Hubert Humphrey(Democratic), 37th President of the United States, 1969-1973
As he had served more than half of Nixon’s term, Goldwater was term-limited in 1968. As nuclear proliferation and news of the horrors of some US-backed regimes broke out, the popularity of Goldwater’s foreign policy plummeted. Though the economy remained stable, cracks began to show as the President became little more than a veto machine behind a desk. The American people needed change.
The Republicans were having a hard time of this. Though Goldwater was unpopular nationally, he had a solid 40% floor in approval ratings, thanks to a devoted cadre of conservatives. Most of them were determined to have some continuity from Goldwater, and, expecting the Democrats to nominate an ineffectual northern liberal and another strong showing from Wallace’s loons, the GOP would nominate a conservative and “skin the South”, as they had done in 1964.
The conservatives united around Vice President Dirksen, who, despite firing up the base, did almost nothing for swing voters. Dirksen himself was less than enthusiastic about a run, but felt he had to put up a fight to preserve his(and his superior’s) legacy and give conservatives some voice at the Convention. The establishment knew that they needed to win elections more than anything else, and searched for a more moderate candidate. Most of the moderate and liberal Republican Senators had spent the last four years giving Goldwater hell, as had New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. The establishment quickly coalesced around Michigan Governor George Romney, who, despite his moderate stances, spared the President from any real fire during his Administration, and would therefore not totally alienate the base.
The American people walked into the GOP convention expecting a bloodbath and were sorely disappointed. Dirksen and Romney kept level heads, and had more common ground(civil rights) than their rhetoric suggested. Though Dirksen was tired of being Vice President, he certainly didn’t think a campaign at the top of the ticket was in him. They quietly coalesced around a single platform of measured conservative economic reforms, a more critical inspection of American allies, and stability in a changing world.
The Democrats came into 1968 swinging. They’d been in the wilderness for eight years, and whatever good will the memory of Nixon held with the American people dissipated. With solid liberal majorities in Congress, they felt frustrated by Goldwater’s block to their domestic programs more than anything else. From early on, Senate Majority Leader Hubert Humphrey was the dominant figure. He was the face of all the ideals of liberalism to the American people, and only grew in prominence as Goldwater shrank. Humphrey marched into the Convention Hall is if it were his Triumph. After quick deliberation, Texas Governor Connally was selected as Vice President, with the hopes that he could pick up most of the former Goldwater voters in the south and blunt Wallace, now a perennial candidate. Humphrey himself campaigned on a vision of a “New Frontier” of liberal reforms to help those who needed it while preserving the working and middle classes and taking a very different tone than Republicans on foreign policy without appearing dovish.
In the end, this coalition worked out very well. Outside of the Deep South, the cuts of the watered-down Civil Rights Act were less fresh and most were won over by Connally’s presence. Meanwhile, Romney and Dirksen felt like they were never quite striking the right tones with the American people, weary of the Goldwater era. In the end, the Democrats won comfortably.
United States Presidential Election, 1968
United States Presidential Election, 1972
Humphrey quickly set to work bringing liberalism back to the United States. The modern Medicare system for the poor and elderly was established and federal education and urban development initiatives were rushed in. These were generally popular with the general public, and economic growth and middle-class prosperity boomed.
On foreign policy, Humphrey was generally successful. He was able to get South China to agree to a nuclear cap and limited American oversight of their arsenal. Arms control in general was a decided topic of his administration, signing the first nuclear limitation treaty with Premier Gromyko in 1971, lauded as proof that his foreign policy worked.
There was, of course, the dark undercurrent. As the New Frontier took off, much of its implementation placed a great deal of power on the big city bosses and machine politicians, who heavily supported Humphrey and were excited to have a real say on things after being left out in the cold for decades in some cases. Humphrey became surrounded(some argue inadvertently) by a coterie from this political culture, which led to his downfall.
In the run-up to the 1972 elections, a twilight campaign was mounted to ruin the Republican Party’s chances. The leading candidate, Nelson Rockefeller, was dogged constantly. Aides were given tax audits, phones tapped, offices burgled in the night and strategies looted. Trucks carrying campaign material(driven by Teamsters members) “got lost”. Nothing too drastic, but enough to derail his campaign.
At the time, none of this was known save for petty rumors not taken seriously by journalists, believed to be the fevered dreams of disaffected Goldwaterites. In any case, after a string of poor primary showings, Rockefeller, never used to long, hard, fights, was out of the race. At the Convention, delegates coalesced around the worst possible man for the job: New York Senator James Buckley. Buckley was inexperienced(having only been a Senator for two years), very far to the right, somewhat snooty, and gave the impression that he was in an altogether different world than the rest of America. Still, the hardest candidates had decided not the run anyways, and those who did bother to show up for the convention found themselves shut out by a string of unfortunate coincidences. In the end, Buckley was nominated and sent to the killing fields.
The Democratic nomination, by contrast, was a quiet affair, though not without grandeur and a small amount of drama. Earlier that year, Vice President Connally declined to seek reelection. While he was painted retroactively in the popular consciousness as a noble defector from decadence who wanted no part in the dirty tricks of Humphrey’s reelection, it’s far more likely that he simply disliked being Vice President and was shut out of any decision making(either by accident or design by Humphrey’s staff). Whatever the cause, the Democrats, emboldened by their shift to the left’s popularity, nominated South Dakota Senator George McGovern as Vice President. The Humphrey won in a landslide, but he had short coattails. For the first time since 1955, the GOP achieved a majority(4 seats) in the House of Representatives, largely due to low turnout, the perception among rural and Southern voters that Congressional Republicans provided a valuable check on the Big Frontier and kept it clean.
