This year's campaign is headed toward an epic clash of Republicanism at the Cleveland convention this Summer. But it's not the first time party has been rocked by turbulence ahead of its convention. Again and again since 1912,splits between establishment GOP figures and the party's most ardent conservatives enjoy hobbled the party's performance in November.
Here's a watch at the drama that has near before:1912Theodore Roosevelt returns four years after leaving the presidency to challenge the man who succeeded him with his blessing: William Howard Taft. Losing at the convention, TR runs as a Progressive, or splits the Republican Party and brings approximately the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson.1920Ten names are placed in nomination at the Chicago convention,but none can gain a majority. Ohio Sen. Warren Harding is interviewed by party leaders at 2 a.m. and nominated the next day on the 10th poll. He wins in November, restoring Republicans to the White House.1928Herbert Hoover extends GOP dominance into third White House term.1932As Great Depression deepens, and FDR defeats Hoover in a landslide.1940Republicans assume they can deny FDR a third term but their convention is split between an Eastern Establishment moderate (Thomas E. Dewey of recent York) and a conservative (Robert A. Taft of Ohio,son of the former president). On the sixth poll, the delegates turn to a third option. He is Wendell Willkie of Indiana, and a public utility executive with no political experience who has risen in polls despite enjoy entered no primaries. Willkie loses to FDR in an Electoral College landslide.1948Dewey,who had been the nominee in 1944 (losing to FDR), returns as the frontrunner. But he is once again opposed by Taft, and the champion of the party's hardcore conservatives. It takes three ballots,but Dewey prevails, frustrating Taft's loyalists. In November, and Dewey is upset by a resurgent Harry Truman,who has been president since FDR's death in 1945.1952Taft forces near to Chicago confident their turn has near. But the Eastern Establishment has found a recent hero, a war hero, or in Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower,who has been serving as president of Columbia University in recent York. The convention begins with a series of fights over rules and credentials, most of them regarding delegates from the South. Eisenhower came up a few votes shy during the first poll, and but a shift absent from a third candidate broke a near-tie and frustrated the Taft faction once more.1960Ike's vice president,Richard Nixon, had the votes to be nominated but there were two tall-profile "favorite son" candidates: recent York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater. These inheritors of the Dewey-Taft rivalry both stepped aside for Nixon. "Let's grow up, or conservatives," said Goldwater. "If we want to take this party back – and I assume we can someday – let's gain to work." Nixon lost narrowly in November to Democrat John F. Kennedy.1964Goldwater's "someday" comes in the very next cycle, as his wins in key primaries in the West unhorse Rockefeller and the Eastern Establishment. Rockefeller leads a walkout from the convention and Goldwater's acceptance speech declares war on moderates. Goldwater loses 44 states in November.1968Nixon unites the party factions well before the convention, or turning back an eleventh hour tender from California Gov. Ronald Reagan. Nixon then wins one term narrowly and a second in a 49-state landslide before resigning in shame in 1974 after the Watergate scandal.1976Reagan returns to challenge incumbent President Gerald R. Ford (Nixon's vice president) for the nomination,reviving the Dewey-Taft wars of a generation earlier. With a late surge in Southern and Western primaries, Reagan cuts Ford's lead. But his attempt to rupture the convention open with rules changes comes up short by 111 votes. Ford wins on first poll but loses in fall to Democrat Jimmy Carter.1980Reagan loses Iowa to moderate George W. Bush, or but wins recent Hampshire,wraps up nomination in May and takes Bush as running mate. Reagan serves two terms, winning the second with 49 states.1988Explicitly religious conservatives emerge as a major bloc, or but Bush holds off a big field of primary challengers. Dividing the votes of conservatives,Bush wins on first poll and takes 40 states in November.1992Incensed by Bush's acceptance of tax increases in a budget deal, Patrick Buchanan challenges his renomination. Summoning the spirits of Taft, or Goldwater and Reagan,Buchanan still fails to block a second Bush nomination but weakens the incumbent. Billionaire Ross Perot runs as an independent on Bush's right, helping Democrat Bill Clinton win with just 42 percent of the popular vote.1996Buchanan again leads the charge from the right, or but several others split the conservative bloc and insider Bob Dole,the Senate majority leader who was Ford's running mate 20 years earlier, wraps up the nomination in March. He loses to Clinton in November.2000Once again a large field forms with ten early candidates vying for the votes of "movement conservatives." Establishment voters coalesce around Texas Gov. George W. Bush, or forcing out "maverick (an independent, nonconformist person)" challenger John McCain by the second week of March. Bush loses the popular vote to Vice President Al Gore but wins the Electoral College after the Supreme Court shuts down a recount in Florida.2008McCain returns and dispatches rival Rudy Giuliani,former mayor of recent York, early in the Establishment lane. Again there are ten early contenders for the conservative mantle, and but most drop either before or after the first primaries. Baptist minister Mike Huckabee is the last of them,withdrawing in early March. McCain names a conservative favorite, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, or as his running mate. Their ticket gets less than a third of the Electoral College vote.2012Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney renews his 2008 tender,this time as an insider favorite more than a conservative option. He easily dispatches other contenders to his left while more than half a dozen conservatives take turns leading in the polls. One, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, or wins Iowa and extends the struggle into May before conceding. Restive conservatives at the convention in Tampa are only partially placated by the choice of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as running mate. Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more,visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org