Word: blissfulness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...better qualified to take over than Ray Bliss. He started in politics "just for something to do" in 1931 on the level of envelope licker and errand runner during the mayoralty campaign in his home town of Akron. Slowly he worked his way up to state committeeman by impressing such sterling Republicans as Senator Robert A. Taft with his attention to detail. In 1947 Bliss decided to quit politics for the insurance and real estate business, but when the hurricane of Harry Truman's surprise victory hit in 1948, Taft immediately persuaded Bliss to come back as a salaried...
Plodding and patient, Bliss instituted interminable polls and surveys, built a network of grass-roots organizations, set up a harddriving, get-out-the-vote machine. A bare two years later, the Republicans were so strong again that they recaptured control of both houses of the legislature and every state office except the governorship. Ever since, despite a couple of setbacks, Bliss's Ohio G.O.P. has been one of the most dependable state organizations in the country...
...Bliss delivered the state to Richard Nixon over John Kennedy-much to the surprise of Kennedy's expert pollsters. And even in the shambles of Barry Goldwater's 1964 defeat, Bliss's Republicans kept control of both houses of the legislature and came out with a 14-to-10 edge over the Democrats in the Ohio congressional delegation. Bob Taft Jr. lost to Incumbent Democrat Stephen Young for the Senate, but by only 13,000, while Johnson ran more than 1,000,000 ahead of Goldwater...
...Enough. "I've been a desk chairman," says Bliss. "I don't profess to be an orator. I've always felt it my duty to build up the candidates, not Ray Bliss." The national build-up job that he faces now is monumental. The Republicans' rank-and-file structure, demoralized and in disarray after Barry Goldwater's leaden leadership, must be almost completely remodeled and reorganized. Dean Burch, inexperienced and fanatically loyal to Barry's right wing, purged some of the National Committee's best staff people on the ground-real or imagined...
Says Pragmatist Bliss: "If the Democratic Party is big enough for Harry Byrd and Hubert Humphrey, then the Republican Party is big enough for Jack Javits and Barry Goldwater." Which does not alter the fact that, for all of Bliss's avoidance of ideology, the party will need ideas-and obviously they will have to come from the Javits forces rather than the Goldwater side. In fact, New York's Senator Javits last week suggested that the National Committee "set in motion the machinery to call a national conclave to replace" the current Republican platform, because "we will...