Conkling Redux

            Does history repeat itself?  In the presidential election year of 1876 the Republicans held their convention in Ohio, as they would again 140 years later, but in Cincinnati, not Cleveland.  The Republicans were desperate to hold on to power after the scandal-ridden years of the Grant administration.  Thus inspired, they formed a great Republican reform crusade, one of whose leaders was none other than Theodore Roosevelt, father of the future president.

            The reformers had one big problem: they had to find a way to defeat Roscoe Conkling, the extremely powerful senator from New York.  To the reformers Conkling was evil incarnate, and they were determined to prevent him from securing the nomination.  Conkling had nothing but contempt for the reformers; he ridiculed them and insulted their idealism at every opportunity. 

Women loved the tall and handsome Conkling with the fancy clothes and the curl at the center of his forehead.  He was a great performer who could have had a successful stage career. But Conkling was insufferably vain, hated the press, and was anything but a man of the people.  He was also an adulterer and didn’t care who knew it.

Because he had a lock on the New York delegation, Conklin thought the nomination was his for the taking.  But anti-Conkling forces had their own candidates, whose combined support blocked Conkling for six ballots.  As it turned out, the nomination went to a compromise candidate and the next president, Rutherford B. Hayes.

Is Donald Trump the reincarnation of Roscoe Conkling?  Will he skate to the Republican nomination, or will we see a repeat of the Cincinnati convention?  Stay tuned.