Surprising Moments at Past GOP Conventions: Just Explain It

Jeff Greenfield

Governor Mitt Romney had been the presumptive GOP nominee for weeks ahead of the Republic National Convention, so it wasn't a surprise when he was nominated as their candidate for president Tuesday night. In fact, there hasn't been suspense at any convention for decades. But that's not the way it used to be. Take a look back at some of the memorable convention moments.

Go all the way back to 1860, in Chicago. The betting money was on former New York Governor William Seward, or maybe Ohio Senator Salmon Chase. But it was little known former one-term Congressman, Abe Lincoln who won the nomination on the third ballot and wound up putting all of his ex-rivals on his White House team.

Imagine the drama in Chicago in 1912 when President William Howard Taft found himself in a fierce fight for renomination against his old friend and mentor, ex-President Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt had dominated the primaries, but Taft controlled the convention and won the fight, only to face Roosevelt in the fall as a third party rival. It was Democrat Woodrow Wilson who won in November.

As they gathered in Philadelphia in 1940, Republicans were divided among Ohio Senator Taft, Michigan Senator Vandenberg, and Manhattan district attorney Tom Dewey. But it was a Wall Street industrialist who had never won office, Wendell Willkie, who won with the backing of powerful newspaper and magazine publishers, and with a packed gallery chanting, "We Want Willkie!" It was one of the unlikeliest results in American history.

It was one of the bitterest fights in history when conservative hero Taft and former General Dwight Eisenhower faced off in 1952. They battled over credentials, platforms, and rules until a dramatic fight led to Eisenhower's first ballot victory and two landslide elections.

Conservatives got their revenge 12 years later in San Francisco in 1964 when Senator Barry Goldwater routed his moderate and liberal opponents. He then threw down this bold challenge in his acceptance speech, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Goldwater lost in a landslide in November, but he put his party permanently on a conservative course.

Kansas City in 1976 was the site of the last genuinely contested convention. Former California Governor Ronald Reagan came within a whisker of taking the nomination away form President Gerald Ford. But after Ford's speech, it was Reagan who won the convention's heart with a speech of his own, paving the way for his presidency four years later. "We must go forth from here united, determined that what a great general said a few years ago is true. There is no substitute for victory," he told the crowd.

Veterans of campaigns past look on today's tightly scripted events and sigh, "Those were the days."