Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
He was such a biiiiig "thorn" in Nixon's side that he chose to actually take it to the big guy with a candidacy backed largely by the John Birch Society that unsurprisingly amounted to little more than a political booger flick -- like most third party challengers' candidacies usually are.
His career did not end in 1972. He returned to the California State Senate in 1979
I stand corrected. I should have been clearer to say "Congressional," specifcially, rather than "political," generally.
CA Senate one must admit is a political backbench compared to serving in the US Congress, and if he could have run for Congress again with the expectation of winning, one suspects he would have tried.
Despite his unfortunate actions in his personal life, he was still buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Unfortunate is quite an understatement.
Someone else who suffered from what some might characterize his "unfortunate actions," namely, Ted Kennedy, was also buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors too.
So what's your point?
As folks would soon learn, Nixon’s reelection was the biggest disaster for the GOP and the Conservative cause in the past 50 years, and it would take decades to recover from (especially here in the South). If Nixon couldn’t handle a few zingers from a righty, so what ? Nixon made it personal and installed Hinshaw in Schmitz’s seat, a convicted criminal.
Given that there are fewer California State Senators than California Congressmembers, it’s actually harder to get elected to, and they’re often higher profile. John Burton left Congress and later entered the State Senate where he became the President of that body, ostensibly more powerful than his House position.
In any event, Schmitz was no “minor pest”, as a multiple-office winner. Sadly, had he not been derailed by personal peccadilloes, he would’ve ended up back in Congress by the ‘80s (and vindicated by his criticisms of Nixon).
I’m also sure there is no comparison between Ted Kennedy, a traitor who was responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (whose “military service” was the equivalent of attending a country club in Europe, safe from the front lines of Korea), and John Schmitz, a Conservative patriot who served in the Marines for over 30 years.
In any event, Aggie, you have this rather nasty habit of savaging Conservatives on this website who don’t blindly support the Republican (establishment) party. I might remind you that Free Republic is not an appendage or propaganda arm of the GOP, it is a Conservative website. If you have a problem with that, this is not the website for you.