Over at Taegon Goddard’s Political Wire, a link to video of Richard Nixon’s infamous ‘last press conference.’ Today marks the 47th anniversary of Nixon’s bitter remarks to the press following his failed 1962 bid to become governor of California.
One thing to remember about Nixon; we think of him today mostly in terms of the Watergate scandal, but he was one of the dominant figures in American politics for most of his adult life. He shares one record with Franklin Roosevelt: each of them was nominated for national office by a major party five times. (FDR was nominated for vice-president in 1920, then ran for president in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. Nixon was nominated for vice-president in 1952 and 1956; he ran for president in 1960, 1968 and 1972.) Both men were elected on four out of five tries.
Just as FDR built the New Deal coalition that remains the heart of the modern Democratic Party, Richard Nixon built the sunbelt-populist coalition that has dominated Republican politics since 1968. He brought the white South into the Republican Party, a development that for good or ill has dominated our national life ever since.
Unlike the silver tongued FDR, Nixon was mostly an unmemorable speaker, but one of his speeches is widely believed to have saved his career, another marked another step toward his fall. It’s worth following the links to get a sense of this strange, troubled man who changed our country and the world.