That goes against long held conventional wisdom held on the right.
Personally although Ambrose was a million times more learned then myself I just can’t believe that the dems didn’t steal that one. ;)
I’m afraid I’d have to part company with Ambrose on that one. I believe there was a sufficient enough appearance of chicanery in at least the two key states (IL & TX) that were enough to turn the election. There were also other states where the outcome was so close where voter fraud was rampant in some areas (NJ & NM, for two examples) that just add fuel to the fire of suspicion.
In hindsight, I still wish Nixon had contested the election, though the reasons he chose not to were #1, that he might appear to the public a sore loser which might destroy any future viability for the same office, #2, that to investigate would be costly and troublesome with likely no speedy outcome, and the biggest one, #3, that it would rip the country apart. We had a taste of that in 2000 with Gore’s refusal to concede and the visceral hate and contempt it immediately produced towards Dubya he never fully recovered from. If Nixon had been finally seated (quite probably by a similar SCOTUS decision), he would’ve faced a similar situation as Dubya did, not to mention a hostile Democrat Congress who would’ve stymied anything he’d have tried to do. Just a really nasty scenario all around.
I can’t imagine what that would do to somebody knowing that their opponent had stolen the Presidential election and having to just “grin and bare it.” Probably three examples of that in U.S. history, the 1824 election (where Jackson got more votes, but deals struck in Congress gave it to JQ Adams, for which Jackson later said he wished he could’ve shot Henry Clay for “sealing the deal”), the 1876 election (where Gov. Tilden was the likely victor, and for which the GOP sold its soul to maintain the Presidency with its deal), and 1960. Of course, at least Jackson and Nixon were vindicated with future wins, while Tilden was just content to know he’d won.
Certainly Paul Johnson agrees with you. Recently-—but unfortunately I can’t remember where-—I re-visited this in a lot of contemporary articles, many of them cited by Johnson. The upshot was that I think Johnson cherry-picked his evidence from one very partisan Republican investigator. But ultimately, the fact was that ALL challenges eventually would have somehow involved Chicago courts, and Nixon would have lost those-—even if they were appealed, it would have gone on forever. I wish I could remember the specific sources I read on this, as I was disappointed and wished they were different. I’d say, google Election of 1960 or Stolen election. Something like that. You’ll get a lot of articles of the day come up.