.
The out-party had gained seats in every midterm for decades, and the 1978 election followed the pattern. That year’s freshmen not only bolstered the GOP’s ranks but included such extraordinary figures as Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney. Their activism opened the way for greater gains in 1980 and the Reagan Revolution that followed.
To grasp the value of Ford’s downfall, ponder the alternative: a narrow GOP victory in 1976. The midterm effect would have worked against the Republicans in 1978, shrinking an already small congressional base. As the vice president in 1980, Bob Dole might well have won the presidential nomination instead of Reagan. After three straight GOP terms, the public would have been itchy for change. So there might have been no pickups in the House, no majority in the Senate, and no Reagan Revolution....
Read entire article at National Review Online
Representative Tom Cole (R., Okla.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, made a revealing but little-noticed comment to the New York Times. He said of the presidential race: “I don’t need the nominee to win; I just need him to be competitive enough that we can win behind him in the places that should be ours. I need him to be Gerald Ford.”
Conservative readers may have blanched at that name. But Cole was not talking about Ford’s policies. He was referring to the 1976 election. In the aftermath of their huge losses in the 1974 midterm, Republicans feared for their party’s survival. And early in the 1976 campaign, they appeared to be dinosaurs looking at an incoming asteroid. Ford was heading for a wipe-out that would doom dozens of GOP lawmakers. Yet by Election Day, he had pulled almost even with Carter, enabling House and Senate Republicans to hold their own.
It was the perfect defeat. Its narrowness kept the party from going deeper into the hole, and its aftermath was GOP resurgence.
The out-party had gained seats in every midterm for decades, and the 1978 election followed the pattern. That year’s freshmen not only bolstered the GOP’s ranks but included such extraordinary figures as Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney. Their activism opened the way for greater gains in 1980 and the Reagan Revolution that followed.
To grasp the value of Ford’s downfall, ponder the alternative: a narrow GOP victory in 1976. The midterm effect would have worked against the Republicans in 1978, shrinking an already small congressional base. As the vice president in 1980, Bob Dole might well have won the presidential nomination instead of Reagan. After three straight GOP terms, the public would have been itchy for change. So there might have been no pickups in the House, no majority in the Senate, and no Reagan Revolution....