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This file contains:
From Colson to Haldeman re: disenchantment of Mulcahy, Stone about how their campaign contributions were used. 1 pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/5/1970
From Colson to Haldeman re: organizing the Northeast for '72, cultivating Catholic leaders there. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/13/1970
From Colson to Dent re: Bill FitzGerald, National Media Analysis surveys, specifically South Carolina survey, payment for it. 1 pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/3/1970
From Colson to RN re: '70 Congressional campaign. Post-mortem on overall strategy, electoral factors, various individual races across the nation. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/6/1970
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WHSF: Contested, 4-20
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This file contains:
From Colson to Haldeman re: disenchantment of Mulcahy, Stone about how their campaign contributions were used. 1 pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/5/1970
From Colson to Haldeman re: organizing the Northeast for '72, cultivating Catholic leaders there. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/13/1970
From Colson to Dent re: Bill FitzGerald, National Media Analysis surveys, specifically South Carolina survey, payment for it. 1 pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/3/1970
From Colson to RN re: '70 Congressional campaign. Post-mortem on overall strategy, electoral factors, various individual races across the nation. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/6/1970
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Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
Contested Materials Files
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
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Subject
Document Type
Document Description
4
20
11/5/1970
Campaign
Memo
Memo from Colson to Haldeman re:
disenchantment of Mulcahy, Stone about
how their campaign contributions were used.
1 pg.
4
20
11/13/1970
Campaign
Memo
Memo from Colson to Haldeman re:
organizing the Northeast for '72, cultivating
Catholic leaders there. 2 pgs.
4
20
11/3/1970
Campaign
Memo
Memo from Colson to Dent re: Bill
FitzGerald, National Media Analysis
surveys, specifically South Carolina survey,
payment for it. 1 pg.
4
20
11/6/1970
Campaign
Memo
Memo from Colson to RN re: '70
Congressional campaign. Post-mortem on
overall strategy, electoral factors, various
individual races across the nation. 6 pgs.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Page 1 of 1
November 5, 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR H. R. HALDEMAN
I had occasion to talk to Mulcahy and Stone several times during the
closing days of the campaign. Idedected a very serious disenchant-
ment on the part of both of them for the way in which their money was
used during the campaign.
I am not saying their points are valid. The facts are irrelevant.
What is important is what they think. Mulcahy was very disturbed
over the election eve television program. Stone feels that much of
his money was wasted in campaign mismanagement. (He made this
point on network television last night).
Both men were hit by many too many people and there was no central
point for coordinating.
I think we need to move fast to rebuild some confidence. We are
going to need both of these men in a big way in 1972. My immediate
suggestions are:
1. A small stag dinner with the President for 5 or 6 of the largest
contributors -- or maybe just Mulcahy and Stone.
2. Draw them in very soon on our campaign planning for 1972. (This
is pure cosmetics -- I recognize their judgment, particularly
Stone's, is not worth a damn).
3. Set up a system where they understand that you or I or someone
clear all requests for money.
Charles W. Colson
November 13, 1970
EYES ONLY
MEMORANDUM FOR H. R. HALDEMAN
One of the items I would like to discuss with you when we have a
chance to talk is organizing the Northeast. I am convinced that the
social issue was very powerful in the Northeast during the past cam-
paign; while it may lose some of its impact in the rest of the country,
it will continue to be powerful in 1972 in this region, at least with
certain groups. The people most concerned with it are urban, middle
income, white ethnics. To exploit the potential, we need to cultivate
the right Catholic leaders in several key Northeastern states. These
states are winnable if we have the right people and organize them
properly.
The Democrats have always built their powerful machines around
prominent Irish Catholic political bosses (occasionaly Italian). Their
Catholic leaders are now becoming much less important while ours
are gaining in prominence. For example, consider the situation in the
following states:
Connecticut: Our Governor-Elect is an Irish Catholic; the leading
Democratic politician (Ribicoff) is Jewish.
New Jersey: Our Governor is Irish Catholic; the most prominent
Democratic office holder is a yankee (Pete Williams).
New York: The Senator-elect is an Irish Catholic; New York's Demo-
cratic leaders are predominantly Jewish.
Rhode Island: Our candidate for Governor (who still may be elected)
is a very attractive Italian Catholic; the Democratic incumbent is
Jewish.
Pennsylvania: The defeated Republican candidate for Governor (who
should remain a power in the party) is an Irish Catholic, supported in
this election by the entire church hierarchy in the state; the Democratic
Governoe-Elect is Jewish, a fact which by itself will help keep the
Catholic vote in our corner, particularly in view of the hot parochial
school issue in the state.
-2-
We should start building Nixon organizations around these men, be
sure that we thoroughly cultivate them and use the resources of John
Volpe and others to get the right second and third tier leaders on our
team early. Men like Proccocino in New York, a former Democratic
candidate for Mayor, who endorsed Rockefeller should be brought into
the fold. (In fact, if Rockefeller thought that he had a shot at one of
the two positions he would like here in Washington after the 1972
elections, hre could probably take over his organization intact today
and keep it active over the next two years. If this idea has merit,
we should do it before the organisation is disassembled.)
