Books: Are You Surprised?

Finishing:  Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate.  This is an outstanding study of how politics works.  LBJ was a political genius.  All of those who despise LBJ would do well to seriously read and think about this book.  I started this 1040 page whale because the fourth volume of Caro's multi-volume biography is now out.  I am now feeling justified in buying the next installment.

The 3rd volume of a multivolume set.

Need to get started on this book:  From Thomas Nelson publishers--This is a study of General Andrew Jackson.  Like LBJ, Jackson is not always likeable or loveable, but he was incredibly gifted as a leader.

President and General Andrew Jackson was one tough man.

Just beginning:  Another great Banner of Truth book--Pastor-Teachers of Old Princeton:  Memorial Addresses for the Faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary 1812-1921.  To have simply walked through the halls of old Princeton Theological Seminary would have been a magnificent experience.  David Calhoun's two volume history of Princeton Seminary is a great read.  This work is a good supplement, filled with source material.  Hodges, Alexanders, and Warfield are among the great men who both preached and taught and who are memorialized in this volume.  Yes, there was a certain floweriness to the "learned and sacred scholar's cant of old," but there is a depth to the writings and a holiness to the men.



If Banner of Truth publishes it, I want it.

 Can't Wait to Delve into this:  A big hefty book about books--The Great Books Reader:  Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization, edited by John Mark Reynolds.  Whether reviewing or previewing, this book looks to be a great way to catch up on or improve on the education we all should have received.

Another Book About Books

Getting Ready to Review:  Literature: A Student's Guide by Louis Markos.  Short in terms of the number of pages, 143, but long in terms of content.  With a college minor in literature and many years of reading and teaching literature, I was astounded by how much I learned.  By that, I mean, how much I realized I did not know.  This is another installation in the Crossway Books series "Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition."

Guidelines on poetry, literary history, and criticism.



Massachusetts Politics, Part 4

General Washington opts for retirement from the military rather than assuming the rule over the new nation.

American politics boils down to one simple rule: Let’s vote on it. Once General George Washington surrendered his sword to the president of the Continental Congress, he relinquished the opportunity to be King George IV of the Americas. The process was then continued that began cementing this principle of “Let’s vote on it.”


In voting, power is in numbers. Basically put, the majority wins and the minority loses. The losers have the option of saying, “I told you so,” if the proposition fails.  That is often all the loser can hope for.  Going home with all the marbles, a.k.a. winning, is much better.

As anyone knows who has ever been in the middle of a group of church women deciding on the new color for the fellowship hall, the world does not consist of those who favor green and those who favor yellow. That's why the paint store offers over 200 shades of white. Add all the other colors and shades in and the process of picking a single color for a wall becomes impossible.

From this it follows that coalitions are necessary for all of life. Those who are generally in favor of some “creamy buttery color that is not too yellow” unite around a swatch of paint against those who favor “a greenish tint with a hint of blue.” The majority wins and the paint rollers take over. The losing faction either accedes (“It does look good.”) or whines (“I hate this color: It looks like pork skins.) or they start a new church (the American Protestant answer to almost every theological problem).

In any political contest, there are always a variety of factions and views. James Madison’s Federalist Number 10 is the primary source reading for this fact. Any political victory consists of uniting a number of people and groups with different visions around a common theme. Quite often, the defining and uniting point is “Throw the bums out.” We may not be happy with the “bums” we are backing who will replace the bums currently in office, but at least they will be new and different bums. The main motivation becomes getting the current administration of the city, state, or nation out of office.  A key example of this was the uniting of various anti-Andrew Jackson factions who formed the hapless Whig Party back in the 1820s.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan were the two greatest coalition builders in American twentieth century history. Both men had definite and deeply held convictions that appealed to small dedicated groups. FDR was a political liberal at heart and RR was a political conservative at heart. FDR was not interested in merely the applause of the powerbrokers at Tammany Hall in New York. RR was not interested in merely the applause of subscribers to National Review and Human Events.

The Reagan coalition began with die-hard conservatives. Most of the heroes and guides to the conservative movement were speakers and writers, like William F. Buckley or Russell Kirk. Most of their political heroes held congressional seats or maybe a Senate seat. People with a cause rally around lone voices in the wilderness. Those causes await someone who can move the operation from the wilderness to the city, particularly, the suburbs.  Reagan was a great speaker to conservative causes, but he was able to go beyond the small groups, beyond the wilderness.  After all, he governed California for 8 years.

Reagan’s appeal went past the ideological conservatives to the voter rich Southern white Democrat base. Sons whose fathers voted for and fought overseas for FDR became a part of the Reagan coalition. In 1984, Walter Mondale sanctimoniously chided President Reagan for appearing with Minnie Pearl on the Grand Ole Opry. In Mondale’s skewed vision, Reagan should have been more interested in meeting with the leaders of the Soviet Union. But the Grand Ole Opry represents a wide swath of working class Americans, and the late Minnie Pearl’s embrace was more vital than the then dying-off old Stalin junta that ruled in Moscow.

