Taft vs. Eisenhower 1952: The GOP Loses Its Soul
In recent American history both the Republican and Democrat National Party Conventions have nominated presidential candidates who garnered the most delegates and were presumed to be the nominee prior to the first bang of the gavel at the convention. In fact, recent conventions have typically been well-scripted events intended to give the party’s choice a major public-relations boost going into the fall election campaign. But the conventions have not always been beauty pageants for the presumptive nominees, and may not be this year for either presumptive nominee, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
In 1968, for instance, the public-relations benefit that Democrat presidential nominee Senator Hubert H. Humphrey might have derived from the convention in Chicago was marred not only by contentious controversy inside the convention hall, but even more so by the riots outside. And 16 years earlier, at the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago, the expected standard-bearer for the Grand Old Party failed to get the nomination after many of his delegates were disqualified and others were convinced to switch sides. The candidate whose nomination was stolen that year was Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, one of the most qualified men ever to seek the presidency. And the Grand Old Party’s nominee was General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It was the contest in which the Republican Party sold its soul, surrendering its principles in exchange for a “victory” at the polls.
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