Mr. Nixon was our failure, we knew it, but we took him in the words of Daniel Webster “drugged as he was.” Our little Republican primary voters really have a bad track record, don’t they? All they know is whose “turn it is.”
When the people take over, they don’t produce candidates any better than the party bosses. Lest we forget, Lincoln was nominated through a bunch of tricks by his friends, and won because the convention was held on his home grounds. I must say that between letting the elites choose and the people choose, the bosses are a happy compromise. They picked Harding, but they also picked Coolidge. Coolidge was the right man for the times, even if he got there by accident. Hoover is the example of a great man who was too small for the times.