In my Letter From Washington this week, I discuss Karl Rove’s efforts to minimize the role of radical elements in the Republican Party. William F. Buckley and former President Bill Clinton did something similar, to very different groups, decades ago.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Buckley, the influential editor of the National Review, a conservative magazine, decided that the extreme views of the John Birch Society threatened a burgeoning conservative movement. Robert Welch, who ran the Birchers, had charged that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, was a “dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.â€
If groups such as the John Birch Society weren’t isolated, Mr. Buckley warned, potential conservative voters “will pass by crackpot alley†and align with the other side politically.
In 1992, Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, after heated internal debate, decided to indirectly take on Jesse Jackson, a dominant influence in the Democratic Party and a controversial figure for many voters. The political director of Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign told the Clinton camp that Mr. Mondale had met with Mr. Jackson more than 70 times to thrash out disagreements.
Mr. Clinton, the 1992 presumptive Democratic nominee, was speaking to Mr. Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. He used the occasion to criticize a rapper named Sister Souljah who a month earlier had talked about killing white people.
Mr. Jackson was furious. But that marked the beginning of a decline in his influence in the Democratic Party. The Clinton campaign thought the move wa! s well-received by a lot of voters.
