BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

Send us Fan Mail Each month on "Bridging the Political Gap" we try to provide up to 12 hours of history for our listeners. This month with season 5 ending a little sooner we ended up with an additional 3 hours and 44 minutes. So we put together a few bonus shows that we thought our listeners would enjoy.  Our first bonus show is this one on Richard Nixon the Sports fan. He loved baseball...

Send us Fan Mail Senator Orrin Hatch died on April 23, 2022 at the age of 88. He had just retired in 2019. He was a true giant in the history of the United States Senate and in History. He passed more pieces of legislation than any Senator living at the time of death. He reached across the aisle regularly and found workable solutions to problems even while being one of the Senate's most conse...

Send us Fan Mail As we finish the first half of our series on the Nixon Administration and its place in our much longer series of shows that covered the Vietnam Era, we thought we would preview the events on the way over the next 3 seasons of our show. This is the coverage of the fall of Richard Nixon and the scandal known as Watergate.  It would undermine in the eyes of the American People all he...

Send us Fan Mail Our Season 5 Finale: In this episode we listen in as a nation says farewell to one of its most  larger than life leaders, the former President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. We tune in at his funeral services in Washington D.C. and in Texas.  Then we travel halfway around the world to hear the signing of the Paris Peace accords that would effectively end the Vietnam War...

Send us Fan Mail Dear Listeners, I want to take a moment to say a simple thank you for tuning in to our show. This season "Richard Nixon: 1972 The Foundation of Peace" saw our little Podcast recognized as one of the 60 Best American History Podcasts of 2022 by Feedspot.com . We are enormously proud of that designation and very grateful to all of you for making that happen.    https://blo...

Send us Fan Mail Finally, an agreement seems to be at hand and the war in Vietnam can be brought to an end for America.  No one wanted to see this day more than former President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was a man who never wanted to be a wartime President. He had worked to stall making a decision to enter the war on a massive scale, he had tried all he could to find another solution to the growing is...

Send us Fan Mail Frustrating, frustrating is about the best way to put the ongoing negotiations and often the most frustrating part has been our allies not our enemies.  Here we listen in on conversations between the President and his National Security team,  Advisor Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig, as they discuss the details of the agreement being negotiated and how to deal with their...

Send us Fan Mail We start the ten days that elevated President Nixon to the status as one of the four greatest Presidents in American history with his second  Inauguration as President. In this episode we will plug into ABC News coverage of the day in 1973, with anchormen Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner.  It will include his entire second Inaugural speech, a real treat if you have never heard t...

Send us Fan Mail The Bombing of North Vietnam over Christmas 1972 finally has broken the will of the North to keep the fight going. The South Vietnamese will be forced by Nixon to accept a deal not totally to their liking. But finally this horrific War looks like it could be coming to an end.  As we approach the end of the incredible year of 1972, we fast forward to the Richard Nixon Presidential...

Send us Fan Mail The Horrors of War cannot be overstated. Here in the final stages of the Vietnam War for America things gets brutal for the people of North Vietnam. In this episode we start with the tragedies that seem to always happen no matter how hard the military tries in war. Civilians die. Here we listen to the Vietnamese people talk about the horrific tragedy of a building bombed by accide...

Send us Fan Mail President Theiu of South Vietnam kept stalling and not agreeing with one proposal after another. After the election, it became clear to North Vietnam that the leverage may be about to turn in their favor as it became clear that even though President Richard Nixon had been overwhelmingly re-elected an antiwar congress had also been elected in the United States. Now all they needed...

Send us Fan Mail This episode opens with Henry Kissinger being frustrated with the antics of our ally in South Vietnam. At one point in these final days Kissinger even refused to go back to Vietnam and work with General Thieu. We will listen in to frustrated phone calls between the President  and aid to Henry Kissinger , Alexander Haig as they plot the next moves in a frustrating situation.  Then...

Send us Fan Mail The 1972 election is now behind us and Richard Nixon is ready to end this war in Southeast Asia. He is having issues getting an agreement amazingly not from the North Vietnamese but from the South.  As General Thieu fears that an agreement that leaves some North Vietnamese troops in his country will spell eventual defeat. An understandable fear.  Nixon begins pushing harder and ha...

