Nixon's Appeal to the Great Silent Majority

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"So tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support. I pledged in my campaign for the presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge. The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed. For the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris."

Richard Nixon
Nov. 3, 1969

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If it hadn't been for the speeches and statements he made during the Watergate scandal, the speech that Richard Nixon gave 45 years ago tonight might have been remembered as his most significant presidential address.

The American people were divided over the war in Vietnam, a division that came to be perceived along all sorts of other (mostly irrelevant) lines — by race, by age, by gender, by region, by economic status — that weren't entirely irrelevant.

On this night in 1969, Richard Nixon introduced the concept of the mythical "great silent majority" into the American dialogue — suggesting that, in spite of themselves, most middle class Americans agreed with each other but were too polite to say so, and implying that he was one of them — a true–blue patriotic American who had remained silent too long. He contrasted his strategy of political realism with the vocal minority and its unrealistic idealism.

He tried to strike a somewhat defiant note. "If I conclude that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam," Nixon declared, "I shall not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation." He assured his listeners that was not a threat but a promise.

Nixon appealed for their support — and urged them (again by implication) not to participate in demonstrations against the war or to side with the counterculture — on this night 45 years ago. He had been elected president a year earlier by an extremely narrow margin, and he wanted to build a consensus.

He did better than that, at least initially. Before the speech, Gallup reported that his approval rating was 56%; after the speech, his approval was up 11 points to 67%, nearly the highest of his presidency.

And, in reality, it may well have laid the foundation for his 49–state landslide re–election in 1972.

In many ways, though, I have believed that the speech was a logical extension of the "Southern strategy" Nixon used to win the 1968 presidential campaign. At that time, Democrats still dominated Southern politics, but by using subtle and not–so–subtle appeals to racism, Republicans began chipping away at the Democrats' grip on politics in the South.

The most immediate effect was to siphon off votes upon which the Democrats' presidential nominee could always depend in the past — with the most direct recipient being independent candidate George Wallace. The Republicans hoped to pick off a few Southern states with Wallace and Hubert Humphrey dividing a vote that almost certainly would have defeated Nixon if it had remained united. At least, that is how Nixon saw it.

Nixon learned that divide and conquer works. Wallace still won nearly half a dozen Southern states, but Nixon managed to carry Florida, Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolinas — and, in so doing, won the election. But the Southern strategy was regionally confining. "Silent majority" transcended regional boundaries.

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After his speech 45 years ago tonight, Nixon used appeals to patriotism to define Republicans — and to divide groups of Americans — having already begun a process that would fulfill Lyndon Johnson's prophecy that his advocacy of civil rights legislation had handed the South to the Republicans for a generation.

In hindsight, I would say the ongoing shift from Democrat to Republican in the South truly began in that 1968 election. What other conclusion can one draw? The Democrats swept the nation and many Southern states in 1964, when Johnson faced Barry Goldwater. But, in the 1964 election results, there were clues to be found, hints about the direction the South was traveling.

It happened quietly and gradually. It certainly was not achieved overnight. But little by little, one by one, Southern states voted for Republicans on the federal level, then they began to do it on the state and local levels as well. And, one by one, Republicans picked off each state.

Tomorrow, it is quite likely that my home state of Arkansas will be the last Southern domino to completely fall when Sen. Mark Pryor appears poised to lose his bid for a third term — perhaps the last time that Nixon's political legacy will be felt in America.

The Southern strategy has seen some backsliding in recent elections, though, with Virginia and North Carolina voting for a Democrat for president for the first time in decades and Florida voting Democratic as well — and Democrats representing states like Louisiana and North Carolina in the Senate — but much of that can be attributed to the arrivals of Democrats whose jobs have brought them there from Northern and coastal cities. So the Southern strategy may be around for a few more elections. There may still be some work to be done in some place.

But, by and large, that transition is nearly complete now.