I fully recognize that if Muskie is our opponent, the fact that he is a
Catholic will seriously hamper our efforts in this area. We should
proceed nonetheless in the chance that he may not be the candidate
and with the further objective of neutralizing blocks of Catholicavoters
if he is the candidate.
There are also some outstanding candidates whom we should start
grooming in these states. I don't believe that anyone running state
wide can give much of a lift to the President, but if they are bad
candidates, they can be serious drags on the ticket. Work should
be started on this now -- not in 1972.
Charles W. Colson
EYES ONLY
November 3, 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR HARRY DENT
National Media Analysis, headed by a long time loyal Republican
Bill FitzGerald, believes correctly or incorrectly that we agreed
to pay $4000 for their South Carolina survey. Attached is their
final report showing Watson to be in very good shape. I think the
issue analysis is particularly well done.
Throughout this campaign FitzGerald has been sending us information
based on surveys he has conducted around the country. Even though
he has been paid by others to do them, he has been just that loyal to
us that I would hope through the Gleason fund we could pay him at
least the $4000 that be believes we owe him.
He has been of much greater value to us than just the South Carolina
situation and I would not like to leave him with hard feelings in this
particular instance. But more importantly, I think he can be very
helpful to us in the future.
Charles W. Colson
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
November 6, 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
SUBJECT:
1970 Congressional Campaign
Neither the failures nor the successes of this campaign
can be attributed to any one factor. Indeed, there
were significant regional and local factors which
weighed heavily in the final outcome. As an illustra-
tion, one half of our total national House losses
occurred in four contiguous Congressional districts
located in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota.
Obviously, the farm issue was critical and nothing
else in the national campaign could overcome it.
We must also remember the inherent difficulty of trans-
lating Presidential popularity into support for
individual candidates. We lost many states that you
would have carried handily had this been a Presidential
election. We just couldn't succeed in making your
supporters feel that they had to vote for your candi-
dates. Nor historically, has this ever been easy to do.
Your campaigning was vital in terms of arousing our
own troops and eliminating the apathy, which contrary
to the normal historical pattern would have this year
worked against us. Finally, by campaigning you demon-
strated your loyalty to the candidates and to the party.
The results, had you not campaigned, would have been
far worse and you would have taken the full blame which
would have hurt in 1972.
Beyond these general observations, I think some specific
points can be made:
1.
Law and order is a national issue but it affects
voting patterns differently in different areas.
The issue helped us in the liberal urban, suburban
Northeast but, ironically did very little for us
in the conservative, rural Midwest and Far West.
-2-
The reason, I think, is that the issue is meaning-
less where there is no crime and violence problem.
If the people in North Dakota are not really con-
cerned about crime or the safety of their homes,
they can't get very worked up about their own
Senator just because of his poor record on that
issue. In the urban areas of the East, where fear
of crime and violence is, wide spread, our stand on
law and order (and that of our candidates) was the
key issue (except where the economic issue surpassed
it).
2.
Except in the urban Northeast, we did not succeed
in making the public believe that Democrat, Liberal
permissiveness was the cause of violence and crime.
There are'a combination of reasons for this. As
noted above, people in the more conservative states,
while they are all for law and order, don't blame
their own liberal Senator for a problem that they
don't personally confront. Secondly, the Democrats
in many cases recaptured safe ground on the issue:
Stevenson is a classic example. Thirdly, our
campaign pitch didn't really come across in a way
to lay the responsibility onto the Democrats. In
this sense we were, perhaps, too negative. Everyone
knew that we were against permissiveness and violence
but we didn't sell the point that violence and dis-
order in our society are caused directly by the
rhetoric, softness, and catering to the dissidents
which the Democrats have engaged in. We just didn't
make the connection in the mind of the average voter.
3.
The war issue became neutralized in the campaign.
People are generally very satisfied with your handling
of the war. Because they are and because it, there-
fore, has become something of a non-issue, they
weren't motivated to vote against those who have
opposed you on the war. In short, the issue would
have been an enormous plus had you been the candidate
but it didn't significantly benefit our supporters or
hurt our opponents. Evidence of this was in Massachu-
setts which has been the most "dovish" state in the
-3-
union. There was a war referendum on the ballot --
440,000 supported immediate withdrawal, 190,000
supported an all-out military victory and 711,000
supported the President's peace plan. At the same
time doves won big margins. Your success with the
peace issue probably helped us generally, but it
didn't hurt our opponents.
4.
The economic issue hurt badly. The pocketbook
issue is always the gut issue in any campaign. It
was this year a question of fear more than fact;
concern over whether the country is heading into
another recession or, perhaps even depression
coupled with continued inflation, was a potent
factor in a number of areas. As Scammon has
pointed out in his book, the social issue is domi-
nant only. if there is no pocketbook issue. This
one obviously hurt us in California. (Also, how-
ever, was the problem of Murphy's image, age and
the Technicolor retainer.) It hurt in a number of
Congressional races particularly in the Midwest
and in certain areas of particularly heavy
unemployment (the vote in Seattle is an example).