Reagan also appealed to folks whose lives were centered around Wall Street and whose reading was dominated by the Wall Street Journal.  (In the 1980 campaign, the stock market diped suddenly when a rumor surfaced that Reagan had suffered a heart attack.)  He also appealed to blue collar factory workers in the north. RR appealed to folks living in the suburbs whose fathers and mothers came from Italy, from Ireland, and from other eastern and southern parts of Europe. Military people liked Reagan’s views of defense. Factory workers liked his views of work and taxes.  Old time liberal and frequent Democrat Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy endorsed Reagan in 1980.  The Rev. Ralph Abernathy and other prominent black leaders also endorsed Reagan.

Reagan united Republicans (many of whom only reluctantly acquiesced to his nomination), attracted large numbers of independents, and swiped whole sections of the old Roosevelt coalition into the Republican column. The results were great landslide victories at the Presidential level in 1980, 1984, and 1988 (when VP George H. W. Bush won) and a further sweep in 1996 when the Republicans captured the House and Senate, in part due to Newt Gingrich and others reciting Reagan mantras.

Reagan’s political legacy includes successful coalition building. You see the same with FDR. You see the same with Lyndon Johnson, particularly in his mastery of the Senate during the 1950s. (Read Robert Caro’s excellent series on Johnson, particularly, volume 3 The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate.)

Life in a Democrat Dominated State

I first started voting in Arkansas in 1982. Prior to that, my voter registration was in Texas. Texas was already well on its way to becoming a predominantly Republican state in terms of Presidential races, election of governors, and the election of the two Senators and many congressional districts.  At the more local levels, Texas was still a one-party state.  Even more so, Arkansas was far more Democrat than Republican.

In Arkansas, to win as a Republican, you often had to run as a Democrat. Or you could wait for just the right time when a Democrat office holder had blundered, gotten caught, and paid the price at the polls. Hence, Governor Bill Clinton (Democrat) was elected in 1978, and due to raising the price of car tags and a few other blunders, he lost his re-election bid in 1980 to Republican Frank White. Clinton repented of political errors and won back the governorship which he held until he and Hillary moved to Pennsylvania Avenue in 1993.

There was little to be gained by hoisting the flags of conservatism, economic freedom, guns, prayer in school, national defense, and anti-Communism and other social issues as a Republican running against a Democrat in Arkansas. Even the “liberals” in Arkansas were “conservatives.” (Realize, however, that many Arkansas Democrats abandoned Arkansas values while serving in Washington.) In Yellow Dog Democrat Arkansas, even the Republicans were Democrats. The Democrat Primary, usually held in the spring, throughout the South was “the election” for most voters on all state and local officeholders up until a few years ago.

Now look at Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, to win as a Republican, you often had to run as a Democrat. Some of the “more conservative” political candidates in Massachusetts would have been to the far left of Sen. William Fulbright, Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, Governor and later Senator Dale Bumpers, Governor and later Senator David Pryor, and Governor and later President Bill Clinton, all of Arkansas.  Massachusetts was not as one-party dominated as Arkansas, but it favored Democrat candidates.

Hence, independent Mitt Romney supported Democrat Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts for President in 1992. If Romney had been living in Arkansas and had been running a chicken business, he would likely have been supporting Gov. Clinton. (I was voting in Democrat primaries in Arkansas and even considered a political career as a Democrat, of the old Southern Jeffersonian variety. Now such Democrats are extinct.)

Mitt Romney decided to enter politics in 1994. Being a Romney, he didn’t decide to run for city council or a position as state representative. He decided to take on something bigger even than the Presidency at that point. He ran against a Kennedy in Massachusetts. Not just any Kennedy, but Sen. Ted Kennedy, the heir of the Kennedy fame and name, the Lion of the Senate, the last surviving brother. But Kennedy had some extra baggage (besides that surrounding his waist), besides the ever-ignored Chappaquidick problem. He had been involved in trashy legal case regarding his nephew in Florida. Senator Kennedy was vulnerable in 1994.



Sen. Kennedy defends his seat against the challenger, Mitt Romney, in 1998.

 Romney had at least 2 motivations to opt for the Republican Party. One was his own name and fame. His father, George Romney, was a big name in Republican history and politics of the 1960s. George Romney was a successful business man in the auto industry in Michigan, a popular governor in Michigan, a Presidential candidate in 1968, and a cabinet member in the Nixon Administration.  Republicans with a memory would be favorably inclined to the Romney name.

The other motivation was this: Running in the Democrat primary against even a vulnerable Sen. Kennedy was insane. Politics is about winning.