Historians debate to this day how much Humphrey knew about the illegal suppression of his opposition. It has been conclusively proven that most of the high-level officials in his campaign, were both aware of and, in some cases, directing it. When news finally broke in August of 1973 thanks to an anonymous source in the Administration, Humphrey immediately denied all charges. However, as the weeks piled up, evidence mounted, and impeachment hearings were set, Humphrey relented, accepting full responsibility for the actions of his underlings while never admitting to any personal knowledge of wrongdoing. Hubert Humphrey resigned the office of President on November 18, 1973.
George McGovern(Democratic), 38th President of the United States, 1973
In the wake of the Humphrey resignation and trial, McGovern knew that the writing was on the wall for him as well. He resigned just a week after Humphrey, following a long address where he acknowledged that the suppression was an indelible mark on his character and realized that he could never be accepted as President. While his resignation, just a week after Humphrey’s, was seen at the time as an admission of guilt, his modern image has been rehabilitated considerably due to his deathbed confession that he was the one who secretly provided evidence of Democratic wrongdoing on the 1972 campaign.
Gerald R. Ford(Republican), 39th President of the United States, 1973-1977
Gerald R. Ford, former Speaker of the House, ascended to the Presidency at one of the greatest low points in American history. The American people felt no confidence in their government and were thirsty for answers. Ford delivered, although at a cost. Wanting the nation to, more than anything else, learn the truth and have the past behind them, Ford offered Humphrey a full pardon in exchange for all of his campaign documents and any other evidence being turned over. Humphrey refused at first, insisting that he personally had done nothing wrong to require a pardon, which was considered an admission of guilt. Eventually, a compromise was reached where Ford gave Humphrey and a short list of high-level Humphrey campaign operatives, supporters, and agitators(including Lyndon Johnson, Richard J. Daley, and James Hoffa) a full pardon, and everything was turned over to investigators.
This tarnished Ford’s image considerably, although in retrospect it has been viewed as the right thing to do, considering the legal circus that would have resulted. The evidence presented was damning to the core of most mid-level Humphrey officials and a few higher-ups, but a “smoking-gun” for Humphrey has never been found.
Ford insisted from the outset that his was a caretaker Administration, determined not to pass any sweeping changes in legislation or shake up foreign policy, but rather maintain order and investigate the crimes of his predecessors until the next election cycle. As Ford’s term went on, the good feelings of the Humphrey years began to fall apart. Prices began inflating at an alarming rate as wages and economic growth faltered. Disorder mounted as crime rates grew in cities and the exodus to the suburbs accelerated. American support of Israel led to an oil embargo starting in 1974. The economy slipped into a mild recession in early 1975. Calls mounted for Ford to take a more active hand, and while he was freed up somewhat by Republican gains in the 1974 midterms, Congress remained effectively deadlocked between liberals, moderates, and conservatives.
In the end, Ford did what he knew it his heart he would always do- decline reelection. Dissatisfaction with the political status quo was at an all-time high. An outsider was what the American people wanted.
James E. Carter(Justice), 40th President of the United States, 1977-1981
'Dissatisfaction' was the word of the day going into 1976. The American people were disappointed that the Republicans, despite two years of united government, had failed to end the mounting economic crises and still disgusted with the Democrats for their election tampering in 1972. A populist movement emerged, led by Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, of Georgia. Carter, running on the ticket of his own "Justice Party" promised commonsense economic solutions, preservation of the middle class, and a turn away from murky Cold War international politics. While his platform was derided as vague, little else could be expected from such a polarized climate, and people loved it.
The Republicans, searching for someone to affect the eminence of Ford without the baggage, nominated Senator Robert Baker of Tennessee. The Democrats, operating under the belief that liberalism was popular but the big-city bosses were not, nominated Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma. However, Harris' views failed to resonate with swing voters. The Democrats were operating on the belief that Carter and Baker would split support, leaving Harris with a small but comfortable plurality of committed liberals. This did not happen- Carter and Harris split blue collar voters in industrial areas, allowing for a Republican sweep of the industrial belt. Harris found himself shut out nearly everywhere- Carter was a better populist and Baker presented a more conciliatory image. On Election Day, Carter won with a slim majority in the Electoral College but a 3.5% margin in the popular vote, owing largely to high turnout for him in the South. The Democrats made gains in the House and Senate but took neither.
United States Presidential Election, 1976
Carter immediately set to work, though found it hard to translate his rhetoric into actual policies, especially in the face of a Republican Congress which saw its best advantage to stall until 1980 and a Democratic minority which viewed him as a traitor. Most of his legacy was done at the executive level, where he created the Department of Energy, and tried to set out a plan to end the crisis. However, none truly went away and the economy continued to stagnate.
Carter's third party status made him seem an aberration across the world as well. Viewed as a lame duck, few lasting policies came about. Of course, the most important foreign policy event of his Administration was the North Chinese nuclear test. Almost immediately, the world feared what would happen if the two Chinas came to blows, especially after South China announced it was abrogating its missile caps in response to the tests and beefing up its already militarized northern border. While he could not have prevented proliferation, his response- an embargo of grain exports to North China and increased military presence at US bases in South China- were seen to be emboldening the South Chinese and as an unnecessary escalation. At the same time, his calls for a conference on bilateral Chinese disarmament were laughed at on both sides.
The economy failed to improve, and slipped into recession again towards the middle of 1980. Each side was now determined to go "all in" for the new elections, taking no prisoners and leaving no stone unturned. How right they were.
