Can someone explain how Nixon won in 72?

[2004Donkeys]

Unemployment was going up.
Inflation was going up too somewhat.

What gives? Surely much more played in to this than just McGovern. Were Nixon's actions in Vietnam and Cambodia popular with the "silent majority"?

[brainshrub]

1. He had a "secret plan" to end the vietnam war

Google Henry Kissinger and Vietnam.

[greatauntoftriplets]

32. That's how he won in 1968.

To this day, I don't have a clue how he won in 1972, except that the voters didn't want to believe the worst of him. Always boggled my mind.

[GinaMaria]

2. I've heard that

some believed he would end the war and therefore voted for him. I suspect massive cheating. CREEP worked very hard.

[RainDog]

3. Read The Trial of Henry Kissinger

for one way to see how he won. Kissenger undermined LBJ's peace treaty to stop the war by promising better terms for the South Vietnamese.

South Vietnam pulled out of the peace treaty, which was a blow to Humphrey, since LBJ was responsible for the escalation of the war in the first place, and Humphrey was smeared by this "failure" to stop the war.

Kissenger did broker a peace agreement, which had THE SAME terms as the LBJ offer.

At the time, the country was also extremely volatile. the traditional democratic base hated LBJ for his actions in the Vietnam War, so LBJ did not have support from younger and anti-war voters, too.

The country was very divided, like now, over the war and the war-mongers. I was too young to really "get" what was going on, but it seems that many chose to opt out rather than vote for the lesser of two evils.

But that's just my take.

[RainDog]

7. combined with the "southern strategy."

when LBJ signed the civil rights laws, he noted that he was signing away the southern states' votes for the next..something like 25 years.

it wasn't just the war.

the south voted for Nixon because of their racist hatred.

they continue to vote for republicans because of their racist, homophobic, religious Tali-born-again base.

sometimes I wish the south had just secceeded from the Union We'd have a much better, more democratic nation without them, and anyone from that part of the country could have emmigrated to the United States.

without federal funding, the southern states would not be able to sit around and bitch about how much they hate taxes.

that's the big joke. The areas of the country now, as then, who gripe about federal taxes are also the ones which TAKE the most in taxes, rather than give.

documentation for this is available via the NYTimes article by Daniel H. Pink called "Givers and Takers," from Friday, January 30, 2004. I don't have a link. I have the paper.

78% of Bush's electoral votes came from Taker states.

My state, btw, is the only one which has a one-to-one ratio of taxes paid and spending received, fwiw.

[David Zephyr]

12. 2004Donkeys, RainDog Is Spot On With How Nixon Won in 1968.

Henry Kissinger's treachery in betraying not just the Johnson Administration's efforts for peace while he worked, essentially, as a double agent for the Nixon campaign is one of the most vile episodes in the history of the office of the Secretary of State. Nixon got elected, Kissinger got a promotion to be the Secretary of State and tens of thousands of American lives were lost because of it...along with millions more lives lost and devastated in Indo-China. This was 1968.

2004Donkeys question deals with 1972. They year of the appropriately named CREEP (The Committee to Re-Elect the President) the Watergate burglary of the National Headquarters of the Democratic Party by Richard Nixon, the dirty tricks of "the Plumbers", the million dollar slush funds, the plans to kidnap prominent critics of Nixon and Agnew...and once again still another October Surprise by Kissinger with a promise to American voters that "Peace is at hand".

We used to chant, "Don't switch Dicks in the middle of a screw, vote for Nixon in '72."

I spent much of October volunteering my youthful heart out for McGovern in the Catskills of New York. McGovern's loss broke my heart.

I left the country to live in South America for the next three years and did not return until Nixon had resigned in disgrace.

[AngryYoungMan]

4. Read "All The President's Men" and "The Final Days" if you haven't.

Explains the whole thing.

Not to sound condescending but if you don't know the "Watergate" story you should learn it. It's the embryo of what we're facing today (with many of the same players). Buchanan, Dole, Perot, Bush I and even Diane Sawyer were players in that game.

Basically Nixon developed a year-long system of illegally-funded "dirty tricks" to discredit, smear, and otherwise neutralize all opposition. It was a multi-million-dollar campaign involving bugging, infiltration, staged events, and basically the invention of every trick they still use today.

And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids at The Washington Post; two mid-twenties beat reporters who got Pulitzers for following up what seemed like a routine crime and discovering that it was the tip of a dark, evil iceberg. Nixon got his landslide...and then they caught him and he became the first pres. to resign.

Back then Woodward was a great guy. Back then, the Republicans did things like tape themselves talking in the Oval Office (Nixon's downfall). Times have changed; Iran/Contra proved that they've learned how to get away with their tricks.

Even Scott McClelland and Ari Fleisher are just copying Ron Ziegler's moves. (Nixon's press secretary).

Anyway read the books and I'm sorry if you knew all this already.

[lucidmadman]

5. The US was a very different place then...

...GM was my first presidential vote. Man, there was a shit storm goin' on then. 'Forced busing', Nixon's 'southern strategy' in full swing, the 'Eagleton affair'. Who was the 'third party' temptation that year? On the left I mean. I know it was Spock/Cleaver in '68.
Some of my synapses are fused...:crazy:...

