“I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide…too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they’ll say we’d better just focus on domestic issues…[Democrats shouldn’t] cower to the argument, that whatever you do, if you question administration, you’re helping the terrorists” — Russ Feingold

In 1954, Adlai Stevenson threw himself in the Joseph McCarthy controversy and attacked President Dwight D Eisenhower for not dealing with McCarthy, saying that Eisenhower’s midterm election strategy was a healthy dose of McCarthy-smearing — having it both ways and appearing “above the fray” by not engaging in anything personally. (Well, it worked alright in the 1952 Presidential Campaign against himself, so why not? It probably picked Eisenhower up two or three states, furthering the landslide.) But Eisenhower was the “Golfer-in-Chief”, so I guess it fit his image anyways. The whole fracus resolved itself with Richard Nixon giving a weak speech chiding “Men who have in the past done effective work exposing Communists in this country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply.” And everyone clapped. Yay! Eisenhower reigned in McCarthy!! Kind of. Sort of. HUH?

Now, if you go back to 1954 and read what the Democrats in the Senate and House were saying about all this — they kept Adlai Stevenson’s speech at arm’s length. Southern Democrats held the Democratic Chairs, and (1) these were the “Democrats for Eisenhower” bunch, and (2) They needed to shore up their “anti-Communist” credentials. Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Leadership wanted to focus on Economic matters (as they did in, say, 2002 — wanting no part on the issues of Security, which not bothering with helps with the other party’s smearing of you as “weak” on “defense”, such that it is)– and, because it was such a diverse group that couldn’t agree, really only tackling Economic matters in a fairly vague manner. To be fair, Eisenhower was a popular politician (unlike President Bush), and the Democratic strategy of tangoing with him as someone other than Republican seemed to do the organization of “DNC” some good as it passed through the 1950s. It’s curious to note Joseph McCarthy defending himself in the most bellicose manner that “if you want to get rid of me, you have a midterm election coming up” — which I guess is largely what happened when the narrow Republican Senate Majority flipped over to a narrow Democratic Majority in the midterm election. A referendum on an individual Senator as opposed to a Referendum on a President… that’s kind of neat.

I may go back and post up the relevant news articles that show what I say to be the case.

So, sorry Greg Saunders and Oliver Willis… the correct tagline is since at least 1954, not since 1994.

(BTW: I really can’t figure out what Adlai Stevenson offered up to American politics in the 1950s. He’s sort of a mystery figure to me.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 at 7:46 am and is filed under History Regurgitates Forward. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.