That time Democrats sought to exploit GOP convention strife
In his combative speech to the GOP convention on Wednesday night, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz notably declined to endorse Donald Trump and urged voters to follow their conscience. The address, and the boos it drew from the Trump fans assembled in Cleveland, laid bare the internal GOP divisions that convention planners were hoping to minimize.
Whether Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is able to successfully exploit the GOP divisions this year will remain an open question until November. But it's likely her team is eyeing the example then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson set in 1964 during his campaign against his Republican rival, Barry Goldwater.
Goldwater, an Arizona senator, was a big draw among the GOP base. But he frightened the party's establishment with his opposition to civil rights and his bellicose rhetoric about the Cold War and nuclear weapons.
Johnson's reelection campaign made a point of courting moderate Republicans who were leery of Goldwater's conservative insurgency. And one of the most effective tools the president's team had in that effort was the public criticism other Republicans had lobbed at Goldwater during the campaign.
After the 1964 GOP convention in San Francisco, Johnson's team released a television advertisement highlighting some concerns several Republican officeholders had expressed about Goldwater:
"Back in July, in San Francisco, the Republicans held a convention," the narrator began. The shot settled on a poster of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater's chief rival for the 1964 nomination, who'd urged his party to repudiate extremist elements during his convention speech.
"Remember him?" the narrator asked. "He was there. Governor Rockefeller. Before the convention, he said Barry Goldwater's positions can, and I quote, 'Spell disaster for the party and for the country.'"
"Or him - Governor Scranton," the narrator added as a poster of Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton came onscreen. "The day before the convention, he called Goldwaterism a, quote, 'Crazy quilt collection of absurd and dangerous positions.'"
"Or this man - Governor Romney," the narrator continued, indicating a poster of Michigan Gov. George Romney. "In June, he said Goldwater's nomination would lead to the, quote, 'Suicidal destruction of the Republican Party.'"
The ad finished with an overt pitch to wavering Republicans who weren't yet sold on either party's nominee: "Even if you're a republican with serious doubts about Barry Goldwater, you're in good company. Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."
It's worth noting that, despite their warnings, most of Goldwater's GOP critics ended up reluctantly backing his bid. But the Arizona senator was crushed by Johnson in November, winning only six states to Johnson's 44 - a lopsided result blamed, in part, on Republican defections to the incumbent.
As noted before, only time will tell whether Hillary Clinton is able to pull off a similar feat this year, peeling off Republicans who aren't sold on Trump. But in her quest to do so, she'll be aided by the same thing that aided Johnson: criticism from the GOP nominee's fellow Republicans.
A handful of Trump's former primary rivals have spoken at the convention. With the exception of Cruz, they all offered varying degrees of support for the nominee. But not long ago, most were singing a different tune.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for example, spoke on the first night of the convention, but last April he derided Trump as a "cancer on conservatism." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio praised Trump in a pretaped video message at the convention, but when they were primary rivals, Rubio called Trump the "most vulgar person" ever to seek the presidency. And though Cruz congratulated Trump on winning the nomination Wednesday night, he previously described the nominee as a "serial philanderer" and a "pathological liar."
Surely there's an ad in there somewhere.