Chuck Todd: Unity may prove elusive for the country — but not here

MILWAUKEE — Ever since the nomination of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, there was a saying about Republicans and their nominees for president: They fall in line more than they fall in love.

Ike, Richard Nixon, both Bushes, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney — all of them beat back more passionate conservative challengers.

And up until 2012, there was almost an unofficial rule that whoever finished second in the previous GOP presidential primary campaign became the initial default front-runner four or eight years later. Ronald Reagan lost in ’76 and then won the nod in ’80. Bush lost to Reagan in ’80 and won the nod in ’88. Dole lost the nod to Bush in ’88 and ended up the nominee in ’96. In 2000, the initial two front-runners were a Dole (Elizabeth) and Bush (the oldest son). And what happened in 2008? The candidate who ended up as Bush’s chief foe in 2000, McCain, got the nod, followed in 2012 by Romney, fresh off of losing out to McCain in ’08.

The lone exceptions to the “fall in line” atmosphere of the GOP for six-plus decades were Barry Goldwater and Reagan, each of whom led their parties to historic landslides — one huge loss and one huge win.

And it’s a reminder of what nominating a “fall in love” candidate can do versus a “fall in line” nominee. The passion can be energizing, but it can also mask reality if the passionate wing of the party is too myopic. That clearly happened to the GOP in ’64 (and to the Democratic mirror image of Goldwater eight years later, George McGovern).

The orderly succession of these establishment Republicans was actually a bit of a feature to some supporters of the GOP, particularly those in the business community or the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Republican Party. David Brooks would refer to these Republicans as the management class of the electorate. The predictability was seen as stabilizing, particularly on economic and foreign policy.

But what the party did lack at times were passion and the ability to connect with everyday Americans, particularly those who shower after work rather than before work. Goldwater and Reagan provided passion that many of the other GOP leaders lacked.

The sometimes-sterile nature of the party’s “governing wing” would invite a passionate challenger to the establishment who would regularly come close but come up short — think Mike Huckabee in 2008 or Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich in 2012 or Pat Buchanan in 1992.

Well, this isn’t that Republican Party anymore. What’s remarkable about the atmosphere in Milwaukee is how jubilant it is despite what happened Saturday. I didn’t know what to expect at this convention in the first 24 hours following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, but I didn’t expect his supporters to seemingly move on from the heaviness of that near-miss moment as quickly as it appears they have — at least that’s how it feels here on the ground in Milwaukee.

This is a very festive atmosphere. These delegates aren’t angry or worried or ready to lash out. It’s just the opposite: They are confident, excited and primed to win, and win big. Perhaps for some, the confidence comes from their faith. Many believe there was divine intervention Saturday, and it has only reinforced their belief that Trump is destined to be president again.

Trying to fully understand their psyches is something I’ll leave for others, but the reality is this: This is the most unified Republican convention I’ve been to since George W. Bush’s 9/11-themed second convention in New York City in 2004. That unity persisted on the campaign trail post-convention, as House and Senate Republicans had no problem running with Bush. And the result: The GOP won the Senate and held the White House and the House, giving them the Washington governing trifecta.

Now, there are still plenty of down-ballot Republicans who aren’t nearly as comfortable running with Trump today as the Republicans of 2004 were running with Bush. And another reason there’s so little GOP dissent at this convention is that those Republicans who disagree most with the direction Trump is taking the party didn’t bother to come.

A handful of senators have chosen to skip, including Todd Young of Indiana, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Then there are candidates like Larry Hogan, who is trying to signal to Maryland voters that he’ll never be a Trump acolyte. And, of course, you won’t find many Bushes or Cheneys here, either. In some ways, this convention is self-selecting when it comes to those in the party who love Trump and those who don’t.

But the picture is party unity, and when you have folks like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis acquiescing to Trump’s leadership and letting his people influence what they say at the convention, you do have a party that is both falling in love and falling in line.

The unity and the lack of reservations about Trump’s leading the ticket are a stark contrast to the Democrats right now.

Do we really think Chicago for President Joe Biden will feel anything like Milwaukee does for Trump this week? Clearly, as our own NBC News polling indicates, Democrats of all stripes — from elected officials and strategists to activists and rank-and-file voters — aren’t enamored with their presumptive nominee and would prefer a different candidate at the top of the ticket.

The polls indicate it’s unlikely Democrats even come close to rallying behind Biden with the energy this GOP has for Trump. According to our most recent poll, Republicans are more fired up about voting in this election than Democrats are. This is a reverse from 2020, Trump’s first time seeking a second term, when it was Democrats who were more excited about the election than Republicans.

Biden is desperately trying to borrow the passionate progressive bases of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren right now to survive these growing calls to step aside. His latest gambit: come out for some Supreme Court reforms that Biden the institutionalist was skeptical of four years previously when he was running in the Democratic primaries. Now that he needs to survive as the party’s standard-bearer, he is apparently more open to them. Clearly, those still trying to help Biden stay the nominee see this Supreme Court reform idea as an attempt to inject some new energy and issues into the conversation, especially issues that animate the progressive base.

It has been fascinating to watch Biden try to save his candidacy — and do it through progressives. These were the Democrats who were most skeptical of him during the 2020 primaries, and now these progressive leaders are some of his most ardent public supporters. Perhaps this is progressives acknowledging that Biden sided with them as president more than they expected. Perhaps this is another sign that while progressive voters looked askance at Biden during the primaries, he has long had productive relationships with Sanders and other progressive elected officials.

Whatever happens with the Democrats, it’s worth doing the “fall in love” versus “fall in line” exercise with them, too.

Since 1952, whenever the Democrats “fell in line,” they usually lost — and whenever Democrats went with their heart or rolled the dice with an outsider who wasn’t part of the D.C. crowd, they succeeded. JFK, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were candidates who got their nominations by defeating more establishment “next in line” types of candidates or something close to them. Nominees who had paid more dues in the party haven’t had the same success. Think Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey.

What’s fascinating about Biden is that he won not because Democrats fell in love but because they were so anxious to defeat Trump that the party fell in line and did so quickly.

Of course, whenever party leaders get the job because it was simply their turn, they always find trouble the second unpopularity hits because they are missing that passionate base that was with them even when nobody expected a win. Trump has that in the GOP. Obama had (and may still have) that with the Democrats, and Bill Clinton got there by his second term after Republicans tried to impeach him. Clearly, Biden is looking for a base to save him, but he didn’t have one at the start of his presidency because the party simply “fell in line.”

Democrats now face a dilemma. It may be too late for the party to find a candidate to fall in love with in time for this election. Biden will try. If it’s not him, the next candidate up is Vice President Kamala Harris, who failed to inspire “fall in love” feelings during her own presidential campaign but became next in line. She’s got next, and if it’s not Biden, it’s cleaner to “fall in line.”

But as Democrats debate how they are going to regroup and try to defeat Trump — or at a minimum deny the GOP the Washington trifecta and share some power with the Republicans — they may want to ask themselves which candidate has the best chance to move their party from just accepting its nominee to fully embracing the nominee with some “crawl on broken glass to vote” passion.

Democrats have a lot of work to do between now and their convention if they want to come close to creating the picture of unity and passion that Trump has going for him here in Milwaukee.