Robert Mason

The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan

Introduction 1. From old Home Melodies to jazz music: 1928-33 2. As Maine goes, so goes Vermont: 1933-9 3. The simple barefoot Wall Street lawyer: 1939-45 4. Liberty versus socialism: 1945-53 5. Modern Republicanism: 1953-61 6. A choice, not an echo: 1960-8 7. Theres a realignment going on: 1968-76 8. You are witnessing the great realignment: 1977-89 Conclusion.

I Was Going to Build a new Republican Party and a New Majority: Richard Nixon as Party Leader, 1969-73

Richard Nixon gained a poor reputation as President for his work as leader of the Republican Party. His attitude towards the party was seen as neglectful at best, destructive at worst. It was clear that Nixon revelled in the details of electoral politics as far as his own position was concerned, but it seemed equally clear that he had little concern for the political fortunes of his party at large. Among the most partisan of American politicians during his earlier career, Nixon seemed to shrug off this partisan past when he reached the White House in 1969. But this understanding of Nixons relationship with the Republican Party is in some respects misleading. Although it is true that his record provides significant examples of presidential neglect of the party, it also contains equally significant examples of presidential concern about the partys future. Few American Presidents of the modern era paid much attention to their responsibility for party leadership, so the nature of Nixons support for the Republicans distinguishes him as a party leader of notable strength rather than notable weakness.

THE STRUGGLE FOR FREE TIME: Media reform in the United States during the 1990s

A new effort to initiate more extensive regulation of television in the United States emerged during the 1990s. This effort was significant because it challenged the historically small extent to which the federal government regulated the output of American broadcasters. More significantly still, it enjoyed some limited success in doing so. The goal of the reformers was free time on television for political candidates, challenging the dependence of politicians for the dissemination of their message on commercials and on television news, both seen as fostering a poorly informed and cynical electorate. This article analyses the struggle for free time to identify what facilitated its success in a country more generally characterized by hostility to the regulation of broadcasting. It emphasizes the importance of the reform cause’s mobilization of a diverse group of supporters, whose actions together contributed to the achievement of free time, even though their goals, interests and motivations were frequently different from those of others working toward reform. Also important was the reformers’ exploitation both of a political mood favourable to some regulation and of an opportunity for policy change presented by technological innovation. The success of the free-time reformers was limited, however, and the article also explains the shortcomings of this quest for new regulation. The idea of free time was by no means new in the 1990s. Over a number of decades, starting in the early 1960s, hundreds of bills appeared in Congress advocating some scheme of free time, whether as a measure of campaign-finance reform or as an initiative to improve the quality of political debate. The idea won support outside Congress, too, notably, for example, in a study by the Twentieth Century Fund in the late 1960s. These initiatives won no implementation of any kind, so that the United States remained an unusual case by international standards in failing to provide politicians with free access to the public airwaves in order to speak directly to voters during campaigns (Cantor, Rutkus and Greely 15). The exceptional nature of the lack of free time in the United States forms part of a distinctive regime of regulation, in which acceptance of marketplace imperatives and constitutional protections of free speech, interpreted as anti-regulatory, have historically helped to minimize limitations by government on broadcasters in this antiregulatory regime. The failure of earlier efforts to secure free time underscores the significance of the achievements, however limited, of the 1990s struggle, while the long history of interest in free time facilitated its identification as a goal for reformers. The struggle for free time enjoyed some success because the idea managed to secure a unity of purpose among a diverse group of individuals. The reform won implementation when they took action towards a common goal, even though their motivations for advocating free time were quite different. The individuals who contributed to the success of free time were in the White House, within both parties in Congress, at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), within a new single-issue group that

Realigning politics: Electoral coalitions, political change, and the Republican party from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush

Abstract Much scholarship in political science on electoral change tends to neglect the perspectives and actions of the politicians who both responded to developments that offered them opportunity, and sought to achieve electoral gain as a result. The study of the Republican party from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush suggests that such neglect has negative consequences for our understanding of how electoral coalitions undergo transformation, and of how parties interact with political change. First, it was much more difficult for politicians to analyze the implications for party coalitions of social and political upheavals than hindsight suggests. Even at a moment of apparent crisis for the Democrats, in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Republicans were uncertain, and in disagreement, about how to respond. Second, even when politicians decided a project of party revitalization, the implementation of such a project was far from straightforward, encountering many obstacles – not least dissent within their own party as well as counterstrategies from the opposing party. If many now see the paradigm of electoral realignment as failing to provide explanations for change in party coalitions over time, how politicians engaged with their understanding of an opportunity for realignment provides insights into party politics and electoral change.