Send us Fan Mail It is finally election Day in 1972. We get to relive the news coverage of the big day and election night as Richard Nixon caps off his amazing run with a 49 state landslide victory for re-election as President of the United States of America. You will get to hear the concession and victory speeches from George McGovern, Sargent Shriver,  Spiro Agnew, and Richard Nixon. Then you ca...

Send us Fan Mail During the time I was a City Councilman in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and was active in the National League of Cities I was befriended by a number of Alaskans. They are great people, who often helped me with issues related to Beach Re-nourishment  and in turn I was always a big supporter of their issues mainly oil drilling in ANWR, the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. I was no wh...

Send us Fan Mail Now in the final stretch of the 1972 campaign, with negotiations to end the war in their grasps, and more news stories bubbling under the surface over Watergate, Richard Nixon marches on with a substantial lead in all the polls. In this episode we listen to the back and forth between the parties in Vietnam, never quite able to get the deal done. News reports about the activities o...

Send us Fan Mail This episode covers the growing issues that Watergate is creating, problems Nixon is having with our ally in South Vietnam that is slowing down his negotiations , and the 1972 campaign of George McGovern, which despite having some good issues for them developing still cannot seem to catch momentum. First we will hear Richard Nixon talk with Bob Haldeman about leaks coming from a h...

Send us Fan Mail We join a 1972 campaign in wide open progress as George McGovern tries to make his case to the American people at a time when the economy is doing well and a peace looks like it could be with in grasp of President Nixon. It was a tough row to hoe. Listen in as President Nixon continues to work toward a negotiated peace in Vietnam, with many frustrations along the way.  Plus you wi...

Send us Fan Mail While Richard Nixon served as President at the height of the Cold War. He was also President when terrorism exploded on to the World stage as a tool of the extreme Islamic World.  In this special edition we look back at one of the most horrifying events of the early 1970's, by tuning into the voices of the people who covered it for ABC Sports. It features interviews with a Ha...

Send us Fan Mail The 1972 conventions are over and the candidates hit the campaign trail. It is a year where major events seem to be happening every time you turn your head around.  President Nixon has a commanding 26 point lead in most national polls and he is in hot pursuit of not only a victory at the polls in November but also a successful end to the war in Vietnam, a peace with honor.   It is...

Send us Fan Mail The final night opens with actor Jimmy Stewart and First Lady Pat Nixon. Then Congressman Gerald Ford introduces Vice President Spiro T. Agnew who will in turn bring out Richard Nixon for the main event. Then Richard Nixon will deliver his acceptance speech for a second term as President. At that moment, Richard Nixon sat on top of the world. He was closing in on a victory of not...

Send us Fan Mail If the McGovern campaign had been a textbook example of what could go wrong would, the Nixon campaign ran like a well oiled machine. If you listen to the journalist covering the convention they sound like they are covering the great turtle race.  They are audibly struggling to keep things interesting. But if you love the pomp and circumstances of a national convention, which I do,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we open with the real power player in the Democratic Party of 1972, Senator Ted Kennedy. He would step up to nominate George McGovern. Then George McGovern will go to the podium in the wee hours of the morning to make his case to the nation as to why they should trade in Richard Nixon for him. It would be the high mark for a campaign that would end up with a shock...

Send us Fan Mail *** WELCOME TO CONVENTION WEEK, All week we will be stepping back in time to the 1972 National Conventions. This episode starts off the conventions of 1972 with the Democrats. While 1972 was not 1968, it was still a textbook example of what not to do. Poor George McGovern was in a campaign best described as "if it could go wrong it did. " He had come from out of nowhere...

Send us Fan Mail President Richard Nixon's Address to the nation and to a joint session of Congress on June 1, 1972, would mark the arguable high point of his amazing political career. Fresh off two successful summits, first in Peking, China and then in Moscow, in the Soviet Union. President Nixon was poised to change the chess board of the world in 1972.  It was an incredible moment when all...