[boobooday]

6. They did to McGovern what they did to Gore

Nixon was a dirty bastard, but oh my god, he looks like a flaming liberal compared to Bush.


http://www.wgoeshome.com

Jeanette

[Redneck Socialist]

8. McGovern's campaign had a lot of issues.

It was a classic "outsider, let's shake up the establishment" campaign that was didn't receive a lot of support from, or was outright opposed by, the Democratic establishment. His initial VP choice, Eaglton (sp?) was found to have undergone shock therapy treatment and was dropped from the ticket. McGovern was pretty successfully painted as a loony leftist favoring "Acid, Amnesty and Abortion." That, together with the lack of support from establishment dems and the failure of the "freak" or youth vote to actually materialize doomed his campaign.

Read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail if you want a good look inside this campaign.

[lucidmadman]

11. I read the HST stuff as it was comin' out...

...in ROLLING STONE. A sentence I do remember from it was about Hubert Humphrey: "He looked like a farmer with terminal cancer trying to borrow money on next year's crops". Brutal.
Cant't help it, but the 'youth/freak' vote makes me think of the Deaniacs.

[Redneck Socialist]

18. There are definitely some parallels to the Dean campaign.

The whole idea of bringing new voters (read young people) into the process is straight out of McGovern's playbook. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working any better now than it did then. Also the opposition to Dean from the Democratic powers that be is similar to what McGovern faced.

On edit: That's weird I have two posts numbered 699?! I guess my psychic resistance to entering the 700 club is forcing the computer to hold me forever at 699. Does this mean I'm effectively immortal if I never progress past 699?

[RainDog]

16. sort of like now

this is what ticks me off. the lack of honesty about the history of events in this country.

Why won't the dems hammer home Kissinger's crimes against humanity? His continued support from Bushies?

Iran-Contra, Vietnam, the "southern strategy", Watergate, Iraggate, BCCI, 9-11, "givers vs. takers" and the lies of the gop about economics, corporate whoredom, offshore banking,

all of these are reasons to SHOW that the republicans do not deserve to win an election as dog catcher.

the democratic establishment is afraid of honest democracy. they might offend their corporate support. they don't want to drag in their own who might be complicit in any of the nasty actions of the dirty tricks of the last fifty years.

As Kerry takes the dem nomination now, I, and many others I know who are NOT on this forum feel very cynical about the dem. establishment's "crowning" of Kerry as the nominee.

Electablity means capitulation to the same old shit, when there is a MASSIVE amount of evidence to bring Bush down based upon his own miserable failures since they day he was born with a coke spoon in his nose.

People who support Kerry say, just wait, he'll talk about these issues.

Somehow I don't think I should hold my breath.

[lucidmadman]

24. I suddenly remembered a coupla choice moments...

...from the McGovern campaign.
The first from the brutal honesty file: He was asked some question about the busing in Boston and GM said "it's the price we pay for a hundred years of segregated housing".
The other from the 'I didn't know I was on mic' file. Some hecklers were getting close to GM in a crowd and giving him hell about Eagleton, busing, Viet Nam, everything and GM turned to one of the creeps and could clearly be heard saying "you know, you can kiss my ass."
GM was and is a great guy.

[SilasSoule]

9. I remember asking my father in the summer of 1972

(I was 13 yrs old) Who he was going to vote for president. Even though he was a democrat, for some reason he did not like McGovern that year, but told me that Nixon was crook, that the Watergate break-in stuff smelled funny and he was pretty sure Nixon was involved.

[bambo53]

10. He kept saying he a "secret plan" to end the war

He wouldn't reveal it to us though, unless he was elected. Most people thought he was lying, but it was worth the chance since everybody was sick of the war.

Turned out he didn't have a damn plan and that's about the time when things went south for him. Sound familiar?

[mobuto]

14. That was 1968, not 1972

and he never said he had a "secret plan," he just said he had a plan. But you're right - he never told us how he planned to achieve "peace with honor." And in fact, the ultimate US withdrawal from Vietnam was accomplished with a maximum of dishonor and humiliation.

[w4rma]

21. On Language by William Safire

...
That question skillfully presupposed an assertion of not just a general promise but also a detailed plan, and soon it became widely accepted that Nixon had said, "I have a secret plan to end the war."
...
http://www.bebeyond.com/LearnEnglish/BeAD/Readings/SecretPlan.htm

[mobuto]

13. No Democrat could have won in 1972

For starters, the Democratic Party was at war with itself. The South was gone, and Vietnam had completely divided what was left.

The Paris Peace Accords signalled a US withdrawal from Vietnam, andN Nixon's trips to China and Moscow were popular. And the economy was still strong.

Now McGovern ran a bad campaign. Now a better campaigner might have won more than just DC and MA - but not a whole lot more.

[TomNickell]

26. Agreed, divided party, South falling away...

The Democratic party still included the Southern Democrats--that was falling away rapidly over Civil Rights.

