David Broder, how good? Very.

The Washington Post’s David Broder died today at 81. He was a great political reporter. His newspaper’s obituary quotes Broder saying about the political beat:

I've learned that the most undervalued, underreported aspect of politics is what voters bring to the table. My generation of reporters was deeply influenced by Teddy White, the greatest political journalist of our time. He showed us how far inside a campaign you could go. We naturally emulated him, at least as far as our skills would take us. Before long, we got so far inside that we forgot the outside - that the campaign belonged not to the candidates or their consultants or their pollsters, but to the public.

I hadn’t realized that Teddy White’s writing led so directly to Bob Woodward-style “inside” journalism, but I do believe the media too often ignore what Broder called “the outside”—voters, the people.

Broder’s work was a regular part of life during my 1967-68 and 1974-82 years in Washington. I appreciated most how in preparing his stories, wherever he went in the country he insisted on walking the precincts himself, knocking on doors, and interviewing people directly. And his calm, reasoned expression of views on various Washington television panel shows appealed to me. Of course I was a liberal at the time, and so was he.

Apparently his restrained, mid-Western style didn’t please everyone. Today’s Washington Post editorial on Broder, commenting on his nickname “the Dean,“ said, “His detractors used the term sarcastically; they came mostly from the political left and found him much too moderate.”

Five years ago, in this blog, I attacked Broder, ridiculing his proclamation that Iraq was headed for civil war because “80% of Americans” believed this to be so, and dismissing his suggestion that Democrats’ fury with a Dubai company attempting to purchase U.S. port handling services rested on anything but anti-Arab motives. Broder and I were on different sides by then.

But long before that, we were also seemingly on different sides, with me the liberal. I recall when I first encountered Broder’s reporting. It was early 1965, and I was delighted about the Democrats’ crushing defeat of Goldwater and Republicans that previous November.

After reading a very early Broder piece, perhaps “Bliss Rules the Elephant”, in the New York Times Magazine, March 25, 1965, I was convinced Broder was a full-on Republican. Otherwise, why was he giving such attention to the new GOP national chairman, Ray Bliss, writing him up so favorably? You’d have thought Bliss actually had some chance to pull Republicans from the hole in which Goldwater had buried them, leaving Democrats controlling the Senate 68-32, and the House, 295-140. The GOP was dead!

In 1966, after less than two years of Bliss, Republicans picked up 4 Senate seats, and 47 in the House. And of course Nixon became president two years after that.

Broder visited the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics in 1991. On the occasion, he wrote further about Bliss:

Bliss was the chain-smoking former Akron insurance man, who rose from county and state party leadership to take over the national party helm after Barry Goldwater's 1964 defeat. The programs Bliss put in place led to the Richard Nixon victory in 1968 that inaugurated the modern era of Republican dominance of the presidency. Bliss created the new-model national party committee, financed mainly by small, direct-mail contributions and geared to delivering high-tech campaign services to its state and local affiliates.

Bliss [--] though primarily [an] organization [man--] shortened [the GOP’s] exile from power by moving boldly into the issues area as a way of changing the party's image. Bliss's vehicle was the Republican Coordinating Committee, a panel that included former President Eisenhower, presidential nominees, congressional leaders, governors and party officials. Seven allied task forces provided roles for many emerging figures, among them a freshman congressman from Houston named George Bush.

Broder; so very right about Ray Bliss. And much else.