Romney took on the giant political leader of Massachusetts and lost. He lost big. Kennedy won 58 percent of the vote, but for a time, the race was tight and Kennedy’s margin of victory was the smallest ever. One can argue effectively that Romney ran to the right of Kennedy or that he ran as a liberal. It’s Massachusetts, not Arkansas.

It would be a while before Romney, now a household name, would enter Massachusetts politics again.  And time would enable him to improve his campaigning and image.  Being a rich, well educated, proper gentleman, he had to start coming across as an ordinary guy.  (This has always been a challenge for Romney: He is not ordinary.)

From 1990 to 2006, Massachusetts had a series of four Republican governors. Because of the nature of American politics, the fickleness of voters, the vagaries of life in a fallen world, and the nature of political coalitions, no one party tends to hold power completely or forever in a state. If a state has a single dominant party, that party then divides between factions. (In Arkansas, that meant that Democrat Dale Bumpers was able to win the Democrat nomination for governor over Orval Faubus.)  Massachusetts Republican Governors William Weld (elected in 1990 and 1994) and Paul Cellucci (elected in 1998) both resigned from their governorships to take other appointments. Cellucci was succeed by Lt. Governor Jane Swift, whose short lived administration was noted for her giving birth to twins and her own political incompetence.

Mitt Romney then took he second plunge into politics in 2002, running for governor of Massachusetts. He won, he ruled, and in 2006, he left the office. By 2006, Massachusetts had enjoyed 16 years of respite from the years of Michael Dukakis. In the political pendulum, it was probably a wise choice for Romney to leave office. The political trend favored a return of that state government to the Democrats.  Besides, Romney now had bigger fish to fry anyway. He had inherited a political name and fortune. He had twice taken on great political races and had won the last race. He had made his own fortune with Bain Capital (the envy of his opponents). He had taken on the task of salvaging and running the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. So, in 2006, what was left for this politically young man to do?



Sen. Fred Thompson, Gov. Romney, Sen. McCain, Gov. Huckabee, Mayor Guliani, Cong. Paul:  Candidates in 2008


Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. I supported former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee that year. I wish he had won the nomination. I thought Fred Thompson might be a good candidate, but he fizzled. Governor Rudy Gulliani was a competent leader, but too far to the left, too challenged by marriage and family matters, and was a disaster as a national candidate.

Much of the attention in Republican circles in 2008 centered around Romney and Senator John McCain. For reasons inexplicable, Republicans often feel obliged to nominating someone who cannot speak, debate, articulate a vision, or convince an independent to vote for them. Duller than Bob Dole, less articulate than George H. W. Bush, with less charisma than Alf Landon, John McCain won the nomination over Romney and Huckabee. For the oddest of reasons, the conservative leaders flocked to Romney during the primary season, but the Republican establishment felt more comfort with McCain.

In retrospect, Romney would have been a much better Republican candidate than McCain in 2008. When the market troubles erupted in October, Romney could have offered some alternative to “Hope and Change” by appealing to his being a political outsider to Washington and his business experience. McCain was a weak candidate. His Vice Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, was a jolt of fresh energy on the campaign trail. With a resume so weak that only Sen. Barack Obama could have envied it, she only managed to give a good nomination speech, thrash Joe Biden in a debate, and blunder some key interviews. She did draw bigger crowds than John McCain. But then again, Bob Dylan singing opera would have drawn bigger crowds than McCain and the Dylan concert would have been easy to listen to than the repeated “My friends…” of the McCain litany.

Romney's campaign for the 2012 Republican nomination officially began when the electoral votes started piling up for Obama in November of 2008. Republicans like reconnecting with their jilted candidates. New faces don’t win the nomination very often for Republicans.

So, Nixon was a national candidate from 1952 to 1972.
Reagan ran for the nomination in 1968, 1976, 1980, and 1984.
A Bush family member was in the running in 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004, and could have been a player in 2012.
A Dole family member was a national figure in 1976, 1980, 1988, 1996, and 2000 (Sen. Elizabeth Dole).
McCain ran in both 2000 and 2008.
So, Romney knew that victory in the nomination process comes to those with perseverance.  With runs by the Romney family in 1968 and 2004, he knew he had lots of advantages going into 2012.

[Readers of this blog also need to persevere.  Based on the hundreds of comments this series has produced and the number of other bloggers linking to it,  the world is awaiting the conclusion.]