That shift in party preference may have been the most remarkable domestic political development I have witnessed in my lifetime — the transformation of an entire region, the South, from reliably Democrat to reliably Republican. I grew up in the South; it simply went without saying that just about everyone there was a Democrat, and political squabbles came down to the liberal, conservative and moderate wings of the party. Winning the primary in the spring or early summer was tantamount to election; beating the Republican in November was a formality.

Some people would say that Republicans have always been right–wingers, but the truth is that there really was no rightward shift in Republican ideology, in the South or elsewhere, until 1980, when the Reagan campaign and the emergence of the Moral Majority combined to coax conservative Christians into politics. There were pockets of Republican support throughout the South before then. Up until that time, I saw no real political involvement on the part of the churches — but I sure saw it after that.

Nearly all of the Republicans who were nominated in the decades before Reagan — including both Nixon himself and the man Nixon served as vice president, Dwight Eisenhower — are increasingly viewed as too moderate for the modern Republican Party.

It was only after Reagan won the nomination that the momentum for Republicans in the South really became noticeable.

All that was still many years away when Nixon spoke to the "great silent majority" 45 years ago tonight. Nixon drew the lines in the dirt that night.

"Let historians not record that, when America was the most powerful nation in the world, we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism," Nixon said.

Something to think about when you watch the election returns tomorrow night.

Resigned to His Fate

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Forty years ago tonight, Richard Nixon announced to America and the world that he had decided to resign the presidency the next day.

There is often something kind of touching about watching someone who has fallen from grace in a very public way. Ordinarily, that person has been humbled by the experience and is conciliatory in his choice of words.

Nixon was one of the exceptions to that rule — although I must say that I thought he did an admirable job of maintaining his composure through the speech. (He really did seem to be on the brink of a breakdown the next day, though, when he said goodbye to the White House staff.)

"His eyes were pouched," wrote historian Theodore White, "the lines of his cheeks sharper than ever, his jowls puffy," but "[h]is voice was firm, the underquaver rarely surfacing."

His appearance belied a basic fact about how he perceived the world and the president's role in it. His Watergate experience seemed to contradict long–held convictions Nixon had about the presidency.

It is clear to me that, 24 hours earlier, Richard Nixon was a man suffering from severe inner turmoil. In their book "The Final Days," Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote that, the night before his speech, Nixon summoned his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to the White House. After their conversation, Nixon asked Kissinger to get on his knees and pray with him. At some point, Nixon began to sob, and he implored the heavens, "What have I done?"

Nixon was a "broken man," Kissinger said, and he tried to console him but eventually left. Later that evening, wrote Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon called Kissinger and asked him never to tell anyone "that I cried and that I was not strong."

He rallied himself, though, and gave a respectable speech 40 years ago tonight.

American Rhetoric ranked his resignation speech #39 among the top 100 speeches of the 20th century. But I wonder whether that was based on the structure of the speech — or its historical significance. Personally, I would be inclined to choose the latter.

It seems to me the speech announcing the first–ever (and, so far, only) presidential resignation would be historically significant no matter what was said — or how it was said — as long as at least one sentence had "I" as its subject and "resign" as its verb. That's really all that the hundreds of millions of people around the world who were watching and listening wanted to hear.

Besides, even with the luxury of time to prepare one's words for an important (and inevitable) moment, things don't always come out the way the speaker might have liked.

(Earlier in 1974, Hank Aaron hit his 715th career home run and moved past Babe Ruth into the all–time top spot in baseball's record book. In anticipation of that moment, I have heard that the radio announcer for Aaron's team, the Atlanta Braves, spent a lot of time going over what he would say on the air, figuring that his words would be remembered and quoted. Apparently, he had several things in mind from which to choose, depending upon the circumstances surrounding the mighty blow. When the big moment came, though, he was so carried away that all he could say was "There's a new home run king." Kind of obvious, wouldn't you say?)

I didn't think the speech was especially eloquent. Nor did it strike me as being particularly generous. It certainly wasn't apologetic. Nixon started the speech — as he usually seemed to do — in a self–serving way.

"In all the decisions I have made in my public life," Nixon said, "I have always tried to do what was best for the nation." Right off the bat, he was justifying the motivation for all his actions as being what was "best for the nation."

