For Howard Dean to Win, He'll Have to Beat Nixon

In discussing the campaign ahead, Howard Dean has said on several occasions now that the Republicans will "do what they've been doing since 1968." But what exactly is that? As far as I can tell, what they've been doing is winning presidential elections. They have won six of the last nine if you count the last one that they did not exactly win.

Of course, that's not exactly what Dean meant. He meant that for him to win in 2004 he has to defeat a system established in 1968 by Richard M. Nixon. Never one to mince words, Dean has described that system as one of "coded racism." And its key code phrase was "states' rights," an old Southern favorite going back to the right to own slaves.

Nixon, always known more as an opportunist than an ideologue, assessed the political landscape when he ran for president in 1968, a time when Republicans had lost every presidential election since the Depression, except for two by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Like Dean today, he asked why are we losing and how can that be changed?

Nixon saw his opportunity in the decline of the great civil rights movement and the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. He judged that the South, a solid Democratic bloc that had never forgiven Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans for the Emancipation Proclamation, was furious about 10 years of civil rights progress and was ready to turn on the Democrats, who had received faithful Southern support since before the Civil War. In the end, Nixon defeated the Democrats not because of their worst disaster, Vietnam, but because of their greatest accomplishment, civil rights.

Many Republicans had backed civil rights too. In 1968, the Republican Party had many prominent liberals, including New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who, according to pollsters, may have been the most popular politician in the U.S.; New York City Mayor John Lindsay; and the first black senator since reconstruction, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. The party's significant black support included that of Dodger great Jackie Robinson.

Rockefeller contributed to the death of Republican liberalism by running a disastrous campaign for the nomination. When the summer convention opened in Miami, Rockefeller had the goodwill and Nixon had the delegates. Many thought Nixon would create "the dream ticket" with a liberal running mate such as Rockefeller or Lindsay who could steal votes from the Democrats. But Nixon surprised and angered his party by keeping his promise to South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, who had recently become a Republican with the understanding that Nixon would choose a running mate that would please states' rights Southerners.