The economic issue was compounded by the GM strike
which unquestionably cost us the Indiana race --
if we have lost it --- and made the Taft race closer
than it should have been. The general economic
issue was further compounded by the farm problem.
Republicans did badly in those states in which high
parity price support has always been the issue
(Nebraska, the Dakotas, Kansas, for example); witness
the four contiguous House seats in which the farm
issue beat us and a number of districts that we should
have won, but for the farm issue. We had been warned
of discontent in the Farm Belt but it was too late to
counter it.
5.
In general, we probably peaked too early. The Vice
President peaked in late September, his line became
very predictable and with many voters "old hat.
Once committed to it, there was, of course, no way
to turn around; perhaps, the tempo and approach could
have been varied. Clearly, the Vice President had a
very healthy impact in arousing our troops, raising
money and generating campaign activity. (His Goodell
-4-
strategy was a key to New York.) Once he had peaked,
however, his line became increasingly ineffective
in winning either Democrats or Independents.
In this general regard the Democrats scored against
us, by engendering sympathy. They charged us with
dirty campaigning and excess spending, which tended
to make us appear to be "overkilling." They were
clever in making this more of an issue than it should
have been. The press continually reported that we
were outspending the Democrats 5 to 1 but failed to
report that approximately $3 million was being spent
on Democratic campaigns by the Council for a Livable
World, the McGovern Fund ($1 million alone), COPE
and the National Committee for an Effective Congress.
I am told this issue killed Burton even though Moss
outspent Burton 2 to 1. Winthrop Rockefeller was a
case in point, as was the sympathy for Lawton Chiles
"poor boy" campaign.
People became tired of the campaign ten days to 2
weeks before it was over. We took the blame for
excessive spending in campaigning. This hurt us as
people became sick of politics and the usual charges
and counter charges which they then tended to dismiss.
6.
We made significant inroads with the blue collar, white
ethnic vote, George Gallup's comments to the contrary
notwithstanding. This vote elected Beall, defeated
Duffey, elected Buckley and put Prouty over big. We
are scoring in this area because of law and order and
patriotism. (We are conducting an analysis of
selected blue collar- districts to test this conclusion.)
Prouty, who was a colorless, ineffective campaigner,
carried Democratic blue collar wards in Burlington
because of their antipathy toward his excessively
liberal opponent. The same happened in Baltimore.
Dodd took the blue collars away from Duffy. Buckley
swept the white ethnic, blue collar vote. Significantly
we did well in areas where unions we have begun to win
over are strong (construction workers) ; badly, where we
haven't made progress (the UAW, steelworkers).
-5-
7.
As in every campaign, there were mistakes made
in individual states which hurt US.
Texas: For weeks prior to the election, George
Bush was convinced that he had the election won
provided no one rocked the boat. He refused to
allow us to use some very derogatory information
about Bentsen. He resisted any ads -- positive
or negative -- and refused to attack Bentsen. We
probably should have forced him to do more. Dick
Scammon thinks that Bush lost it for this reason
and because he ignored the social issue and tried
to be more liberal than Bentsen.
Maryland: In the case of Beall, he similarly
refused to attack. We ended up doing it for
him in a variety of ways and the political situa-
tion in Maryland reversed itself dramatically in
the last week of the campaign.
Florida: Clearly the split in the party cost us the
state.
Illinois: There was no way ever to elect Smith but
his campaign grew excessively negative and, I am
told, turned the liberal moderates in the Chicago
suburbs sour. Also Ogilvie has serious splits in
the party (there are some serious warnings here for
1972).
Ohio: The state ticket scandal cost us the Governor-
ship.
Maine: With just a little help from the national
level we might have elected a Governor (Irwin was
hurt by the feeling the state was written off).
Pennsylvania: Shafer was so disliked, no Republican
could succeed him. Scott won, which indicates the
Governorship was purely a state issue.
New Jersey: Our candidate made classic mistakes,
shifting positions and creating distrust.
-6-
Michigan: There was no hope without a candidate.
8.
Negativism. Rightly or wrongly, the Democrats and
the press made us (the Vice President in particular)
appear to be too negative. As indicated in my memo
on the Broder articles, we need to stress more and
more the positive theme of accomplishment; that we
are not only against unlawfulness and disorder but
that we are doing things. to control it and that we
are reforming Government. We need to promote our
record of accomplishment as we have done so well in
foreign policy.
Conclusion: We made maximum use of national media. Our
analysis shows that your campaign resulted in giving us
twice the coverage the Democrats got. Without this, I
am convinced the result would have been much worse because,
especially in the closing days, the effect of your
campaign was to take the economic issue out of the news.
As indicated above, in hindsight, I think we could have
won a few more, particularly in the Senate, and with
stronger party machinery could have done better with our
Governorships.
On balance, we did better than the press and the pundits
credit us with doing. If you accept the premise that it
is inherently difficult for Presidential popularity to
rub off on local candidates, then we did very well,
particularly in the House.
Finally, I do not think the elections reflect any loss of
support for you. To the contrary, I am convinced that had
this been our election, we would have won big.
Charles Line W. Colson