Our Once and Future National Nightmare – By Carl M. Cannon (Real Clear Politics) / Aug 8, 2023
It’s Tuesday, August 8, a date which in the years 1968, 1973, and 1974 demarcated the rise and fall of Richard Milhous Nixon. Next summer, the nation’s two dominant political parties will hold their presidential nominating conventions. It’s a process most Americans are dreading.
I mean that literally: As James Thurber (and Casey Stengel) liked to say, “You could look it up.” Not in the Bible (a.k.a. The Baseball Almanac), but in RealClearPolitics poll averages: Majorities of Americans do not want Joe Biden or Donald Trump to run again. So far, the two men don’t seem to be listening. But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes, Richard Nixon.
On August 8, 1968, Nixon accepted the GOP’s presidential nomination in Miami Beach. In his acceptance speech, Nixon tipped his cap to three governors who had opposed him in the Republican primaries — Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller, and George Romney — and invoked the iconic name of Dwight Eisenhower, who was hospitalized that night, and under whom he’d served as vice president.