One of those things that was in the best interest of the nation — in Nixon's mind, anyway — was his beliefthat he should "persevere" and "make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me."

He made it sound as if he owed it to the people who had voted for him overwhelmingly two years earlier — even though fewer than one–fourth of the respondents in the latest Gallup poll approved of the job he had been doing.

But, following the unanimous decision by the Supreme Court forcing him to surrender the subpoenaed tapes and the Judiciary Committee's approval of Articles of Impeachment, "it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort."

That was an understatement. After the discovery of the so–called "smoking gun" — the tape of the June 23, 1972 conversation that clearly implicated Nixon — it was reported that he could count on the support of only 10 senators when the trial was held in the Senate. He did not need a majority vote in the Senate to avoid conviction, but he did need many more votes than 10.

Beyond that, though, my impression was that people simply wanted Nixon to acknowledge what he had done. He had put the nation through two years of agony; people wanted him to take responsibility for his actions. He did no such thing. He made it clear he believed it was because of Congress' actions (or likely actions) that he was being forced from office, not because of anything he had done.

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Nixon saw himself as blameless, a victim. If anyone needed any further proof of that, it came along a few years later when David Frost conducted his famous post–presidency interviews with Nixon. "If the president does it," Nixon told Frost, "that means it is not illegal."

"It," of course, was a generalization referring to anything a president did in office. It might be against the law for anyone else to do it, but the president would be doing it for the nation's good. That is entirely different from doing it for personal gain.

In Nixon's mind, the president was different from other citizens (even though, since the presidency is not passed from one generation to the next like a crown, the president always starts out as an ordinary citizen) because, by definition, the president was decent and good, and his only motivation was the welfare of the country. I suppose such a simplistic view must have its roots in childhood; unfortunately, I fear such altruistic individuals are rarely found in real life.

"I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved," Nixon said, "and my family unanimously urged me to do so."

(Well, there was considerable doubt about that at the time.)

"But the interests of the nation must always come before any personal considerations."

That was a theme to which he returned again and again. Perhaps he believed it allowed him to save a little face, this pretense that somehow he was making a sacrifice for his country.

"To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body," Nixon said, "but as president, I must put the interest of America first."

Probably the closest that Nixon came to apologizing was when he said, "[I]f some of my judgments were wrong — and some were wrong — they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interests of the nation."

John Herbers of the New York Times felt that Nixon "may well have delivered his most effective speech" since the dawning of the Watergate scandal.

I'll go along with that — since none of his previous Watergate speeches managed to keep him from his appointment with destiny.

Making a Name For Himself

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"There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America."

Barack Obama
July 27, 2004

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Sometimes destiny is hard to recognize, even when it slaps you silly.

Until 10 years ago tomorrow night, no one knew who Barack Obama was. Well, some people knew who he was — but it is fair to say that most Americans, probably even most of those who did know who he was, did not know, when they saw Obama on their television screens, that they were getting a preview of coming attractions.

The keynote address he delivered 10 years ago before the delegates at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston has been credited by many with making him president. I disagree. It certainly contributed to his political rise, it gave him national exposure, but I think it is an exaggeration to credit the speech with making him president. He was just a state senator from Illinois trying to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Three years later, he hadn't distinguished himself in the Senate, and he was not the front–runner in the polls when Democrats began holding presidential primaries; Hillary Clinton was.

People often forget that she, too, spoke to the delegates in Boston, who had gathered to nominate John Kerry for president.

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But her speech seemed to stir little in the way of enthusiasm. The audience cheered her politely — probably more in gratitude for her husband's presidency than for her contribution, at the time, as a U.S. senator. In a way, perhaps, it foretold what would happen in the Democratic Party when it chose its next nominee.

It is true, as David Bernstein wrote in Chicago Magazine in 2007, that the address "changed Obama's profile overnight and made him a household name," but it is also true that it was not a history–changing speech.

And I would also dispute that it made Obama a "household name" in 2004. That came later.

