Saturday, November 5, 2011
How many U.S. presidents won re-election due to ending a war?
Contrary to the biased media and the antiwar movement most Americans in the early 70s still supported the Truman Doctrine of containment. What Nixon promised when he was elected in 1968 was that he would end the war with honor. To most American voters this meant getting our troops out but leaving the South Vietnamese able to defend themselves. By the time of his reelection Nixon seemed to be on the verge of fulfilling this promise. At the end the North Vietnamese stalled till after the election in the hope that the openly antiwar Democratic candidate would win and surrender to the Communists (which was what his campaign promise was). The American voters rejected George McGovern by the largest landslide in American history up to that point, completely debunking the myth that the American people were against the war by this late date. Nixon not only won the election, he won it after everyone already knew everything we were ever going to learn about Watergate. The American people didn't give a damn about Watergate or the antiwar candidate. Nixon did exactly what the American people wanted him to do, and were horrified when Nixon was driven from office and his accomplishment was nullified by the Democratic Congress which refused to let Gerald Ford supply the logistic or air support South Vietnam had been promised if they were attacked again. Ford was blamed for the loss in Vietnam (even though it was really the fault of the Congress) and Jimmy Carter won the next election by default (again suggesting the American people were not happy with presidents who let the Communists take over other countries).
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