Polling was far rarer in 1968 than it is today. A Louis Harris survey conducted in August, just before the Democratic convention, found that voters held contradictory opinions on questions related to national unrest. On one hand, voters tilted right as 59 percent agreed that “Negroes who start riots” were a major cause of the breakdown of law and order. But in the same national survey, 73 percent of voters sensibly felt that “the rights of many people can be endangered in the name of law and order.”
In many ways, the midterm elections two years later (with 25 Democratic Senate seats on the ballot compared to 10 for the Republicans) offered a clearer test of the law-and-order issue. Nixon, now president, unleashed Vice President Spiro Agnew in a campaign that can be seen as a precursor to Trumpism. Taking the low road, Agnew vilified the news media, liberal intellectuals (“effete corps of impudent snobs”), and antiwar critics, labeling Democratic Senate candidates as “hopeless, hysterical, hypochondriacs of history.” (New York Times columnist James Reston called that line “the worst example of alliteration in American history.”)
Concocting a toxic brew of rhetoric aimed at campus demonstrators (police and National Guardsman had murdered students at Kent State and Jackson State in May), rioters, and the fear of a rising crime rate, Agnew waged holy war on what he called “radical liberals.” Even though he was essentially only replicating what Nixon had done two years prior, this time, it backfired, because Nixon, the incumbent president, could be blamed for allowing the nation to descend into chaos. By September of 1970, only 39 percent of Americans viewed Nixon’s “approach to crime and law and order” favorably, according to a Harris poll.
In the end, despite one of the most favorable Senate maps in history, the Republicans gained just two seats. Even more impressive was that the Democrats ended up with 11 additional governorships, the party’s biggest statehouse sweep since 1938.
"politic" - Google News
June 01, 2020 at 04:28AM
https://ift.tt/2TW0Pg0
The Flawed Politics of a Law-and-Order Campaign - The New Republic
"politic" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3c2OaPk
https://ift.tt/2Wls1p6
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/bostonglobe/VNG7YMZTRWJ5WBFTJ5NVETPCQI.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment