"It Defies Common Sense to send such a man to the White House": The Election of Robert A. Taft
1953-1958: Robert A. Taft / Richard M. Nixon (Republican)
1952: Adlai E. Stevenson II / Sarah T. Hughes (Democratic)
1956: C. Estes Kefauver / James Roosevelt II (Democratic), Mark W. Clark / John M. Patterson (Independent)
1958-1961: Richard M. Nixon / vacant (Republican)
1961-1965: Richard M. Nixon / Everett M. Dirksen (Republican)
1960: Lyndon B. Johnson / Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (Democratic)
1965-1973: Thomas J. Dodd / Robert C. Byrd (Democratic)
1964: Hugh D. Scott, Jr. / Earl Warren (Republican)
1968: Edwin A. Walker / Walter J. Hickel (Republican)
1973-1977: George W. Romney / John G. Tower (Republican)
1972: Robert C. Byrd / Kevin H. White (Democratic)
1977-1981: Adlai E. Stevenson III / Edwin W. Edwards (Democratic)
1976: George W. Romney / S. Theodore Agnew (Republican), Samuel W. Yorty / James D. Martin (Law and Order)
1981-1985: William C. Westmoreland / Joseph L. Bruno (Republican)
1980: Adlai E. Stevenson III / Edwin W. Edwards (Democratic)
1985-1993: Charlton Heston / Jeane D. Kirkpatrick (Democratic)
1984: William C. Westmoreland / Joseph L. Bruno (Republican)
1988: Robert A. Taft, Jr. / John L. Swigert, Jr. (Republican)
Robert A. Taft was a political contradiction in his own time and after. Viewed by many in America as the unquestioned leader of the Republican Right he was distrusted and disdained by the traditional and paranoiac conservatives. The fiercest critic of The New Deal he long supported Federal Housing programs, interventions in the education system and occasionally the idea of single-payer healthcare. His national electoral efforts were centered on wooing Southern Whites, and yet supported every Civil Rights cause he ever met, and did so actively. An opponent who questioned the legality of US Aid for Britain and China in 1940, of the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Of the Creation of NATO in 1949, and of the Korean War in 1950, he none the less entered the 1952 Republican convention with a near-majority of delegates.
General Eisenhower was finally convinced to run in 1952 because of the threat of a Taft Presidency, but an untimely heart attack put paid to that, leaving opposition in the hand of a mess of smaller men: Harold Stassen and Earl Warren the leading options, with Nelson Rockefeller climbing in and a Draft Dewey movement burning out only on the convention floor. Taft secured it and Taft won.
In the 6 years in office before his sudden and shocking death from Pancreatic Cancer Taft did see America transformed, US troops came home from Europe following the reunification, disarmament and neutralizing of Germany. The Korean War came to an end in 1953. Joseph McCarthy rambled about for some time but eventually made a fool of himself and would shortly die in disgrace ending a drawn out reign of terror, shortly after the abortive McCarthy-Navy hearings Taft would dare to do what Truman wouldn't and replaced J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI after a Justice Department audit revealed disturbing news of domestic spying. The TVA would be privatized, and many New Deal programs would be wound down or rapidly disbanded, but in 1954 the Social Security Administration became the Department of Social Aid and given control over the new National Insurance Program providing Medical Care to millions of Americans. A department of education would follow, to set standards, promote the foundation of new universities and to help ensure millions of Americans got the training they needed for life.
1956 would be defined by the last great fight of the great lawmaker's career, He had hoped to pass his proposed Civil Rights Act that year, instead it would become the hot button issue of the campaign as Democrats tore into it behind their segregationist candidate for President, and only the draw of Mark Clark's National Security obsessed campaign, seeing Communists ready to destroy all of America's allies thanks to Taft stepping back from forward alliances saved him. The Civil Rights Fight would drag on almost until the midterms, but when it passed it was exceptional, dramatic and revolutionary. While 1952 saw Texas, Tennessee and Virginia go Republican, the Civil Rights act saw they, and Taft's hard won gains in state governments and congressional districts across the South ripped apart. While the President was keen to fight back, his Pancreas had other ideas sending him off this mortal coil and leaving things in the hand of a less idealistic Republican.
Issues of Segregation, of Paranoia, and of the role of government would keep the American right from solidifying in the coming decades. Some men continued to look for Generals atop White Horses and would occasionally have one party or the other nominate them. Edwin Walker nearly won the Presidency, Maxwell Taylor and Jim Gavin would both serve as Governors. Bombings were common across the South as Federal Law was put into effect, Presidents Nixon and Dodd having to call out the National Guard more often then not. But in the end, little black children and little white children went to school together, ate at the same restaurants together, and eventually voted together too. President Nixon dabbled with wars in South East Asia. President Dodd sent troops into Burma in 1966 where they would stay for five long years. By the time it was over the world economy was finally back on its feet, the era of endless prosperity for Americans was at an end and in 1973 the Stock Market crashed. A series of one term presidents would follow, with a mess of different solutions from both parties seeking to patch things up over the next 12 years until finally, at last, the one time-actor-turned Governor of Illinois, managed to weld the Democrats into something coherent once more: Big Programs at home, Economic reforms, and a Muscular Defence abroad. It was Charlton Heston that brought Germany into NATO and US troops back to Europe. It was he who sent aid and eventually Troops into Iraq as the Soviets client state there failed, and it was he who passed a universal healthcare system. His 1988 defeat of the Governor of Ohio being one of the most decisive of All time and bringing at last a clear end to the legacy of the elder Bob Taft on US politics.
