Posted on 08/09/2020 8:09:08 AM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas
There was suspicion that Stevenson was assassinated via drug.
Well, Graham was pretty poisonous.
A lot of people associate the 1950s with peace and prosperity, before everything went to hell in the 1960s. It would seem like the public shouldn’t have a reason to turn against the Republicans in that decade if times were so good. What do you think explains it? Perhaps the 1950s weren’t as peaceful as they are portrayed? How did Ike screw things up?
BTW, thanks for the visual of those two bumpin' uglies. :^)
As an aside, I think it is the decade we reached our cultural zenith, perhaps even a couple years into the 1960s. But 1965 onwards, we’ve been in a rapid cultural decline.
But aside from that, the 1950s was really the eye of the hurricane. Look closely and you could see there were many serious problems that surrounded us. Truman’s failure to defeat Mao, which has caused us no end of problems ever since (a National China would never have unleashed bacteriological warfare on the world). Failure to take McCarthy’s warning seriously and rid the country and institutions of a deep-seated Communist infiltration. Ike found McCarthy to be more of a problem, which was a serious failure of leadership.
Also the failure to curtail the size and scope of the federal government, tax rates, et al. I think the country was doing well in spite of this, but our growth rates could’ve been off the charts if Ike had rolled things back to Harding-level governance.
The 1958 elections was the crash of the decade, the worst since the 1936 elections. It was one of the worst loss of seats, especially in the Senate where the GOP lost the most number of seats in a single election. This was due to the Recession of the same year, blamed on Ike (the GOP was already in the minority, but not by much). Another issue was the public’s perception we were falling behind the Soviets. Stronger leadership on Ike’s part could’ve prevented both, but he simply wasn’t a Conservative. He wasn’t raised as one (his father was a Socialist) and didn’t really believe in small government ideals.
Well, at least she won’t be taking Trump votes away.
“Bill Knowland as Senate Majority Leader.”
Presumably after 1954 because if Ike wasn’t winning we likely would not be gaining that narrow congressional majority. The House is another matter, as you mentioned long ago with urban seats no longer going GOP and with southern seats not in play yet, we had a problem. GOP House if elected in ‘54 wouldn’t have survived a Stevenson reelection. Rocky would have been awful for the GOP in the south.
Republicans would have been apoplectic if Ike had lost. I think that means a conservative wins the nomination in 1956.
I found this cool book “The Republican Right Since 1945” (1983) By David W. Reinhard (Former Reagan undersec I believe). I started reading the google books preview but I’ll probably buy the ebook. 36 bucks on google books, pricey for such and old book.
Lots of details about the 80th Congress and the ‘48 election (what a boner!) and Robert A. Taft I read so far (Taft had attacks from his right as well as his left in his job as GOP Senate Boss). If McArthur had only taken the good advice he got and came home to campaign in the WI primary I think he could have taken the nomination and the election, with the (unmentioned in the book) farm recession that helped Truman (unlike what would happen today where the incumbent would be hurt) being the only stumbling block to the White House. Even Dewey with his horrible campaign would have won without that recession.
Jorgenson has made the ballot in PA.
Greens are still pending, democrats are challenging.
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