Massachusetts Politics, Part 3

Richard Nixon won 49 states against McGovern's 1 state (Massachusetts)

The year was 1972, Nixon was redefining the Cold War through detente with Russia and travels to China, the Vietnam War was somehow winding down due to the globe-hopping of Henry Kissinger, and the economy was relatively stable due to Nixon's heavy dose of Keynesian interventions.  Campus riots and civil unrest were abating due to weariness on the part of activists and fatigue and increasing apathy on the part of idealists.  Nixon had won a squeaker election in 1968 (and had lost a squeaker in 1960).  Borrowing a method from his predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon and his campaign managers (bearing the foreboding name CREEP--Committee for the Re-Election of the President) followed the maxim: "If you do everything, then you win."

That entailed bugging the Democratic National Headquarters then located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.  That whole tangle is another story, and it is a stupid and wicked and totally unnecessary story that cost Nixon his presidency. 

George McGovern caught a whiff of the corruption related to the Nixon regime, but he could not convince the American people not to buy the product.  He also advocated a foreign policy more akin to Henry Wallace than to Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.  His recurring foreign policy theme was "Come home America."  That meant abandon Vietnam, curtail the national role of global policeman, and back off the rhetoric and weaponry related to our adversarial relationship with the Soviet Union.

Nixon's main campaign tours were not to any of the 49 states he would win in November, but were to two unlikely foreign countries. Nixon clinched his upcoming electoral victory by visits to Beijing, China and Moscow, USSR. He was, on the home front, assembling a powerful coalition of old guard Republicans, Rockefeller Republicans (Sec. of State Henry Kissinger was a Rockefeller man), blue collar workers, Southerners who had traditionally voted Democrat, Cold Warriors, Internationalists, and more.
 The Democrats, on the other hand, were divided between the old liberal left (led again by Humphrey), the new radical liberal leftists (led by McGovern), and Southern populists (led by George Wallace).

McGovern won the Democratic nomination, which was increasingly not worth much. He desperately wanted the other Kennedy brother, Edward (a.k.a. “Teddy” or “Ted”), a Senator from Massachusetts, to be his running mate. Teddy had no interest in sailing on McGovern’s Titanic. For a time, McGovern’s running mate was Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri. Eagleton stepped down from the ticket some weeks later due to having a history of psychiatric treatment (which arguably should be a political prerequisite). In his place, McGovern picked Sergeant Shriver. Shriver’s claim to fame was having headed up the Peace Corp in the Kennedy administration. More importantly, he was married to Eunice Kennedy, sister to the late President.  So, there was a Massachusetts connection on the ticket. 

It didn't matter.  Massachusetts was solid for McGovern already.  And the rest of the nation was shouting "Four more years" at Nixon rallies.In the election that fall, Massachusetts, joined by the District of Columbia, gave its electoral votes McGovern. For a time, Massachusetts was far out of the mainstream.  Like its quirky native son Henry David Thoreau, Masschusetts marched to a different drummer.  While Nixon's 49 wins did not signify a victory for conservatism, Massachusetts' adoption of McGovern did signify adherence to liberal views.  Henry Clay once said that he would rather be right than be President.  Massachusetts, by its vote, said, "We had rather be right (meaning, politically, left) than being for Nixon for Prersident.

About 18 months later, when Watergate brought President Nixon down, McGovern and Massachusetts felt vindicated.

In 1976, Edward Kennedy was again viewed as the shadow candidate that supposedly could have the Democratic nomination simply for the asking.  It was probably his best chance for getting elected President. The Watergate Affair, the national weariness in the wake of the end of the Vietnam Era, and inflation had opened the door to ending the appointed Presidency of Gerald Ford. 

Kennedy had his own demons, particularly the Chappaquiddick incident.  Kennedy's good hearted brother-in-law, Sergeant Shriver, made a futile attempt at the nomination.  (As is the pattern, since 1956, a Kennedy or someone related to the Kennedy's or modeling themselves after the Kennedy's was in the Presidential or Vice Presidential contests or discussions.)  Oddly enough, the 1976 contest boiled down to two more centrist Democrats.  Senator Henry Jackson, an old guard New Dealer and Cold Warrior, won the Massachusetts primary. Boston, in a racial rift over busing, gave a huge percentage of its vote to Southern Governor George Wallace. The nomination and election in 1976 went to another centrist, the un-Kennedy-like Jimmy Carter.



Sen. Ted Kennedy and President Carter in 1979:  A Brewing Rivalry

Four years later, 1980, Senator Ted Kennedy finally threw his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination.  He was seriously enough interested in the nomination to give up ice cream, lose 20 pounds and go home to his wife. In a wild and crazy race, Kennedy was expected to sweep past Carter, but Carter pulled out several mighty victories, even in the New England area. The Iran hostage affair was helping Carter look more Presidential and was deflecting criticism from his weak record.  At the point when Kennedy could have graciously dropped out of the contest, the race changed and Kennedy started winning primaries. It was back and forth all the way to the convention. Kennedy lost the nomination, but gave a defiant raised fist salute in his less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of the constipated-looking Carter. Carter lost that fall to Ronald Reagan.  (Reagan even carried Massachusetts in both 1980 and 1984.)

