National politics remains a battle between the doves and the hawks, with the battle lines determined during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Chicago.
The factions remain the same, but what has changed in 2008 is the team that is winning the latest skirmish.
After years in the hinderlands, away from the power in D.C. the Clean for Gene crowd have finally found their Messiah and are prepared to follow him to the halls of power.
The struggle in the sixties can be encapsulated as a clash between the two sides’ lovable losers: Barry Goldwater representing the hawks and Eugene McCarthy representing the doves.
The kids that followed these two real mavericks are now the sometimes power brokers in the Democratic and Republican parties, but remain the “America, love it or leave it” crowd versus the “Make love not war” gang.
Neither side has the slightest idea what the opposition is all about.
Take for instance the controversy over William Ayers. One side thinks living within a three-block radius of his residency is enough to disqualify a Presidential candidate. The other side sees Ayers as a 60s hero. Classic -- failure to communicate.
The “I’m with Barry” crowd of 1964 learned a lesson from their huge defeat in 1964, but the “Clean with Gene” crowd weren’t nearly as quick to crack the books as their Republican counterparts after their big defeat at Chicago68.
The Goldwater kids were trainable: Nixon wasn’t the One, but he was going to be the One for the time. They managed to go to the capital and learn about how to work the system.
The McCarthy followers were named Clean for Gene in 1968 because many of the followers were youth who cut their hair, replaced their sandals with shoes, and put away their beads and flowers to canvas for McCarthy.
After their loss in 1968 the Clean for Gene crowd went home to run for their local water districts and city councils, assuming all they had to do was bide their time and pay some dues.
The McCarthyites would occasionally show up in national elections, but always with poor results – George McGovern, ABC (Anybody But Carter), Governor Moonbeam, Teddy Kennedy, John B. Anderson, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry.
The Democratic party winners since the 1960s, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were hardly the Clean for Gene types. Both were moderate Southern governors who took off the 1960s. They weren’t even in Chicago, damn it.
Meanwhile the Goldwaterites had found their man, the heir apparent to Goldwater, but much better at the getting elected part: Ronald Reagan.
While 1976 was too early for the Gipper, by 1980, everything was perfect, and all fractions of the Republican party were in line to get Ronnie elected, and for them, it was Morning in America.
One thing Ronnie could do better than Goldwater, Nixon, Pete McCloskey, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, Gerald Ford, or any other GOP wannabe, was pander. Ronnie was everything to everybody and combined all the remnants of the party behind a cause, with that cause being getting Ronald Reagan elected.
Their party’s problem was a lack of a Ronnie Jr.
Bush the Elder served as Ronnie’s VP, but the Grand Old Party served with Ronnie, they knew Ronnie, he was a friend of theirs, and Pappy Bush was no Ronald Reagan.
Bush was from the rather small but sometimes powerful Kennebunkport segment of the GOP.
Still, they’d grown accustomed to their Georgetown brownstones, and really didn’t want to give them up for ideology. They could handle one term of Bush, but heck if they were going to work hard for him against some Arkansas governor.
To get back to their Georgetown brownstones, the GOP was going to have to be trained by the enemy: William Jefferson Clinton. They went looking for their own Bubba, and found him right next door to Clinton's old stomping ground in Arkansas.
Who would have imagined Ronnie Jr. would be none other than Pappy Bush’s Texas boy? He had the pandering to the groups down cold, and he would let the old Goldwater gang do what they wanted.
Then came John.
It was finally John McCain’s turn. McCain wrote in his memoirs, “I admired him [Barry Goldwater] to the point of reverence.” Surprise, surprise! Eight years of George Bush has torn apart the Grand Old Party that has nothing left for the oldest and loyalist of the Goldwater gang.
He tried to pander. Even his sacrificing his VP pick to the base wasn’t enough for the old hands. One thing they had learned is patience. With the country in such bad shape – caused by their own hands – Palin in ’12 could be their Ronnie III (or is that Goldwater IV?)
Everybody knew it was the end of the line, for Big John.
The Democratic party in Ott-Eight was having their own mini-battle over the soul of their party. Hillary was no Clean for Gene type. She even dared to write in her memoirs, “I liked Senator Goldwater because he was rugged individualist who swam against the political tide.”
Former Senator Tom Daschle never forgot his first love. As a 20 year old, then not even old enough to vote, he was there at O’Hare airport greeting Eugene McCarthy in 1968, the last great moment for the Clean with Gene crowd. Daschle had no need to get clean for Gene -- he was an ROTCer at South Dakota State University -- but the feelings from the tarmac in Chicago stayed with him for 40 years.
Daschle went looking for his own Ronnie Reagan and found him in Barrack Obama. It seemed a strange choice: inexperienced, a product of the Chicago Daly machine, African American, a funny name, young, and not involved in the sixties at all, but who would have thought the heir to Goldwater would come from the Bedtime for Bonzo movie (and not be the chimp.)
The Clean for Gene crowd now have their own Reagan Jr. ready to lead them to the promised-land, and surprisingly enough it looks like it is going to work.
And it only took 40 years.
The only thing the Goldwater/Reagan/Bush gang hadn’t counted on is the drop in value on their Georgetown brownstones. Will they sell them to their old nemesis, the Clean for Gene crowd, and take a chance they’ll still be in the tank in four years, or will they hold onto them hoping for Palin ’12?
1 comment:
The writer puts together a pretty comprehensive history lesson here, with a lot of references that are going to be lost on people who don't have a good grasp of history.
Still, the tracing of the Gene McCarthy supporters vs the Goldwater supporters makes for interesting reading and some nice touches when talking about the current race.
"The kids that followed these two real mavericks are now the sometimes power brokers in the Democratic and Republican parties, "
Real mavericks, they were.
In retrospect Barry Goldwater wasn't the nut-job that many people thought he was. He actually had convictions.
A politician with convictions.
Imagine.
The writer also does a good job of tracing the path to Sarah Palin, an heir (or is it hair?) apparent for the 2012 race.
That's more than a few hockey pucks away - and she will be four years older, perhaps not as quirky charming.
But that the writer raises the specter is chilling for many readers.
Good column, perhaps a little long, but it flows well.
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