"It was good, but it was nothing awe inspiring," his press aide, Robert Gibbs, said of Obama's speech. It wasn't until Obama won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 that opinion polling started to show movement in his direction — until then, Hillary Clinton was still the front–runner.

Obama's speech 10 years ago was greeted with enthusiasm, but I honestly don't recall the extent of the positive response that Bernstein did. I suppose there may be something to it; Bernstein's article, after all, was published several months before the Iowa caucus — long before the idea of an Obama nomination qualified as more than wishful thinking.

But I'm inclined to think Bernstein was looking at it from the perspective of sustained candidacy, not necessarily nomination.

"Before the speech, the idea of Obama running for president in 2008 would have been laughable; he was a lowly state senator from Chicago's Hyde Park, and while he stood a good chance at winning his U.S. Senate race, he would enter that powerful body ranked 99th out of 100 in seniority," Bernstein wrote. "After the speech, observers from across the political world hailed the address as an instant classic, and Obama was drawing comparisons (deservedly or not) to Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy."

Now, whether it is true or not, I do fancy myself to be current on politics and what journalists write about things like primaries and conventions and keynote addresses. In the summer of 2004, I did a lot of reading, and I remember reading many accounts of the speeches at both of the major parties' conventions.

And I simply don't remember the kind of reaction that Bernstein did. I mean, come on. King? Kennedy? Really?

Other black politicians have given speeches to national conventions — Barbara Jordan, Condoleezza Rice, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell — and they didn't make that kind of impression.

Well, except for one.

Jordan was the first black woman to give a keynote address. American Rhetoric ranked her 1976 speech fifth in its list of the Top 100 speeches of the 20th century, behind only King, Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt (twice).

And, although the convention was already set to nominate Jimmy Carter that summer, Jordan did receive the support of one delegate in the nominating ballot. However, I don't recall reading any articles promoting her as a future nominee — in fact, she retired from politics a couple of years later.

Jackson's 1984 address was ranked 12th, and his 1988 address was ranked 49th. I do remember reading some articles promoting Jackson as a future contender for a presidential nomination, but I'm sure I read just as many articles arguing that he should not seek the presidency — not because he was black but because of concerns about having a religious leader in the Oval Office.

Jackson, of course, was not a keynote speaker.

Pundits often refer to keynote speakers as if they are future presidential nominees. In my experience, few have come close to that — so, while there probably were those who, swept up in the excitement of the moment, spoke of Obama as a future nominee 10 years ago, it is likely that most of the people who heard them did not really think it was possible.

Ted's Side of the Story

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It has been 45 years since Ted Kennedy's car plunged into the waters of Chappaquiddick. A young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned that night. Kennedy himself has been dead for nearly five years, but the event is still capable of provoking passionate debates.

With only a few exceptions, Kennedy spent the seven days immediately following the incident in seclusion. When he was seen, he was wearing a neck brace, a silent reminder of the accident. He emerged 45 years ago today — sans neck brace — to deliver a national address on the matter.

Since Bobby Kennedy's assassination a year earlier, Kennedy was widely regarded as virtually a sure thing if he wanted the Democratic presidential nomination; after the accident, the conventional wisdom was that he was damaged goods — damaged beyond repair.

Before the Chappaquiddick incident, Kennedy was often mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate for 1972. Even after Chappaquiddick, his name was still mentioned in connection with the 1976 race. He chose not to seek the nomination in either year, and it seemed his presidential ambitions really were behind him.

Incredibly, he did seek the presidency — in 1980 — but it always seemed to me he did so more out of a sense of personal obligation than anything else.

And he picked a year to run in which it was almost certain that he would not succeed. He ran against an incumbent Democrat, Jimmy Carter, in a year that was shaping up to be a Republican year. Running against an incumbent from one's own party has almost always been a "Man of La Mancha"–esque proposition — and, predictably, at least in the context of history, Kennedy did not defeat the incumbent.

