The 1966 Game: Who’s Chuck Percy Now?

Charles H. Percy was a great man but a mediocre politician.

That’s because, by the time he entered public life, the philosophy he ran on was already past its sell-by date.

Percy was an Eisenhower Republican. This was the Anti-Thesis to Roosevelt’s New Deal, the "yeah-but" of the 1950s and 1960s. He triumphed over Roosevelt loyalist Paul Douglas in 1966,  but that night was really his career highlight. He found himself increasingly to the left of his party, and lost the seat in 1984 (over the issue of Israel) to bow-tied Paul Simon. (Imagine being a Republican going down to defeat on the day of the Reagan landslide.)

In life Percy was a classic Greatest Generation American. Entrepreneurial even as a teen, he served three years in the Navy and then built Bell & Howell, the small camera outfit he took over from his Sunday school teacher, into a leader of early 1960s technology. (The company faded after he left.)  It is interesting that his daughter, Sharon Percy, later married John D. Rockefeller IV, who is now a Democratic Senator from West Virginia.  According to Wikipedia, Percy is still with us (he’d turn 87 this year) so if you’re there, a big shout-out, Senator. You’ve really had a wonderful life.

So who is Chuck Percy now?

Probably Jim Webb.

I say probably because of what we’re looking for, a highly-accomplished man with (at best) anti-thesis views, on the right side of the Democratic party, poised to upset a Nixon Thesis loyalist in the coming election.

Ironic that the politician he might beat, George Allen, was idenfied earlier in this series as this era’s Bobby Kennedy. That’s one of the things that makes the game fun. (Kennedy never ran for re-election. He was shot mid-way through his first term.)

Webb was Navy Secretary under Reagan, and has had a long journey to the AntiThesis, which is akin to Clintonism. He is taking advantage of demographic changes in Virginia (the growing Washington suburbs, filled with federal workers, many of them unionized) just as Percy took advantage of changes in Illinois (the growing suburbs of Chicago, downstate disillusionment with the Great Society) to win election 40 years ago.

As a Senator Webb is likely to be moved from the left back to the right, becoming increasingly irrelevant as the new thesis takes hold. That’s the pattern anyway.

Are we having fun yet? (Yes, given his recent statements an argument can be made that, in fact, Barack Obama is Charles Percy.)

Next week, let’s go for something completely out of left field. Let’s go for a cultural touchstone of the time rather than a politician, shall we? (Mix things up a bit.)

Who’s Wolfman Jack now?