Politics and elections 85lenge was weak and had little hope of success, and in 1944 it was trivial. In
the nineteenth century a number of incumbent presidents were unsuccessful
in seeking a nomination for a further term of office, but all but one of them
(Franklin Pierce) were former vice-presidents who had succeeded to the
presidency on the death of their predecessors. No incumbent president who
sought the nomination has been rejected since 1884. As President Truman
said, ‘a President in the White House always controlled the National Conven-
tion’. President Johnson’s withdrawal from the contest for the nomination
in 1968 represents a rather special case, for he preferred not to wait for the
convention and a possible trial of strength with his opponents. In 1980 the
strong challenge made by Senator Edward Kennedy to the re-nomination of
President Carter faded away.
When a decision has been reached, the nominee makes an acceptance
speech to the convention and receives its homage as the party’s leader in the
forthcoming battle. The man who a few hours before was just another politi-
cian wooing the delegates has suddenly become the man who might be the
next president of the United States. Once the nomination has been made,
the intra-party battle, which has largely dominated the political scene for
months, must give way to the contest between the parties, and self-inflicted
wounds must be sewn up in order to present, as far as possible, a united
front to the enemy. This switch from the bitterness of internal conflict to the
competition between parties for office, whether at the level of the presidency
or for state and local office, is one of the perennial wonders of the American
political scene. The transition from defeated candidates for the nomination
to loyal supporters of the party’s chosen leader is often made to seem as
complete and as beautiful as the transformation from caterpillar to butter-
fly. In 1960 Lyndon Johnson was the strongest opponent of John F. Kennedy
for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, yet overnight he became
Kennedy’s ‘running-mate’ as vice-presidential candidate, working hard to
bring the Southern states solidly behind the Kennedy–Johnson ticket. How-
ever, the battles for the nomination in primaries and conventions, reflecting
as they do real divisions within the parties, may have a lasting effect on party
unity. Sometimes even a pretence of papering over differences of policy or
personality is not made. Defeated chieftains may refuse to make their peace
with the candidate, and state and local leaders may campaign vigorously un-
der the party banner in their own bailiwicks, pointedly ignoring the party’s
national leader, as many Southern Democrats ignored John F. Kennedy in
1960, or indeed openly opposed him. At the extreme, a defeated faction may
openly dissociate itself from the party’s candidate and nominate its own. In
1948 the Southern wing of the Democratic Party, disgusted with the nomi-
nation of President Truman on a civil rights programme, bolted the party
and campaigned for Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina under
the banner of the States’ Rights Party. The decentralisation of the American
party system allows dissatisfied local politicians to make the best of a bad
job. As the 1964 campaign drew to its close and it became increasingly clear