But there was more to it than that. Early in the campaign for the nomination, Carter benefited from a rally–'round–the–flag mentality following the takeover of the American embassy in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

If Kennedy had beaten Carter, it is far from certain that he would have defeated the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan. In hindsight, it really seems the tide was running against all Democrats in 1980.

Before any votes had been cast, Kennedy's commitment was brought into question when he gave a rambling answer to a pretty straight–forward question posed by CBS' Roger Mudd — "Why do you want to be president?"

But on this night in 1969, he didn't speak about the presidency. He spoke about Chappaquiddick. Earlier in the day, he had entered a plea of guilty at the Edgartown, Mass., courthouse; he was given a suspended sentence and his driver's license was taken away.

Thoughts of the presidency probably were part of the equation, though, particularly when you examine the issues he chose to address when he spoke before the cameras:

• His wife, Joan, had not accompanied him that weekend due to "reasons of health." Her absence had been frequently mentioned, and Kennedy apparently felt obliged to say that she was pregnant (she suffered a miscarriage shortly thereafter).
• He denied the "widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct" by himself and Kopechne.
• He denied that he had been under the influence of alcohol while he was driving.
• He acknowledged that his actions after the accident "made no sense to [him] at all."
• He said he had been told by his doctors that he had suffered a concussion and shock, but he didn't use that as an excuse for his actions.
• He said it was "indefensible" that he did not contact authorities after the accident.
• He told viewers that he had enlisted the help of two friends at the party to help try to rescue her.
• He said that "all kinds of scrambled thoughts" went through his head that, in hindsight, seem like nothing short of denial — including the idea that Kopechne may have saved herself somehow and whether "some awful curse actually did hang over all the Kennedys."

"The speech was not a success," wrote William Manchester. "He answered questions that hadn't been asked ... He also seemed to imply that the damage to his career was more momentous than [Kopechne's] death." That, I suppose, remained to be seen.

The First Bump on That Glass Ceiling

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Nearly 15 years earlier to the day, Neil Armstrong took a giant leap for mankind. On this night in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro took a giant leap for women.

She had been telling folks to "just call me Geri" since long before Walter Mondale picked her to be his running mate a week earlier. But somehow that just didn't seem right for a presumptive vice–presidential nominee.

It took her more than four minutes, but Ferraro finally said what thousands in San Francisco's Moscone Center and millions more watching on TV had been waiting to hear.

First, though, she reaffirmed that "America is the land where dreams can come true for all of us."

Exactly one week earlier, Mondale, the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had announced that he had chosen her to be his running mate — and now, it was her turn to officially accept the nomination (per political protocol) after the delegates approved Mondale's choice, which they did by acclamation.

It was a mere formality, of course. A rather quaint American tradition. No one thought for a second that she would turn down the nomination. And she didn't. Then after she had accepted the nomination, she spent about 25 minutes introducing herself to America. Other than her debate with Vice President George H.W. Bush three months later, it was about the most extensive exposure America would get to the first female on a major party's national ticket.

Not all Americans were watching, of course. They never are, but in a convention week that included soaring speeches from Mario Cuomo and Jesse Jackson, Ferraro's speech clearly was the emotional high point.

American Rhetoric proclaimed the speech she gave 30 years ago tonight to be #56 on the list of the top 100 speeches of the 20th century. It carried unique challenges that neither Cuomo nor Jackson had to face.

Ferraro was the first woman on a major–party ticket. It was historic, and all eyes would be watching her closely. Her detractors would be looking for anything to criticize, and her supporters would be looking for anything to praise.

Ferraro simply seemed to want her opportunity to tell the country what she could do.

"The promise of our country is that the rules are fair," Ferraro told the delegates. "If you work hard and play by the rules, you can earn your share of America's blessings."

That is pretty standard political rhetoric, but it seemed more convincing coming from the first woman on a major party's national ticket.

And, taking a page from John F. Kennedy's political playbook, Ferraro said, "The issue is not what America can do for women, but what women can do for America."

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Reactions to the speech were generally good. Pundit reactions to the selection of Ferraro as running mate were decidedly mixed, although Ferraro initially proved to be an asset. Mondale's campaign had been far behind Ronald Reagan's in the polls before the convention; after the convention, the Democratic ticket enjoyed a nice bounce and even managed to pull roughly even — for awhile.

