"Ain't You Glad You Joined the Republicans?": A Short History of the Gop [Hardcover]

Whatever one's political persuasion, this breezy, hugely entertaining, opinionated chronicle of the Republican Party will nettle and provoke. Founded in 1854 by opponents of slavery, the party of Abraham Lincoln by 1897 had turned itself into a conservative arbiter that championed the liberty of the American marketplace, according to novelist Batchelor (Father's Day). Yet the Republicans, he maintains, have consistently claimed an obligation to the values of the American people, whether in support of liberty, sound money, trust-busting, anticommunism or family values. Among the Republican presidents he particularly admires are fearless, progressive Theodore Roosevelt, Nixon (whose Watergate-triggered ouster Batchelor blames mostly on vengeful Democrats' partisan politics) and Reagan, whose massive military buildup and aggressive foreign policy hastened the U.S.S.R.'s collapse, in Batchelor's estimate. Contemporaneous political cartoons and illustrations, memorabilia and campaign songs and verses are woven into the colorful narrative. 50,000 first printing.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Don't expect a standard history from the sharp-tongued Batchelor (Father's Day, LJ 8/94), who takes Lincoln's 1860 campaign slogan as his title.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Novelist Batchelor's (Father's Day, 1994, etc.) history of the Republican Party is as complete, informative, and stimulating as an eighth-grade civics text. Near the beginning of this strangely subdued paean to the GOP, Batchelor describes its 1854 birth as ``a revolutionary rising against the status quo of human bondage.'' The phrase promises grand vistas, not the flat landscape that follows, rendered in near-monochrome. Batchelor's meticulous history includes a chapter on each quadrennial election, complete with bios, snippets from speeches, platform reviews, and election results. Even Batchelor's partisanship is hampered by a style so flat, it's sometimes hard to distinguish praise from irony, as when he writes of the 1894 campaign, ``A vote for the Republicans was a vote for the American smokestack, for the American farm, for the America fireside, for all American profit''; or when he says that George Bush ``pushed Moscow and its puppet states . . . into the dustbin of history.'' The book begs for the why and how to go with its generous servings of who, what, and where. For example, why, after 100 years, did the GOP yield its role as champion of civil rights and women's rights to the Democrats? What is the link between Abraham Lincoln and Newt Gingrich? Batchelor quotes and then requotes Gingrich at the end of the book: ``The Republican party . . . has an obligation to be positive on behalf of the values of the American people,'' as if to say this is the ideal linking Lincoln to McKinley to Eisenhower to Reagan. But the phrase, even twice italicized, hangs unadorned and unexplained, like the rest of the book. An almanac filled with more than one cares to know about the Republican Party, and less than one wants to understand; an almanac written by a novelist, devoid of the novelist's God's-eye view. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (First printing of 50,000) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Friends of Lincoln cannily reminded everyone that Honest Abe wasn't radical at all and could sweep the Border states and the Old Northwest. Since first arriving in the city, Lincoln's friends had been calling on New England delegations and warning them that Seward was weak everywhere out West. Doubts were planted like mustard seeds that if Seward couldn't do it -- if Seward was too controversial, too distrusted, simply too famous to be chief magistrate -- then someone uncelebrated but most well liked could be.

At 10:40 p.m., Horace Greeley telegraphed New York, "As to the presidency I can only say that the advocates of Governor Seward's nomination, who were much depressed last night, are now quite confident of his success." Greeley added carefully, "Mr. Lincoln now appears to have the next best look."

The second day in the Wigwam seemed to go Seward's way. The overnight booms for John C. Fremont of California, the presidential candidate in 1856, and for the conservative-choice Edward Bates of Missouri, were shoved aside.

There was also this strong motion by the Stop-Seward forces for the dark horse Lincoln. "Mr. Lincoln is rapidly assuming prominence as the candidate of the opposition to Mr. Seward," said the telegraph to New York City. "Honest Old Abe is now the coming man."

By dinnertime the platform was approved without a nay from the floor. The Republican party had constructed its strength on its antislavery absolutes; however, the economic planks in the platform contained the most innovative commercial ideas of the age: calls for the building of a Pacific railroad and scientific agricultural colleges, support for the improvement of rivers and harbors, and determined support of a high tariff to protect Eastern manufacturers and farmers from cheap foreign goods. Also a most generous immigration plank reassured the suspicious German delegates that the party stood for tolerance and stood against its nativist Know-Nothing element.

Late in the afternoon there had been a presentation of a special new gavel for the podium that was made out of the oak wood of Admiral Perry's flagship, Lawrence. The assembly cheered at the reference to the infamous Kansas town of Lawrence, scene of the antislavery battles of "Bleeding Kansas" for the last six years. The motto on the gavel's handle read, "We have not yet begun to fight."