Will Ted Cruz Pull off an Old-School ‘Corrupt Bargain’?
Robert W. Merry
Politics, Americas
O delegate, where art thou?
Let’s stipulate that there never was any solid evidence that John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay really stole the 1824 presidential election with a “corrupt bargain.” After the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, House Speaker Clay steered the chamber toward an Adams victory and subsequently got from Adams the best job in the country—secretary of state—for anyone wanting to be president. Did Adams really promise Clay that presidential stepping-stone in exchange for his handing Adams the presidency? We’ll never know; the evidence wasn’t there and still isn’t.
But it doesn’t matter, because the great rival of both men, Andrew Jackson, attacked with a vengeance and made his allegation stick: there had been a corrupt bargain; the two men stole the presidency from the American people; democracy was in peril and needed Andrew Jackson to save it. The people bought that narrative and elected Jackson president at the next election. Adams was tossed out of the White House; Clay never managed to get there.
There’s a lesson here for those taking delight in rebuking Donald Trump for his “whining” about the presidential nomination process in some states this year. “The system is rigged, it’s crooked,” complained Trump after being shut out of Colorado’s delegate selection. To which the Wall Street Journal editorial page retorted: “Get over it.” It entitled its editorial “Trump’s Delegate Whine.” The argument is that the various state rules were well known long before the nomination battle commenced, and if Trump didn’t know those rules or couldn’t navigate them, then that’s his problem.
That retort isn’t entirely without merit. The state parties are empowered to establish their own rules, the rules were well known with plenty of advance notice, and anyone could leverage the rules to his or her own benefit in the delegate-collection game. Ted Cruz is just the kind of politician who would seize such an opportunity, and he did.
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