Pres. Reagan and Speaker O'Neill share a laugh, but politically, Reagan usually managed to get the last laugh.

It was a fun eight years of battle among the Irish.  O'Neill had famously stated, "All politics are local."  He knew how to lead (he did basic training under the Kennedy's), but like so many others, he underestimated Reagan's deceptively brilliant political skills.

After eight years of Reaganism, Massachusetts again dove into the nomination fight in the Democrat Party. Its governor, Michael Dukakis, won the Democrat nomination and went on to oppose Vice President and now Presidential candidate George H. W. Bush. Bush, who was born and raised in Connecticut,  was a transplanted Texan, so it was a race between two New Englanders. One, Bush, represented the old WASP culture, blended with Manifest Destiny since he had made his political and business success out west, in Texas. The other, Dukakis, represented the waves of immigrants, in this case, Greeks, who had poured into the land from Europe and other places and had largely defined the American experience. Bush carried the mantle of Reagan Republican Conservatism, even though the mantle never exactly fit Bush's mind, methods, or views.  Dukakis was the standard-bearer for Kennedy Democrat Liberalism.

Dukakis had hoped to repeat the Kennedy election pattern. Dukakis was “the young man” running after the elderly old fashioned President of eight years. Dukakis even picked a Texan, the condescending and boring Lloyd Bentson, to be his running mate. And he ran on the basis of “the Massachusetts’ miracle,” meaning that Massachusetts had found a way to succeed economically during the Reagan era (Huh?). Only Reagan wasn’t Eisenhower and Dukakis wasn’t Kennedy and 1992 wasn’t 1960. Dukakis had the charm and personality of an electric typewriter. (A manual typewriter has charm as my recent visit to William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak home proved.) Dukakis was short, mechanical, emotionless, and irritating. In a television debate, the first question was, “Gov. Dukakis, if your wife, Kitty, was raped and killed, would you favor the death penalty for the criminal perpetrator?” Dukakis, never blinked, never emoted, only growled slightly as he always did when talking, and he reiterated his opposition to the death penalty. (One would think that he would have lost even Kitty's vote at that point.)

(Can you imagine Ronald Reagan getting that question: Reagan would have set his jaw and said, “The death penalty would not have been necessary because that blankety blank would not have lived long enough to go on trial.”)


Captain Dukakis: defending America

 ater, Dukakis appeared in a campaign ad driving a tank looking rather ridiculous. I suppose it was defense against rapist-murderers endangering Kitty. Dukakis faded rather quickly from the American political scene, the Massachusetts’ miracle economically turned south, and George H. W. Bush served one term as President.

In 1992, former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, having survived an initial bout with cancer which ended his Senate career, ran for the Democratic nomination. It was a race of the Kennedy-likes. Tsongas won the Massachusetts’ backyard primary of New Hampshire, before being defeated repeatedly by Bill Clinton, whose political life started when he, as a boy, met President Kennedy.  Tsongas was basically a decent man with a speech impediment, a courageous personal story in regard to the disease that would take his life soon after 1992, and a total lack of vision or appeal.  In the recurring Democrat quest to clone Kennedy, it was the Boy Wonder from Arkansas who succeeded.

It seems comic to try to think of Bill and Hillary as carrying on the roles of Jack and Jacqueline. Maybe you have to picture the Dukes of Hazard moving in next to the Ewings of the show “Dallas.” At any rate, Clinton was successful at managing a Kennedy-like economic program and disastrous at maintaining Kennedy-like extra-marital affairs. And, like nearly all successful Democrats after Kennedy, the Clinton’s sought the Hollywood vote and lobby as their primary base.

The next Massachusetts Presidential candidate and nominee was Senator John Kerry in 2004. Kerry had the hair, wealth (due to strategic marriages), military record, lifestyle, and persona to be JFK’s heir. The problems he had were as follows: Massachusetts’ liberalism was a hard sell across the nation. Even donning hunter’s orange and toting a rifle while hunting during a break from campaigning didn’t convince good ole boys to vote for Kerry. Had Kerry been a governor from a mid-western state, preferably Ohio, he would now be finishing his second term in office.

Political packaging changes.  The anti-Communism of the Kennedy brothers (who stood loyally beside fellow Catholic Irishman Joe McCarthy) and the isolationism of the McGovernites faded away as the Cold War ended in the 1990s.  Senator Ted Kennedy battled for health care, education (meaning federal  intervention in terms of money and controls in state schools), and governmental actions to help the dispossessed and poor. The militancy and anti-Communism of his older Kennedy brothers was buried with them.  As Ted Kennedy became the Lion of the Senate, he continued the domestic agenda of liberalism. “Spend, regulate, control” was the mantra of Massachusetts’ economic liberalism, and added to that, extreme libertarian morals in regard to anything looking like traditional values.