But the Democrats came back to earth in a hurry. By the end of July, questions came up about her finances, her husband's finances, their separate tax returns, etc., and the momentum came to a screeching halt.

No one knew any of that 30 years ago tonight, of course, when Ferraro stood before the delegates to the Democratic convention and accepted the vice presidential nomination.

It was a legitimate nomination, but it was still mostly symbolic. Nearly everyone watching probably realized, on some level, that she would not be elected.

Nevertheless, the euphoria inside the convention hall was unmistakable, and Ferraro was almost giddy at times.

"By choosing a woman to run for our nation's second–highest office," Ferraro said, "you sent a powerful signal to all Americans. There are no doors we cannot unlock. We will place no limits on achievement.

"If we can do this, we can do anything."

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

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"This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission: to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race."

Jesse Jackson
July 18, 1984
San Francisco

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Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow Coalition, wasn't the first black to seek the presidency, either in a fringe party or a major party. Nor was he the first black to address a national convention.

But the speech he delivered 30 years ago tomorrow night was better than any speech ever given by a black person to a national convention, according to American Rhetoric. With one exception — Barbara Jordan's keynote address to the 1976 Democratic convention.

Both were spellbinding orators — which is a pretty good trait to have if you are a lawyer (as Jordan was) or a preacher (as Jackson is). Preachers may have an advantage because the public's general impression of preachers is that they are more sympathetic to people's plights than lawyers are.

Jordan's speech was very lawyerly. "I could easily spend this time praising the accomplishments of this party and attacking the Republicans," Jordan said, "but I don't choose to do that."

And she went on to deliver a very solid, very literate, very lawyerly kind of speech that was, deservedly, praised. Admiration for Jordan's speaking skills probably couldn't have been any higher than it was on that July night in 1976.

Unfortunately, she never chose to work in any homilies that could have endeared her to her listeners. They admired her, but she seemed far away, personally inaccessible as she spoke in soaring language about concepts like liberty and justice.

For most people, I think, Jordan was like the sun. People feel warmed by the sun, they extol its brilliance, but they can't get close to it.

Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition could connect with people on a personal level. Thirty years ago tomorrow night, he spoke of the just–concluded, hard–fought campaign for the Democratic nomination and the need for Democrats to unite.

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"I went to see Hubert Humphrey three days before he died," Jackson told the delegates. "He had just called Richard Nixon from his dying bed, and many people wondered why. And I asked him.

"He said, 'Jesse, from this vantage point, the sun is setting in my life, all of the speeches, the political conventions, the crowds and the great fights are behind me now. At a time like this you are forced to deal with your irreducible essence, forced to grapple with that which is really important to you.

"'And what I've concluded about life,' Hubert Humphrey said, 'when all is said and done, we must forgive each other and redeem each other and move on.'"

Jackson disputed the Republicans' claim that an economic recovery was under way.

"There's some measure of recovery," Jackson conceded. "Three and a half years later, unemployment has inched just below where it was when [Reagan] took office in 1981. There are still 8.1 million people officially unemployed; 11 million working only part time. Inflation has come down, but let's analyze for a moment who has paid the price for this superficial economic recovery."

As I said, Jackson wasn't the first black to speak to a national convention. Nor was he the first black to seek a presidential nomination — but he was the first black candidate to exceed electoral expectations. Jackson won five primaries and caucuses in 1984 and received nearly one–fifth of the popular vote.

I think it is safe to say that no black politician did better on the national stage than Jackson — until Barack Obama more than two decades later.

Jackson also brought 2 million new voters into the process. As one who has observed politics for most of my life, I know that many of those who register in voter registration drives do so in the passion of the moment and cannot always be counted upon to continue showing up at the polls after that moment has passed.

But many appeared to continue to participate when the midterms rolled around two years later, and Democrats recaptured the Senate after six years of Republican majority by taking eight seats from the GOP. Whatever Jackson's contribution to that may have been — and it seems beyond dispute that he did contribute to it in some way — it was an impressive achievement.

