National Trends

There was an hour or so during the counting of the returns—shortly before midnight in the East — when things seemed to be working out ideally by the lights of certain conservatives whose strategic concepts were much too Machiavellian for public exposition during the campaign. Kennedy was winning by enough, but not by too much — enough to eliminate Nixon from future competition and to discredit Republican me-tooism, yet not so much as to give Democrats a clear “mandate” for implementing the far-out commitments of the Los Angeles platform. The Republican Party as a whole, moreover, was doing well enough to assure a continuation of the conservative coalition in Congress: the real flesh-and-blood brake on executive extremism. Why was this vision alluring? Because a clean Kennedy victory would have cleared the way for an uncluttered struggle between Goldwater and Rockefeller, possibly the chance of our lifetime to test the viability of conservative ideology in American politics. And because a stymied Kennedy—stymied by the arithmetic of the coalition and by the instinctive combativeness of Republicans-in-opposition — would probably leave the country and its international position, four years hence. in a state not much worse than he inherited.

With the passing of a couple of more hours, the picture had radically changed. The Republican congressional vote held up, indeed got better; but as Nixon himself began to close the gap, the prospects for decisive conservative maneuver began to fade. They have not disappeared altogether, but it is essential, as conservatives plan for the future, that they take into account some of the more obvious weaknesses of their position.

LB

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L. Brent Bozell Jr.

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There was an hour or so during the counting of the returns—shortly before midnight in the East — when things seemed to be working out ideally by the lights of certain conservatives whose strategic concepts were much too Machiavellian for public exposition during the campaign. Kennedy was winning by enough, but not by too much — enough to eliminate Nixon from future competition and to discredit Republican me-tooism, yet not so much as to give Democrats a clear “mandate” for implementing the far-out commitments of the Los Angeles platform. The Republican Party as a whole, moreover, was doing well enough to assure a continuation of the conservative coalition in Congress: the real flesh-and-blood brake on executive extremism. Why was this vision alluring? Because a clean Kennedy victory would have cleared the way for an uncluttered struggle between Goldwater and Rockefeller, possibly the chance of our lifetime to test the viability of conservative ideology in American politics. And because a stymied Kennedy—stymied by the arithmetic of the coalition and by the instinctive combativeness of Republicans-in-opposition — would probably leave the country and its international position, four years hence. in a state not much worse than he inherited.

With the passing of a couple of more hours, the picture had radically changed. The Republican congressional vote held up, indeed got better; but as Nixon himself began to close the gap, the prospects for decisive conservative maneuver began to fade. They have not disappeared altogether, but it is essential, as conservatives plan for the future, that they take into account some of the more obvious weaknesses of their position.