Massachusetts’ style liberalism could only appeal to the American people as a whole if it was exported and manufactured in other locals—like Illinois. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Obama were out of Illinois. Hillary was born there and Pres. Obama honed his community organizing skills there. In 2008, Senator Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s surviving daughter, endorsed “Hope and Change” Obama prior to the Massachusetts Primary. The voters, comfortable with choosing between 2 or 3 copies of near identical liberalism, opted for the woman with 4 years of Senate experience over the African-American man with 2 years of Senate experience.



Then candidate Sen. Obama basks in the light of the endorsements of Sen. Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy (JFK's daughter).

 But 2008 also marked the re-emergence of Massachusetts in a totally new direction. It was Republican “Can Do Conservatism.”

Massachusetts Politics, Part 2

Statue of John Harvard at Harvard College

Massachusetts has a history of influencing the nation. The Pilgrims and Puritans of the 1600s set a pattern for the theological and moral bent of the nation. Even when the particular Calvinistic theology of Massachusetts was shelved in favor of more Enlightenment-friendly theologies, the doctrines and moral absolutes either migrated to other states (in the west and south) or morphed into other venues (such as temperance or abolitionism).

Massachusetts set a trend for education, due largely to Harvard. Along with Yale and Princeton (and a few other Ivy League schools), the number of political, literary, academic, and intellectual leaders from New England swamps the rest of the nation. In the richness and variety of Harvard’s output, both strong conservative thinkers and dedicated liberals have emerged from there. This fall, I will be voting against a Harvard grad that will be seeking re-election as President and voting for a Harvard grad that will be the next congressman from my district in Arkansas (Tom Cotton).

Massachusetts also dominated the literary scene. The Transcendentalists, including Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, and others were from Massachusetts. So was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who is the father of American poetry. Many of the popular schoolroom poets were either Massachusetts folk or were people who had to make a pilgrimage to Boston. Nathaniel Hawthorne was from Massachusetts, and while his buddy, Herman Melville, was a New Yorker, Hawthorne pulled Melville into the right circles. Even the outlanders had to either travel to Mecca (Boston) or they were blessed, albeit reluctantly, by the Massachusetts literati. See the lives of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain.

Massachusetts was a major force in the pressures that led up to the War Between the States in its opposition to slavery and included leaders during the tragic era of Reconstruction. Massachusetts had a major influence on the business and economic development of the nation, due largely to the port of Boston, which has impacted the nation whether it was dumping tea, sending out whalers, or carting in boatloads of weary Irishmen.

Since 1956, Massachusetts has been playing political hardball at the Presidential level repeatedly. Like the sports team that makes it to the semi-finals repeatedly, but never wins the great pennant, Massachusetts has not elected a President or Vice President since 1960. This year marks a great chance that a Massachusetts candidate will win, even if his political state doesn’t support him.

Massachusetts and Presidential Timber

In 1956, former Illinois governor and the defeated 1952 Democrat candidate for the Presidency, Adlai Stevenson, won the Democratic nomination for the second time. Also, for the second time, he would be running a futile campaign against the current President and World War II General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stevenson’s campaign message basically was “Elect me because Eisenhower will die of a heart attack.” On this rare occasion, Stevenson was right. Eisenhower did die of a heart attack in 1968, some four years after Stevenson died.



The 1956 Democratic Convention: Helped make the Kennedy name well known.


In an unusual move at the Democratic convention, Stevenson threw open the nomination for Vice President. His Democrat rival, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, entered the race. His two runs for the nomination and his national reputation assured him of victory. However, the junior senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, also entered the race. It was the first time and one of the rare times that a Kennedy entered a race where they did not buy, I mean win, a victory.

Did Senator Kennedy and his politically scheming father, Joseph P. Kennedy, really want the Veep position in 1956? Maybe, since FDR had first gained national fame in a losing race for the Vice Presidency (1920).  Losing was a fair certainty for the Democrats when they were trying to rally behind a man named Adlai running against a general named Ike. In both 1952 and 1956, the Democrats only chance of winning would have been to have nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Presidential candidate, as their candidate. (And that was suggested.)  Most likely, the Kennedy’s saw the open convention as the opportunity to expose the winning profile of JFK before the republic. It was like Ronald Reagan’s minor role in the movie “Knut Rockne—All American.” Reagan was not the star, but rather played the role of George Gip, “the Gipper.” Reagan’s role became more unforgettable than that of the main actor in that movie. The Stevenson-Kennedy ticket would be used as the vehicle for the future Kennedy Presidency.