His accomplishments notwithstanding, on that night in 1984, Jackson addressed the delegates with humility.

"I am not a perfect servant," he admitted. "I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient: God is not finished with me yet."

Extremism In the Defense of Liberty

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"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Barry Goldwater
July 16, 1964

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He was called Mr. Conservative when he sought the presidency 50 years ago. Sixteen years later, when Ronald Reagan accepted the Republican nomination, he was called a "voice in the wilderness." Barry Goldwater's presidential nomination in 1964 was a "precursor" to Reagan's triumph in 1980, writes the Arizona Republic.

Fifty years ago tonight, Barry Goldwater accepted the Republican nomination to run against President Lyndon Johnson. As the Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News–Miner wrote recently, "The Goldwater nomination, with its conservative revolution, pulled the GOP clearly to the right on the political spectrum. No more hanging at or near the center."

Until eight months earlier, he and everyone else expected the Democratic nominee to be President John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.

1964 was "the year of Goldwater," historian William Manchester wrote. "In seven consecutive national conventions of the past ... Republican conservatives had suppressed their yearning for a presidential candidate from their own ranks. This time they did not suppress it. ... They wanted A Choice, Not An Echo, as their placards proclaimed, and on July 15 they nominated Barry Morris Goldwater, Arizona's senior senator and a denizen of deep right field."

The next night, when Goldwater was about to deliver his acceptance speech (which was ranked #62 of the Top 100 speeches of the 20th century by American Rhetoric), he was introduced by former Vice President Richard Nixon. 1964 would be the only time between 1952 and 1972 that Nixon was not on the Republican ticket. In fact, it would be the only time between 1952 and 2004 that a Nixon, Bush or Dole did not appear on the GOP ticket.

"Proclaiming himself 'a simple soldier in the ranks' of the party he had led four years before," historian Theodore White wrote, "Nixon pointed to the uplands where the Republicans must go, urged them to follow their new and great American leader, and concluded as he pointed, turning to the flag–draped catwalk that led to the speaker's rostrum, 'Down this corridor will walk a man into the pages of history.'

"For a moment, the thousands gathered in the Cow Palace held themselves in check," White wrote, "like a wave curling to surf. And then, as Barry Goldwater appeared, the surf burst."

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"From this moment, united and determined, we will go forward together," Goldwater told the delegates after acknowledging the prominent guests, Nixon among them — many of them had not supported him as he sought the nomination — "dedicated to the ultimate and undeniable greatness of the whole man. Together we will win."

The Republicans did not win that election, of course. "It was over before it began," White concluded in his book about the 1964 presidential campaign. "The issue had been decided long before — perhaps within minutes of the fatal shot at Dallas."

But, as insurgents always do at conventions when they have succeeded in toppling the establishment, the delegates in San Francisco cheered wildly for Goldwater and his conservative vision.

And, on this night 50 years ago, Goldwater may have reached his rhetorical peak.

At times, Goldwater was almost evangelical. "Our people have followed false prophets," he told the delegates at one point.

At others, he was pragmatic about what he perceived as the failures of the administration and the risks of those failures. "During four futile years," he said, "the administration which we shall replace has distorted and lost that vision. It has talked and talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed in the works of freedom. ...

"Failures proclaim lost leadership, obscure purpose, weakening will and the risk of inciting our sworn enemies to new aggressions and to new excesses," he said.

"And the speaker was leading his audience way out there into a new world, a crusader's world unexpressed in American politics for generations — the visionary prophet and the martial patriot alternating, first the prophet, then the patriot, over and over again," observed White.

"The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free," Goldwater said, "not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bullying of communism."

At the end of his speech came the "final, unforgettable thrust at the party moderates," wrote White.

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

When he had finished, the 1964 Republican convention came to its conclusion.

It did not nominate a president, but it was historic in some ways.

