Peggy Noonan is a longtime columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Earlier in her career, she was a speech writer for President Ronald Reagan. The book she authored back in 1990, “What I Saw At The Revolution: A Political Life In the Reagan Era” is one of the best political books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read quite a few of them over the years.
Anyway, the reason I bring her up in my blog this week, is that a couple days ago she wrote a particularly interesting, and disturbing, column in the Wall Street Journal. You can read the whole article by clicking here. Or let me sum it up for you. The Republican Party may well be on its way to splitting into two parts – those who support Donald Trump, and those who don’t. In Ms. Noonan’s scenario, this could well take place at a Republican brokered (or open) convention in Cleveland this summer. Either Trump gets the nomination, and the “establishment” bolts and supports another Republican for the presidency (she doesn’t mention Speaker Paul Ryan, but his is a name that some have floated.) Or Donald Trump doesn’t win the nomination, and he and/or his supporters believe he has been treated unfairly, bolt the party, and run a third party candidacy. (There are sore-loser laws which may make this scenario problematic, but it’s impossible to predict what the courts would do if these laws were challenged.)
What either of these scenarios has in common, in my humble opinion, is that they ultimately result in Hillary Clinton being sworn in as our 45th president on January 20th, 2017. That’s why I hope (and pray) that we Republicans will use our heads, and avoid either one of these scenarios from playing out.
It is my intention to support the Republican nominee for President, whoever he or she is. That includes Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush, or John Kasich, or Ben Carson, or Carly Fiorina, or Donald Trump, or whomever. Interestingly, because of some of the more controversial, shall we say politically incorrect, comments that Donald Trump has made, acknowledging that one will support him as our nominee apparently invites scorn from some of the Trump-haters. One letter published in the Cincinnati Enquirer said “how sad that Republican leaders lack the backbone to stand up to Donald Trump.” Another letter writer who identified himself as a Democrat said that he had given “Chabot more credit than he apparently deserves” and went on to essentially say that since Donald Trump is a “fascist and a racist” that I must be too. Civil discourse indeed.
Anyway, back to my concern about a split Republican party, and why it should be avoided at all costs. I was a history major in college. In fact, at the second oldest college in America, William and Mary. (Only Harvard is older.) And there are three times in our history that best illustrate what can happen when a major political party fails to overcome its internal differences, and comes apart at the seams.
First, the election of 1860, which took place just months before the outbreak of the American Civil War. The Democratic party split apart over the issue of slavery into a Northern Democratic Party and Southern Democratic Party, allowing the newly formed Republican party candidate, Abraham Lincoln, to win the White House with less than 40% of the popular vote.
Next in 1912, it was the Republican Party that was dividing itself. Teddy Roosevelt broke away from William Howard Taft’s Republican Party and formed the Bull Moose Party. Roosevelt got 27% of the vote and William Howard Taft got 23% of the vote, so together they got 50% of the vote. But Democrat Woodrow Wilson got 42% (Eugene Debs, a Socialist Party candidate got the rest) so the Democrats won the presidency as a result of Republicans not being able to get their act together.
And finally, in the election of 1992, President George H. W. Bush was trying to win a second term, but failed to make it. He had a strong challenge from Pat Buchanan in the primaries, but the thing that was fatal to Bush was that the third party candidacy of Ross Perot siphoned off 19% of the vote (the vast majority of whom were Republicans.) This allowed Democratic candidate Bill Clinton to win the presidency with only 43% of the vote (virtually the identical percentage of the vote that Woodrow Wilson got back in 1912.)
The moral of this story? If Republicans are divided, we lose. If we’re together, we might win. It’s not a sure thing. But it is a sure thing that if we’re divided, we lose.
One final thing. No candidate is ever perfect. Expect to be disappointed, or to disagree here and there with any candidate. Even Ronald Reagan, who is probably to most Republicans the closest thing to the gold standard, had his flaws. He had supported abortion when he was Governor of California. He had supported some tax increases as President. The Marines killed in their barracks in Beirut – that happened on Reagan’s watch. No Republican candidate will ever be perfect. Don’t expect it – you’ll only be disappointed.
But let’s nominate the best, most electable Republican candidate we can come up with. Then let’s stick together, work our tails off, and get him (or her) elected.
And let’s save America. Together.