...In 1952, supporters of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and Ohio Sen. Robert Taft held deeply different positions on international and domestic policies. Yet the majority of Republicans respected the two men. Neither Eisenhower nor Taft used crude, bigoted language in public as Trump has done. Ideology divided the 1964 convention. Barry Goldwater and his movement conservatives defeated the Eastern establishment moderates. Despite Goldwater's well-known "extremism in the defense of liberty" words in his acceptance speech, he was liked as an individual and was not a Trump-style provocateur.
President Gerald Ford and California Gov. Ronald Reagan did not use bigoted and fascist rhetoric to inflame the 1976 convention. Heated battles were fought over issues. The majority of delegates respected both candidates even as most took sides on the platform. Trump has upended the Republican Party's institutional foundations, civil processes, and procedures and has degraded acceptable political language. He has opened a Pandora's box containing suppressed hatred, anxieties, and fear, and is following in the tradition of George Wallace and Joe McCarthy...
This year's conflict resembles the 1952 convention fight between Eisenhower's forces — led by New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey — and those for Taft. Eisenhower and Taft were reasonable men, and their calm personalities played an important part in keeping their convention from ending in disaster. Trump's volatile personality will have the opposite effect. Bad blood existed between the supporters of Taft and Eisenhower, like the acidity developing between Trump and his opponents. Taft was a three-time loser beaten for the Republican nomination in 1940,1944, and 1948...
Trump will likely have the most pledged delegates as the convention's preliminary activities begin, but he will not arrive in Cleveland with the same kind of respect that Republicans gave to Nixon at three conventions or two each for Reagan, Bush Sr., and George W. Trump's campaign has stirred up anger among rank-and-file Republicans of the sort not seen since the 1964 Goldwater convention.
Barry Goldwater had enough delegates to win on the first ballot when Republicans gathered in San Francisco on July 13, 1964. His campaign strategist and manager F. Clifton White had been a campaign operative for Ike in 1952. In San Francisco, White built a communication system that kept constant track of the Goldwater delegates and observed those from other camps. He wanted no major rules changes like 1952, and there weren't any. Even with all of White's precautions to keep the Goldwater delegates in line, arguments erupted on the floor...
After Goldwater won the nomination, his campaign made only a mild attempt to unify the party. Goldwater demoted White, and in November President Lyndon Johnson won 45 of 50 states and 61 percent of the popular vote, the largest percentage in the nation's history. Americans believed Goldwater was too extreme to be president. Republican leaders across the country ran their own campaigns. Down-ballot Republican losses were catastrophic. Even in Utah, a usually reliable Republican state, Johnson won...
Taft people never forgot that Ike's people had "stolen" the nomination they believed rightfully belonged to Robert Taft. Those who were at the Goldwater convention hadn't forgotten the unfairness of 1952.
Trump is not Taft. Trump is a bigoted, spoiled billionaire who seems to think more about himself than about the country. If he loses, based on his behavior in this campaign, he won't be decent and rational like Taft. Who knows how Trump will behave if he is the nominee? Will he be vindictive against those who fought him? Will he welcome them into his campaign? He is no Eisenhower, Goldwater, or Ford. Perhaps his model will be Richard Nixon...
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11257862/melich-conventions-first-person