Transatlantic Dimensions of Electoral Strategy: Republican Party Interpretations of UK Politics, 1936–c. 1960

Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide reelection victory of 1936 marked an electoral realignment which, in fashioning a powerful coalition for his Democratic Party, consigned the opposition Republican Party to minority status, where it would remain for a generation. In seeking to salvage party fortunes, leading Republicans looked across the Atlantic to learn lessons from the UK Conservative Party, which was much more successful than their own party in tackling the challenges of depression politics. Some identified the Conservatives’ reformulation of policy appeals as especially instructive; whereas, others emphasized the organizational innovations they encountered in British politics. Over time, it was the latter rather than the former perspective that characterized Republican understandings of why Conservatives regained electoral success. Debates within the Republican Party about electoral strategy determined this preference for the technical rather than the ideological lesson from British electoral politics. The focus on organizational capacity as an explanation for Republican problems, pioneered in the immediate aftermath of the 1936 defeat through observation of the Conservative Party, remained influential for many decades.

Citizens for Eisenhower and the Republican Party, 1951-1965

Founded in support of Dwight D. Eisenhowers 1952 presidential candidacy, Citizens for Eisenhower took on an ambitious mission to revitalize the Republican party by expanding its activist ranks and by supporting the moderation of its conservative policy agenda. The organization proved unable to sustain the impressive momentum that it achieved during the 1952 campaign, however, instead helping to fuel factional opposition that informed the intraparty upsurge of conservatism during the 1950s and afterwards. The Eisenhower administrations efforts to encourage Citizens activists to join the party were flawed, and existing Republican activists often viewed such newcomers with hostility. More significantly, despite recruitment initiatives, in most cases activism in support of Eisenhower did not translate into enthusiasm for the party cause. The history of Citizens for Eisenhower therefore demonstrates the seriousness of Eisenhowers interests as president in boosting the Republican partys fortunes, but also the shortcomings of ‘amateur’ political activity in support of the party cause. It also sheds light on goals and activities of this eras moderate Republicans, together with their role in fostering the conservative resurgence that characterized the post-Eisenhower Republican party.

Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party: Responses to Realignment

The results of the 1980 elections encouraged high hopes among Republicans that their party’s long period of minority status was at last reaching a close. This minority status dated back to the Great Depression and the New Deal; on the campaign trail Ronald Reagan invoked positive recollections of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in part to develop the theme that his goal was to overturn finally the Democratic coalition that first emerged under Roosevelt and then to replace it with a similarly durable Republican alternative—to achieve an electoral realignment in his party’s favor.1 During the many decades since the party’s Depression-era decline, Democratic shortcomings had sometimes helped Republicans to achieve electoral success, notably for the presidency. But data on party identification showed that consistently more Americans saw themselves as Democratic rather than Republican sup-porters, and Republicans only secured control of Congress for two years after the 1946 elections and for another two years after the 1952 elections. It was this lengthy record of electoral failure that Republicans hoped to transcend. The belief in the possibility of a realignment helped to inform the political ideas and initiatives of Republicans during the Reagan era. When Reagan made a campaign appearance at Ohio State University in 1984, a sign in the crowd captured the mood of the moment. “You are witnessing the great realignment,” it read.2

The Citadel and the Home Place Under Siege

Citadel, published in 1957, was a best-selling exploration of the contemporary U.S. Senate. Journalist William S. White sought to provide his readers with insights into the workings of the institution, a strikingly hierarchical, isolated, and secretive body. This was not an attack but a celebration of the Senates club-like atmosphere, which White praised for its encouragement of bipartisan cooperation. Southern Democrats, whose seniority earned them special influence through control of committees, won notable praise in Whites account for their promotion of stability and compromise. But what White perceived as the Senates strengths were antidemocratic weaknesses in the eyes of some politicians and activists who were then coalescing in pursuit of congressional reform. Julian Zelizers On Capitol Hill is a very successful analysis of this coalitions origins, its long quest for reform that reshaped the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, and the unanticipated consequences of its legislative and procedural achievements. By the end of the twentieth century, the House and the Senate constituted a more open and less hierarchical legislature, but the partisan conflict that increasingly characterized Congress fueled new frustrations, including deeper public dissatisfaction with the political process. This was an elite-led impetus to deepen Congresss democratic responsiveness, one that changed the institution dramatically without necessarily strengthening its connections with the people. On Capitol Hill underscores the obstacles to political reform and in particular the strength of an institutions resistance to disruptive change. In the most basic of terms, Zelizer writes, this book posits that reforming government is much harder work than most politicians or pundits admit (p. 3). With its analysis of a successful effort to transform the procedures and structures of Congress, the book compellingly describes the subtle complexities involved in achieving this change and the paradoxical nature of its consequences.