GOP, look to Eisenhower election for guidance
On December 7, Reince Priebus,
chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged a dinner for
20-plus GOP power brokers at the posh Source restaurant in
Washington. That they gathered on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor is
too delicious to overlook. Their purpose, if possible, was to
prepare for a contested and possibly brokered national convention in
Cleveland next July, in the hope that the delegates nominate a
candidate who can win in November.
Their
task, while essential, is fraught with danger. It must be
accomplished without so angering Donald Trump and his supporters
that he and they bolt the party. If Trump is either nominated or
bolts, the Republicans lose. Think Charles Bronson and Death Wish.
There
is, however, a way to thread the eye of this needle. The mainstream
candidate the GOP kingmakers seek must not come from among those
Republicans currently running. Any effort to pick one of them to
leapfrog Trump will drive Trump and his followers out of the party.
In
a recent column in Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende sets forth the
odds of winning the nomination for each of the 14 Republicans
currently running. Not surprisingly, Trump leads the pack, but at
only 20 percent. Trende’s odds for the remaining baker’s dozen
are far worse than Trump’s. His odds that no one wins enough
delegates tops Trump at 25 percent. Thus, Trende believes we’re
headed for a contested or brokered convention.
Looking
back to the 1952 election is the way to find the GOP’s exit ramp
out of this snarled traffic jam. Then the Republicans believed they
could recapture the White House after two decades of Democratic
rule. But their leading candidate, Senator Robert A. Taft, held
isolationist views that led him to oppose the creation of NATO. The
party elders knew that to successfully oppose communist expansion
and win the election they needed an internationalist. They needed an
alternative to Taft.
Thus,
leading Republicans attempted to persuade an outsider, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower, to run. Initially Ike was reluctant. He had
not even voted until 1948. No one knew whether he was a Republican
or a Democrat. And wisely, the Republicans didn’t care.
In
January of 1952, Ike announced that he was a Republican and that he
would seek the presidency. In a battle over seating disputed
delegates at the contested GOP Convention in Chicago, the Eisenhower
forces out maneuvered Taft. Ike won the nomination, and in November
he cruised to the first of his two overwhelming victories.
Today
the Republicans need another outsider in the Eisenhower mold.
Remarkably his office is only four blocks from the Source restaurant
where the panicked GOP elders dined on December 7.
It’s
the office of the director of the FBI. James Comey is a Republican
who President Obama nominated to lead the FBI in 2013. The Senate
confirmed him 93-1. As acting attorney general in the Bush
administration in 2004, Comey successfully stared down those in the
Bush White House who were willing to violate the rule of law in
order to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
He
is a principled man of impeccable character. He’s conservative,
but not crazy conservative. He knows how government and politics
works, but he does not have a paper trail that can be used to
destroy him. He can not only unify the GOP, but can win most
independents and some Democrats.
If
approached, he will likely say no. But like Ike, he likely will
change his mind. James Comey is the GOP’s exit ramp in Cleveland
next Summer. Tempis fugit.
Goldman worked on Capitol Hill and at the National Institutes of Health. He has retired to Flat Rock and can be reached at: EmailMe
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