(From the diaries, in the spirit of equal time for oldtimers – promoted by James L.)
I have seen a lot of discussion comparing this mid-term election to the 1994 mid-term election, however I feel there is a more applicable point of comparison from the past, the 1966 mid-term election.
Let me open this by giving some background. In 1966 I was a Republican – I didn’t switch to the Democratic Party until 1973. So for me the 1966 Republican Midterm rout where the GOP picked up a net gain of 47 House seats, 3 Senate seats, 8 Gubenatorial Seats, 156 State Senate seats and 401 Lower Chamber legislative seats.
This was a memorable experience in my capacity as Treasurer of both my Township and County Teenage Republicans. The Vietnam War had escalated into a complete mess and the Civil Rights movement had scored major success. Caveat: I was a Republican but I was of the Clifford Case/Jacob Javits variety. As a pack-rat over the last 4 decades I managed to accumulate and save a lot of books and publications. (Now… more below the fold.)
From the start of the 1966 campaign, the Democrats realized that they faced formidable odds if they hoped to maintain their overwhelming margins of control, in the Congress, state governorships and legislatures. Yet, at the end of 1965, it looked as if the Republicans would be held to minimal gains. The 89th Congress had passed laws with benefits for almost every segment of the population; President Johnson still enjoyed the wide “consensus” support he had enjoyed in 1964, from every group from organized labor to big business and the minorties; and the economy was booming on virtually every front.
By the start of the 1966 campaign, however,it was apparent that the odds had shifted significantly to the benefit of the Republicans. Behind the change was the escalation of the Viet Nam War, with its heavy toll in both American lives and dollars. The Republicans did not pretend to have an easy solution for the Viet Nam War; indeed most Republicans tended to support the Johnson Administration’s Viet Nam policies, and the Republicans were sharply critical of Democratic critics of the war for failing to give solid support to the American war effort. But, unlike the Korean War, the conflict in Viet Nam, because of its limited nature, increased frustrations across the country and began to undermine public support of the Administration in power.
The Republicans were able to argue with some effectiveness that the Johnson Administration should be cutting down, rather than increasing , national expenditures for a wide variety of Great Society programs.
President Johnson’s own popularity plummeted during the year; wide splits appeared in the Democratic party in many key states; at the very same time a number of attractive Republican party candidates appeared to lead the Gop in critical states—in sharp contrast to the unpopularity of Goldwater, the party’s 1964 standard bearer.
Early in 1965 the Democrats had launched an ambitious “Operation Support” from within the Democratic National Committee, designed to support the 71 freshman Democratic Representatives who came into office in the 1964 Democratic sweep – 38 of them from formerly Republican districts.
The Republican effort, on the other hand, was bolstered by a massive fundraising campaign that made it possible to funnel thousands of dollars into every doubtful Congressional district in the country.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon, who campaigned tirelessly for Republican candidates throughout the land and took the role in the public Republican debate with the President in the closing days of the campaign.
Shades of California:
Gov. Nelson Rockefeller counted a sure loser in 1966, campaigned skillfully and benefited from deep splits within the Democratic party to win a third four year term.
The GOP picked up 52 House seats and lost five for a net gain of 47 seats. This was the year that saw Edward Brooke (R-MA) elected to the Senate as CQ put it the “first Negro of the century to win election to the U.S. Senate”, Spiro Agnew (R) as Governor of Maryland, Claude Kirk (R) as first Republican Governor in Florida, in 90 years. However, in my Congressional District, James J. Howard (D NJ-03), who was swept-in in the 1964 landslide in a Republican District by a 53% to 47%, managed to hold on by a razor-thin margin in ’66. Well, by 1973 when I joined the Democratic Party, I was happy this had occurred. I supported him in his many subsequent re-election bids.
All above quoted information is courtesy of CQ’s Background Politics In America 1945-1966, Politics and Issues of the Postwar Years – Second Edition Copyright 1967 by Congressional Quarterly,Inc.
In 1967 the price was $2.50.
I believe there are numerous differences between 1966 and 2006 including the fact that we are not coming off a landslide GOP 2004 election and the GOP’s heavy hand in redistricting over the last 6 years, but, the issues of the War in Iraq comparable to the Viet Nam war, unpopularity of GWB and Gay Rights/Civil Rights issues comparable to feelings about those Civil Rights issues in the 60’s were just too much to ignore. So, therefore I am confident we may well be positioned towards a landslide mid-term win.
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