The name of Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was placed in nomination. It was the first time a woman's name had been placed in nomination at a major party's convention. She only received the support of 27 delegates (out of 1,308), but she has that distinction in the history books.

Cuomo's Tale of Two Cities

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"So, here we are at this convention to remind ourselves where we come from and to claim the future for ourselves and for our children. Today our great Democratic Party, which has saved this nation from depression, from fascism, from racism, from corruption, is called upon to do it again — this time to save the nation from confusion and division, from the threat of eventual fiscal disaster, and most of all from the fear of a nuclear holocaust."

Mario Cuomo
July 16, 1984
San Francisco

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The keynote speaker at a convention is expected to establish the theme to be built upon.

In 1984, the Democratic Party was still demoralized from its loss of the presidency in 1980. The task facing New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, as he prepared to deliver the keynote address at the Democrats' convention in San Francisco, was twofold: to make the delegates feel better about themselves and to define their mission in 1984.

That was really a fine line to walk. At the same time Cuomo was building up his party and its presumptive nominees, he had to tear down an administration that had been getting approval ratings in the 50s since before Thanksgiving.

He succeeded on both counts with a speech that is rated the 11th–best speech in the 20th century by American Rhetoric. It really was one of the best rhetorical performances you will ever witness, and it was especially impressive given that his message was not the one that the majority of Americans wanted to hear — and it was one of several impressive speeches delivered at that convention.

At the time, Cuomo's address propelled him to the front of the pack of would–be candidates for the 1988 and 1992 presidential nominations, but he declined to run both times. There were even those who said — as people often do after hearing an inspiring convention speech — that Cuomo should have been on the national ticket in 1984, even though few outside New York knew who he was until 30 years ago tomorrow night.

Cuomo began by challenging President Reagan's assertion that America was a "shining city on a hill."

"[T]he president is right," Cuomo said. "In many ways we are a shining city on a hill, but the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory. A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. ... Mr. President, you ought to know that this nation is more a 'Tale of Two Cities' than it is just a 'Shining City on a Hill.'"

As I say, Cuomo's speech catapulted him into the lead in polls of Democrats just before the official starts of the 1988 and 1992 campaigns, but Cuomo was reluctant to enter either race — to the point that his indecision led to his being nicknamed "Hamlet on the Hudson." Actually, Cuomo's dawdling was a familiar refrain by 1992, but, in 1988, I knew many Democrats who fretted (perhaps correctly) that their party would lose the presidency for a third straight time because Cuomo would not seek the nomination.

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His hesitance was baffling. The nomination seemed to be his for the taking — and I believe that one of the great what–ifs of history is the one about Mario Cuomo and the presidential campaigns of 1988 and 1992. I don't know anyone who thinks that George H.W. Bush — no matter what one may think of him in general — could have come close to matching Cuomo's eloquence in the debates in either campaign.

But there came times in both campaigns when his diffidence was too frustrating for Democrats who craved a leader.

Cuomo certainly was assertive 30 years ago. He sounded like a man warming up for the general election campaign as he criticized the Republican deficit.

"The president's deficit is a direct and dramatic repudiation of his promise in 1980 to balance the budget by 1983," Cuomo declared. "How large is it? The deficit is the largest in the history of the universe. ... It is a deficit that, according to the president's own fiscal adviser, may grow to as much as $300 billion a year for 'as far as the eye can see.' ... It is a mortgage on our children's future that can be paid only in pain, and that could bring this nation to its knees."

Speaking of children, there has been talk that Cuomo's son, Andrew, who now holds the office his father once held, may be angling to give the keynote address at the 2016 convention.

If he gets the assignment, will he do as well as his father did not once but twice? To be sure, if he does get tapped for the keynote job, he will face a far different set of challenges than his father did.

I imagine, though, that Andrew Cuomo wouldn't be likely to criticize the deficit spending of a president from his own party — unless, by 2016, deficit spending has fallen far from the voters' grace, and fiscal austerity is in style.

If that is the case, he can probably borrow very — pardon the pun — liberally from his father's speech 30 years ago, and few, if any, of his listeners will know that he didn't think of it first.