The Art of the Political Comeback
How far can a major political party fall?
It’s a question Republicans seem determined to test these days. The party is shut out of power in the White House. In Congress, the Democrats now have enough votes to block a filibuster. Approval ratings for the Republican Party are at near-record lows. Worse still, at a time when Republicans are yearning for someone to lead them back to power, the party’s next generation of stars is drawing precisely the wrong kind of attention — from Sarah Palin’s jarring announcement that she was quitting as Alaska’s governor to the acknowledgment by Senator John Ensign of Nevada on Thursday that his parents had sent nearly $100,000 to a woman with whom he had had an affair.
But both political parties have come back from bad situations before. Republicans can look back to the election of 1964 and its aftermath. Lyndon B. Johnson was elected in a historic landslide that delivered huge Democratic majorities — 295 House seats, 68 Senate seats, and 33 governorships — and left the Republican Party saddled with the “extremist” conservatism of Barry Goldwater and a roster of tired leaders.
And yet only two years later, Republicans took back 47 House seats, 3 Senate seats and 9 governorships. Richard Nixon, whose career had seemed finished after he lost races for the presidency in 1960 and California governor in 1962, positioned himself to lead the party to victory in 1968 as Johnson chose not to seek re-election in the face of rising opposition to the Vietnam War, racial turmoil at home and widening divisions within his party.
But are those lessons relevant today? Might Republicans be mired in a different and deeper rut, dragged down by an unusual confluence of problems as the party faces an exceptionally potent opponent in Barack Obama? And are the conditions ripe for the kind of return both parties have staged in the past?
Political comebacks tend to come in two forms. The first is when a party stumbles back into power because of the mistakes by the other side. A classic instance came in 1976, when Watergate enabled Jimmy Carter to win the presidency.
The second kind of march back to power, which takes longer but is more enduring, reflects a party’s success in coming to grips with changing conditions — demographic, ideological or both — and in finding a leader who has mastered the new political terrain. Mr. Nixon did this in 1968, and Bill Clinton did it in 1992.
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It’s a question Republicans seem determined to test these days. The party is shut out of power in the White House. In Congress, the Democrats now have enough votes to block a filibuster. Approval ratings for the Republican Party are at near-record lows. Worse still, at a time when Republicans are yearning for someone to lead them back to power, the party’s next generation of stars is drawing precisely the wrong kind of attention — from Sarah Palin’s jarring announcement that she was quitting as Alaska’s governor to the acknowledgment by Senator John Ensign of Nevada on Thursday that his parents had sent nearly $100,000 to a woman with whom he had had an affair.
But both political parties have come back from bad situations before. Republicans can look back to the election of 1964 and its aftermath. Lyndon B. Johnson was elected in a historic landslide that delivered huge Democratic majorities — 295 House seats, 68 Senate seats, and 33 governorships — and left the Republican Party saddled with the “extremist” conservatism of Barry Goldwater and a roster of tired leaders.
And yet only two years later, Republicans took back 47 House seats, 3 Senate seats and 9 governorships. Richard Nixon, whose career had seemed finished after he lost races for the presidency in 1960 and California governor in 1962, positioned himself to lead the party to victory in 1968 as Johnson chose not to seek re-election in the face of rising opposition to the Vietnam War, racial turmoil at home and widening divisions within his party.
But are those lessons relevant today? Might Republicans be mired in a different and deeper rut, dragged down by an unusual confluence of problems as the party faces an exceptionally potent opponent in Barack Obama? And are the conditions ripe for the kind of return both parties have staged in the past?
Political comebacks tend to come in two forms. The first is when a party stumbles back into power because of the mistakes by the other side. A classic instance came in 1976, when Watergate enabled Jimmy Carter to win the presidency.
The second kind of march back to power, which takes longer but is more enduring, reflects a party’s success in coming to grips with changing conditions — demographic, ideological or both — and in finding a leader who has mastered the new political terrain. Mr. Nixon did this in 1968, and Bill Clinton did it in 1992.