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The “Bobby Problem”: Intraparty Presidential Rivalry and Factional Challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2013

PHILIP ABBOTT*
Affiliation:
Wayne State University

Abstract

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Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

Notes

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5. See, for example, Dittmer, Lowell and Wu, You-Shan, “The Modernization of Factionalism in Chinese Politics,” World Politics 47 (1995): 467–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ross, Dennis, “Coalitional Maintenance in the Soviet Union,” World Politics 32 (1980): 258–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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15. I have not included the Buchanan challenge to Bush in 1992. Undoubtedly Buchanan was a troublesome presence at the convention but was never a serious threat to the president’s nomination despite his surprise showing in New Hampshire.

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32. This is Richard J. Walton’s point: Henry Wallace, Harry Truman, and the Cold War (New York, 1976), 118. For a differing view, see Dallek, Robert, Harry S. Truman (New York, 2008), 48.Google Scholar

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48. On this point, see, especially, Moe, Terry, “The Politicized Presidency,” in The New Direction in American Politics, ed. Chubb, John E. and Peterson, Paul (Washington, D.C., 1993), 235–71.Google ScholarMoe attributes this “quest for control” to bureaucratization of the office, but Daniel Gavin and Colleen Shogan have shown that this behavior predates the modern presidency. “Presidential Politicization and Centralization Across the Modern-Traditional Divide,” Polity 34 (2004): 479–504.

49. A Reagan nomination would likely have met with stiff Democratic opposition. Ford did receive advice urging him to nominate a “responsible southern Democrat” in order to signal “re-structuring a party of Republicans and conservative Democrats” that would “forge a ‘new majority.’” Representative E. G. Schuster, 5 August 1974, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library (GFPL). Representative Hugh Carey urged Ford to create a “coalitional government” by nominating someone “outside political boundary lines” such as John Garner, Vernon Jordon, Cyrus Vance, or George Ball (7 August 1974, GFPL).

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55. Carter minimizes the incident in his memoir (Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, 464), but White House aides, with the president’s consent, made a concerted effort to inform the media. Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy, 280–81.

56. Thomas M. DeFrank, Write It When I’m Gone, 109–10; Carter, Keeping Faith, 553.

57. Although Buchanan stated in his inaugural address that he would only serve a single term, both his supporters, as well as Douglas’s, thought otherwise even after he released a letter during the Charleston convention insisting he would not accept renomination “under any contingency.” Klein, Philip, President James Buchanan: A Biography (University Park, Pa., 1962), 340–41.Google Scholar

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59. New York Times, 18 March 1948.

60. Ferrell, Robert H., The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge (Lawrence, Kans., 1998), 52.Google Scholar

61. The McCain-Bush rivalry appeared to have all the elements of a Bobby problem (personal animosity, signature confrontations, policy disagreements, factional politics, even consideration of the third-party option), but it never materialized. For speculation concerning McCain’s endorsement of the president in 2004, see Alexander, Paul, Man of the People: The Maverick Life and Career of John McCain (Hoboken, N.J., 2008), 176–77.Google Scholar The Barack Obama–Hillary Clinton rivalry has been contained through personnel co-optation and, perhaps like the McCain-Bush case, through the promise of later support.

62. Key, V. O., Southern Politics in State and Nation (Knoxville, Tenn., 1998), 307.Google Scholar

63. Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 320, 408.

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