And the rest of the party was bitterly divided over Vietnam and the college anti-war radicals and long hair on men and unmarried people living together and drugs and rock and roll and all that '60s stuff.

I attended a caucus and voted for McGovern. The regular Dems were angry at the attitude and tactics of the college crowd that took over the meeting. With justification, though I didn't think that then.

[11 Bravo]

15. The three "A's" ... Abortion, Acid, and Amnesty.

The repukes hammered McGovern on those three issues. George also forbade his campaign managers from referencing his wartime heroism (25 missions over Europe in the cockpit of a B-22 and a Distinguished Flying Cross) in comparison with Richard Nixon's service in the Supply Corps.

[SheilaT]

17. I think the Eagleton thing

completely destroyed McGovern's chances. It made him look like an idiot, and the whole thing about mental illness and electroshock therapy was played up by the media in a truly despicable way.

Watergate didn't matter in the election that November. What mattered was that they (Republicans, WH, and so on) about what was really involved, and tried to cover up and pay off those involved.

It also helps to look back at what Nixon actually accomplished in his first term. He made some mistakes, yes, but he gave us OSHA among other accomplishments. And isn't he responsible for the first Clean Air Act and for Super Fund cleanups of polluted sites? Our memory of him is so clouded by the entire Watergate mess, that it's worth seeing what he was like before that.

He, too, had an Attorney General (John Mitchell) who was something of a nut-case and who likewise had a disregard for the Constitution.

[trof]

20. Remember McGovern's "I stand behind him 1000%"?

And then Eagleton was dumped.
Kampaign Killer

[Media_Lies_Daily]

19. I think he was allowed to win so that he could be publicly humiliated...

...on nationwide television. There wasn't enough time to conduct the Watergate hearings prior to his election for his second term.

[leftyandproud]

22. no...it was just McGovern. *NT*

[havocmom]

23. spooks were everywhere too

Went to school at a campus out in the boondocks (then) with a student body around 1500. Whenever there was a speaker who wasn't a Nixon clone, there were Federalies in suits (complete with shoulder holsters)taking notes and pictures of who was listening. It was really strange.

The paranoia about dissent was incredible and I tend to give credence to most stories of entrapment or planted evidence from that era. Remember that Nixon and his minions were real fans of Uncle Joe and used tactics from the McCarthy era. Would guess there was a lot of political blackmail going on what with Nixon and Hoover both being active.

And by the way, elections could be rigged at local levels long before computer voting came into being. The thing with the computers is elections can be rigged from beyond the local precinct level; much faster and more efficient.

[Dees]

25. Nixon, in 1968, claimed he had a secret plan to end the

Vietnam war. He also said if couldn't end this war in four years he
didn't deserve a second chance. Unfortunately he got his second chance after not ending the war in four years. Richard "Dickhead" Smellhouse Nixon was one of the all time worst to ever plant his slimy ass in the Oval Office. In 1972 I worked very hard in the McGovern campaign. George McGovern, WWII bomber pilot, PhD and decent, decent man was portrayed by the Nixon trees sitters as a socialist and far too liberal for America. It was Nixon's silent majority that elected him. McGovern warned of a colossal scandal in the near future and sure enough Watergate erupted. America at the time opted for a beady eyed, shifty, lying, corrupt human being.

[RainDog]

27. oops! I was talking about how he won in 68 above

when I wrote about Kissinger and the peace treaty and the southern strategy, tho that still stands.

If you don't want to bother to read All the President's Men or The Final Days, they're also available as movies...though I don't know what they've omitted from the books to make the movies.

but I do recommend that you watch All The President's Men and then watch Dick. Dick is absolutely hilarious if you are familiar with the All the President's Men movie (and even if you're not).

Political satire at its best, Dick tells the story of how two 15 year old girls brought down the Nixon White House.

You know, the repukes have been fuming about Watergate ever since it happened and have wanted to have a dem scandal to offset it. I always thought it was conveeeenient that Monica lived in the Watergate and was advised by Tripp, whose good friend was Luciane Goldberg, who was a mole in the McGovern campaign.

In other words, Nixon dirty tricksters don't die, they just start web sites for unwashed repuke creeps.

[elperromagico]

28. Two words: Southern Strategy

Nixon played to the same Southern fears of African-Americans that George Wallace had in '68. I think there was also a general opinion among voters that Nixon was "winning the peace" in Vietnam.

The question could be asked, "How did Reagan win in a landslide in '84?" Quite simply, he campaigned on nothing in particular. He ran an issueless campaign, and let Mondale bury himself.

How does one explain any Presidential election landslide? It can be a combination of elements: bad opponents, issueless campaigns, voter apathy, et cetera ad infinitum.

[ThoughtCriminal]

29. Lots of factors

Democrats at war with each other.
Visits to China and Soviet Union.
McGovern preceived as too liberal (Welfare was a big issue)
Fear of crime was very hot and Nixon was a "Law & Order" candidate

[anti-NAFTA]

30. Was McGovern for LSD legalization?

eom

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