A Choice Not an Echo



A Choice Not an Echo was a bestselling self-published 1964 book by John Birch Society member Phyllis Schlafly that argues that the "kingmakers" are screwing over her preferred candidates and stopping them from saving the nation from the evils of socialism or something. According to Schlafly, all Republican candidates from 1936 until 1952 "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory" through not talking about her pet issues. (Oddly, her only exception is Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom she says "offered the voters a clear-cut choice over the liberalism of Adlai Stevenson", in spite of Eisenhower being so famously moderate that both parties originally asked for him to run for President on their ticket both when he first ran in 1952, with the popular newspaper U.S. News & World Reports suggesting it again in 1956. )

Kingmakers
Schlafly makes frequent reference to "kingmakers," whom she claims "selected every Republican presidential nominee from 1936 through 1960." Mind you, Schlafly is far from wrong when she complains about the lack of democratic control that average Republicans had over who was nominated for President (funnily enough, this lack of democracy would lead the other party to riot at their convention just four years later, ) but the main issue with the book is her assumption of conspiracy when it is simply not needed.

For example, she wrote regarding the selection of the Republican Presidential Nomination process of 1936 that "It was not mere coincidence that the kingmakers passed over Herbert Hoover as too conservative." However, Schlafly shows no evidence that Hoover was rejected because of how conservative he was. Instead, the more likely situation is that Hoover was rejected as the nominee because he would be going up against the man whom he could not even win forty percent of the vote against in 1932. Hoover was also at least in enough of an ideological agreement with Landon--the actual Republican nomination in 1936--to actively campaign for him. It's also ironic given that the same wingnuts whom Schlafly claim these kingmakers disenfranchise would disagree with her view that Hoover is a conservative.

However, according to Schlafly, no person has been more screwed over by these kingmakers than Robert Taft. The fact that doing this would mean that the kingmakers — who are supposed to be oligarchs and establishment politicians — are fighting against the son of a former President is a contradiction that in no way bothered her.

At one point she wrote that "Taft had the best vote-getting record of any Republican in the country, and had proved this ability in Ohio in his tremendous 1950 victory." However, she never explains what metric she's using to justify this. It's worth noting that Taft barely won Ohio in 1944 and although he did win in a landslide in 1950, he was far from the only Republican to do so. Richard Nixon of California, Herman Welker of Idaho, Milton Young of North Dakota, Wayne Morse of Oregon, Francis Case of South Dakota, and George Aiken of Vermont all did better in their elections than Taft did.

Goldwater '64!
Easily the thing this book is most famous for is its unapologetic promotion of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, to the point where many credit this book as the reason he won the Republican nomination in 1964. Throughout this book, Schlafly portrays Goldwater as the only person who can get a true conservative into the White House, and hindsight has not been kind to this book. Seeing Schlafly write that "Barry Goldwater is the one Republican who can and will win" is downright cringe-worthy if one is reading this knowing that Goldwater not only won the nomination in 1964, but lost to Johnson in a landslide.