Whether you were delighted or dismayed with the results of yesterday’s elections, keep in mind a couple of things. One, with only two or three exceptions in the last 150 years, the party that controls the White House always loses congressional and Senate seats in a non-presidential election year. What happened yesterday, then, should have come as no surprise to people (like me) who have followed presidential politics for a long time. In fact, it was both inevitable and logical.
Two, the Republican Party of 2016 will closely resemble the Democratic Party of 1968. And that is not good news for the Republicans. You will recall that, in 1968, Alabama Governor George Wallace led a revolt of southern Democrats, and ran as an independent Presidential candidate. He carried five states (all in the deep south) and won 13.5% of the vote nationally. The result was not merely a Nixon presidency; it was a earth-shaking realignment, as the southern Democrats who left the party in 1968 turned solidly Republican in the ensuing years, leading to the ascendency of the Republican party, which held the White House for 20 of the next 24 years (interrupted only by Jimmy Carter’s single term, the result of the aftermath of the Watergate scandal).
In 2016, the Republicans will be facing a serious dilemma, which hearkens back to the Democrats’ problems in 1968. If the GOP nominates a Tea Party-aligned candidate (think Rand Paul, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio), it will likely lose the general election. If, on the other hand, the party nominates a more mainstream candidate (Jeb Bush, Chris Christie), the Tea Partiers will likely leave the party and run an independent Presidential candidate. Much like the Democrats of 1968, it does not appear likely that the Republican party tent of 1968 will be broad enough to contain the now vastly disparate elements it will need to forge a winning coalition. And, in the aftermath of the 2016 election, the political landscape may be altered as dramatically as it was in 1968.
This will be fun to watch for political junkies of all stripes.