Back to the movie reference:  The movie connection here is critical to see. It would be the Kennedy family (far more than Ronald Reagan) who grasped the Hollywood aspect of politics. The emerging Kennedy mystique would be a combination of “Money, Movies, and Mistresses.” Publicly, it was charm, family, and service to the country. Behind the scenes, it was hardball politics, wheeling and dealing, and living licentiously. Like actors with scripts, the Kennedy family filled a role Americans enjoyed.  Like many actors playing wholesome parts, it was all acting.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy captured and redefined the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Truman had built a coalition of farmers and factory workers and rural folk and city dwellers. By 1960, these folks had survived the Depression, fought the wars, and moved to the suburbs. And the radios and newspapers were replaced in large part by the televisions. Parent who walked to school bought cars for their kids to drive to school. 

Look at pictures of Presidents Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, and Hoover. They look like grandfathers. All were grave and serious old codgers caught in the black-and-white world of the horse and buggy, a world longing for indoor plumbing and rural electrification. Compare those grave old fellows with John F. Kennedy.  Eisenhower played golf, Kennedy played flag football.

The athletic looking, young looking John Kennedy moved right in along side of Elvis and James Dean and other icons of the screen and stage. The Kennedy family, both Jack and Jacqueline and the larger family of Joseph, Rose, and children, grandchildren, etc., were attractive, gracious, and beautiful. They were the American dream, what we all wanted. Large family gatherings with handsome men, beautiful women, cute kids, family pets, the summer home at the beach, cultural hobbies, fun games (flag football), and enough money to buy happiness. Out of this idyllic family, there was a greater theme: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

The Kennedy’s were, according to the script, patriots, statesmen, and philosopher-kings who put the good of the republic before personal wants, the welfare of the nation before everything else. (I will leave it to the reader to either know or research the many inconsistencies, immoralities, or irreconcilable features of the mythology.)  The family shows of that era were childs' play compared to the acting job the Kennedy's performed. 

Image won the Presidency in 1960 for John F. Kennedy. The equally young Richard Nixon sweated too much and shaved too little, and the television debate cost him.   Kennedy was an author who had not written a book, an intellectual without peers supposedly, a mediocre Senator, and a physically sick man. But the Kennedy family packaged a Hollywood appearance with a re-assertion of the New Deal vision for Americans and a dedication to defend America during the Cold War. The PT boat captain let it be known that he would have to outdo the old retiring five star general when it came to military matters.

The “Can Do Liberalism” of the Kennedy’s and their followers is well described in David Halbersham’s book The Best and the Brightest. In the spirit of the age and the mythology that emerged in that time, the Kennedy plan and clan were Camelot, Hollywood, glamour, brilliance, youth, Profiles in Courage, fashion, the art of Paris, the stable wealth of London, the pluck of the Irish, the New England spirit, the camaraderie of Harvard, and the reach to the stars.

Dallas, 1963:  Camelot Crashes

Since November 22, 1963, America in general and Democrats in particular have been trying to recapture that time, that feel, that hope. No Democrat Presidential candidate has ever tried to image Lyndon Johnson or Grover Cleveland. But they have all stood in front of mirrors wondering if they were the clone of Kennedy.

In the 1964 Presidential election, an enemy of Kennedy and a friend of Kennedy opposed each other. The enemy was President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s VP in 1960 and his successor. LBJ also made good on Kennedy’s failed domestic policies. The Kennedy inner circle and the Johnson inner circle were among politics’ strangest of strange bedfellows. Needing each other to succeed did not entail having to like each other. The Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater of Arizona, was a friend of President Kennedy from back in their Senate days. Goldwater had longed for a friendly race in which he and Kennedy would travel together around the country amiably presenting 2 different visions for America. But the Dallas, Texas disaster in 1963 ended that hope.

Kennedy’s legacy loomed large over the 1964 election. Goldwater knew that Americans would not want to have 3 different Presidents in a 12 month period. With Lyndon Johnson’s incredible political skills (see any of the volumes of Robert Caro’s multi-volume biography) and Barry Goldwater’s principled political ineptitude, the 1964 Democrat landslide was monumental. But it was a Texan who won, with a Minnesotan, Hubert Humphrey. Massachusetts' political powers were left to mourn and relive in their minds the dreams of Kennedy's 1000 days and unfulfilled legacy.

Robert Kennedy and President Kennedy

After four awful years of civil and domestic unrest and the war in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson pulled out of the race in 1968. Two Minnesota men were candidates for the Democratic nomination. One was Vice President Humphrey, a good man and dedicated liberal. The other was the erratic, poetic, quirky Senator Eugene McCarthy, the anti-war candidate who pushed Johnson out of the race. The late President Kennedy’s brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, entered the race. RFK had been elected as the Senator from New York in 1966 after he spent a season brooding over life, fate, and the death of his elder brother. RFK was a carpetbagger candidate for the Senate in New York. He was a Massachusetts man. He was not even eligible to vote for himself in New York, since he had not moved there soon enough. His name was magic, and his charm was more boyish and heartfelt than that of his brother.

