Posted on 11/05/2012 4:16:24 PM PST by Perdogg
Is there anyone on FR old enough who remembers George Romney's 1968 Presidental campaign?
The only thing I remember my father saying about it was the famous comment about being brainwashed. My Father was a Goldwater supporter in 1964, but I don't remember who he supported in the primaries from a far since he was a conservative Democrat in NC in 1968. He voted for Nixon twice. My dad was a Reagan supporter in 1976.
I think my father had a positive opinion of him until he made that comment. I was just wondering what people generally felt of his campaign in 1968, was he a Goldwater conservative or a Rockerfellar Republican?
Whoops, I should have put “1968” in the last sentence of my previous post.
The only thing I remember about the ‘68 Presidential campaign is “Spiro What?”
We lived in Michigan from 1971-1991, after George Romney was governor and after he ran for President.And after he was maybe ronal Reagan’s Head of Hud. and it is George Romney we blame for the beginning housing debacle in Detroit, where houses were practically given away to those who couldn’t afford to keep them up. It was the beginning of the end for Detroit’s big city housing demise. People would be squatting, many homeless in homes designed for single families.
Homes were then boarded up and then used as crack houses and neighbors pleaded with mayors to condemn the houses and move the crack dealers out of the neighborhoods.
Most states didn't have primaries. I guess caucuses and party committees chose the delegates. Even some of the primary states voted for "favorite sons" -- their Governors or Senators -- rather than the main candidates.
On the Democratic side, Bobby Kennedy and Gene McCarthy did have monumental primary fights -- Indiana, Nebraskia, Oregon, California -- but the nominee was Hubert Humphrey, who avoided the primaries.
So the country saw a lot less of George Romney in 1968 than we have of Mitt in 2012 or 2008 -- all the more so, since the "brainwashing" comment that doomed his campaign was made in August 1967, before he even announced his candidacy. Romney was on the ballot in New Hampshire, but Nixon trounced him so he withdrew.
Romney wasn't a professional politician. He was awkward and didn't get how to play the game. He was rough, rather than slick or polished. That gave him a reputation for decency and integrity, but maybe it could just as easily have made him look like an unreliable loose cannon.
We lived in Michigan from 1971-1991, after George Romney was governor and after he ran for President.And after he was maybe ronal Reagan’s Head of Hud. and it is George Romney we blame for the beginning housing debacle in Detroit, where houses were practically given away to those who couldn’t afford to keep them up. It was the beginning of the end for Detroit’s big city housing demise. People would be squatting, many homeless in homes designed for single families.
Homes were then boarded up and then used as crack houses and neighbors pleaded with mayors to condemn the houses and move the crack dealers out of the neighborhoods.
I turned 21 in August of 1968, and it was the first time I could vote. My father worked on the NY Central R.R., belonged to the union, and of course was an FDR Democrat. I remember Adlai Stevenson running and losing, and I also remember George Romney. However, because I didn’t know $hit from shinola about politics back then, I went with my Dad to the polling place, and he told me I had to vote for Humphrey. So unfortunately, my first vote in a national election was cast for a Demoncrap. I haven’t voted for a Demoncrap since Reagan ran, and I truly believe that if my father were alive today, he’d probably be a Republican.
In today's GOP George Romney would fall into the Jim Jeffords / Lincoln Chafee / Arlen Specter camp. I was young in '68, but I remember that Romney was viewed skeptically by the Republicans in my family. BTW, my first vote was for Nixon in '72.
I remember. I didn’t care for him.
I don't remember much about Romney when he ran.
excuse me, in 68 I voted for Nixon.
George Romney was a salesman and self-promoter, with more than a little vanity and self-delusion. His political views were pliable, but fit best with the Rockefeller wing of the GOP.
I do not remember anyone named Romney EVER being for Goldwater. I do remember the time George stomped off the floor of the Republican convention - I think that might have been 1964 but really the early years kinda blend together.
My first convention night coverage was 1956 and I was only about 10. I liked Ike!
After all he was an Independent during the time of Reagan Bush, He Didn't Want To Return To Reagan/Bush!
I was 18 when George Romney was running. He was what we’d call a RINO today but, like Hubert Humphrey for the democrats, a good and honorable man one could disagree with without hating.
His brainwashed comment disqualified him for the republicans but, with hindsight, he was probably correct. There was a lot of dishonesty coming from both parties at the time
Maybe more like John Chafee, Lincoln's father. The party wasn't as conservative then, so George Romney wasn't as much of an outlier as Jeffords or Specter or Lincoln Chafee have been in more recent years. Basic civil rights were still an issue in those days, so it's hard to be as dismissive of George Romney as of more recent politicians.
Someone later pointed out that George was born in Mexico.
But then, she also predicted (STAR Magazine) that “NIXON WILL NOT RESIGN!” It hit the news stands the very week Nixon resigned. Years later, she claimed she had prophesied he would resign.
The brainwashed comment was overhyped by the media and Nixon to make Geo Romney look bad.
I remember it as devastating to his image, and he never overcame it.
He announced his exploratory phase in February and his formal announcement was in November, and he withdrew in February of 1968.
George was a pro-abortion (since at least 1963) rino in his time and Nixon tried to get him to run for the Senate, to get him out of his administration, but his wife ran instead.
“I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country; I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate,” Romney said
By the late 1970s, Mitt was claiming that he and his father, had marched with Martin Luther King.
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