He was well on his way to at least challenging and perhaps winning the Democratic nomination in 1968 when he was killed by an assassin after he won the California primary. Had Robert Kennedy lived, Humphrey, who had lined up delegate support without competing in the primaries, would have either lost the nomination to RFK or more likely would have given him the Vice Presidential slot. Humphrey, who was often miffed at being in Johnson's shadow, would have found himself in Robert Kennedy's shadow.

After Robert Kennedy’s death in June of 1968, another Kennedy-ite, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota entered the 1968 race as the heir to the Kennedy’s. It was a futile run for McGovern, but like JFK’s 1956 cameo appearance, it gave McGovern the groundwork for winning the nomination four years later.  McGovern was unconvincing in 1972 as the next Kennedy.  He lacked the hair and the charm.  His war record, which was commendable, was ignored. His speaking style was whining.  And he had repudiated the old Cold Warrior mentality of the Kennedy's.  Liberalism had changed, or at least a different faction among the liberal base now called the shots, but only Massachusetts was listening.

Clockwise:  Sen. Kennedy, Vice President Humphrey, Sen. McCarthy, and the winner--Richard Nixon.

John Keegan--RIP

John Keegan in a study patterned after my own style.

A recent post covered the topic of military history. In particular, it was about the Campaigns and Commanders series from Oklahoma University Press.  No discussion of military history is complete without reference to John Keegan.  Now, alas, the late John Keegan. 

I just read of his death at age 78 after a long illness:  RIP Military Historian John Keegan.

Through the years, I have collected quite a few of Keegan's books and have profited from reading from them.  Looking at the information on the web, I am amazed at how many Keegan books I have missed.  He has generally been regarded as among the best military historians.  For one who wants the thrill of the narrative, writers like Stephen Ambrose and Rick Atkinson.  For one who wants a serious analysis of warfare, battles, leaders, and other related topics, Keegan was rightly ranked as the dean of military historians.

Here are the Keegan books that I own (I think):

The Face of Battle (London, 1976).   This is one of Keegan's earlier books and his something of a classic in modern military studies.

Probably none of his books was more admired than the “The Face of Battle,” which was published in 1976. The Cambridge historian J. H. Plumb called it “so creative, so original” and a “brilliant achievement.” A huge publishing success, it launched Mr. Keegan’s career as a popular historian.  He examined three battles in the book: Agincourt in 1415, Waterloo in 1815 and the Somme in 1916, all involving the English. His tale was somber and compelling about what happens in the heat of battle, including the execution of prisoners. (From Historian Who Put A Face On War )

Six Armies in Normandy (1982).  I think I picked up a copy of this book some years ago.  Of course, the books by Ambrose and Cornelius Ryan are the essential narrative soldier stories of Normandy. The story is of such a magnitude as to call for multiple histories. 

The Mask of Command (London, 1987).  This book studies commanders throughout military history and looks at what makes a commander.

The Price of Admiralty (1988).  This book followed the pattern of the previous listing, but focused on naval battles.  It includes a good study of the battle of Midway.

The Second World War (Viking Press, 1990).  A solid one volume study and reference.

A History of Warfare (London, 1993).  The obituary linked and cited above discusses this book.  It is a really in-depth study.

May be Keegan's best.

Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America (1997).  Delighted to have found this one on a bargain shelf some years back.  I have read from it.



The First World War (London: Hutchinson, 1998) (New York: Knopf, 1999).  The prequel or companion volume to Keegan's book on the Second World War. Along with Niall Ferguson's Pity of War, the books of Barbara Tuchman, and Winston Churchill's writings on World War I, this one is top shelf.  I really would like to study the war more, but it is incredibly depressing.

An impossible war to comprehend.

The Book of War (edited by Keegan) (Viking Press, 1999).  I had forgotten about this book until I went out to the study to look over my Keegan books.  This is a wonderful collection of literary and historical short articles about war.  Going back to Thucydides and the Ancient Greeks, it covers 25 centuries of warfare.
Winston Churchill (2002).  John Keegan, Paul Johnson, and John Lukacs all produced short biographies of Churchill.  I read Keegan's book some years ago. 

Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda (2003).  Got this but have not read it. 



The American Civil War (London, Hutchinson, 2009).  Keegan's study of our Civil War is available at our local Books-A-Million on the bargain table, but I have hesitated to buy it for 2 reasons.  One, I have shelves and shelves of books on that war.  Second, many of the reviewers have noted some sloppy research on the book.  Sometimes, even the best of historians venture out in areas that are not their specialties and blunder there way through.  Who knows?  I might be moved now to pick this one up.