Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,328

This is the grave of William Miller.

One of the truly great non-entities in the long history of non-entities being nominated by major parties for Vice-President, Miller was born in 1914 in Lockport, New York. Super Catholic family and this would drive Miller’s politics for his whole life. He was a staunch New York conservative for his whole life. He went to Notre Dame, the home of American Catholic conservatism, naturally. He then did a law degree at the Albany Law School of Union University, finishing that in 1938. He went back to Lockport and started a practice. In 1942, he started on his way up the ladder, being named a commissioner for the U.S. District Court in Buffalo.

World War II got in the way of his rise, as it did for most of that generation. He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and was assigned to Military Intelligence. He worked in Richmond, never seeing any action. But he was part of the Nuremberg Trials as an assistant prosecutor, so that’s certainly a big deal. He left the military in 1946 and returned to Lockport and his law practice.

Now, in this era one could be a conservative and be a member of either party, but that was less so in New York, home of FDR. So Miller was a Republican and an ally of Thomas Dewey, who appointed Miller district attorney of Niagara County in 1948. But Miller had higher aspirations and in 1950, he ran for Congress. He won and had pretty easy reelections for the rest of his career. This was still Republican New York and for that matter mostly still is today outside of Buffalo proper. He became a fairly important member of the Republican caucus in the House, rising to second in line among the party on the Judiciary Committee (though this is obviously vastly less important than its counterpart in the Senate) and helped throw out the moderate Joseph Martin as Minority Leader in 1958 with the more conservative Charles Halleck in the aftermath of Republicans getting creamed in the midterms that year.

Generally, Miller, while very conservative on many issues, was not a racist. He voted for most civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 24th Amendment, eliminating the poll tax. Otherwise though, he hated everything about the New Deal, New Frontier, and then the Great Society. He was named head of the National Republican Campaign Committee in 1960 and Republicans gained 22 House seats even though JFK won the presidential election. As these things go, Miller got a ton of credit for it, even though he probably didn’t really do much that mattered here. But based on this, he was named head of the Republican National Committee in 1961. And he proved out I guess; in 1962, while Democrats took 5 seats in the Senate, Republicans took 4 in the House.

But despite Miller not being a racist as a personal matter, he was totally for white supremacy as a way for the Republican Party to gain power. This is even worse, just pure cynicism. We usually locate the Southern Strategy as a Nixon move and Trickey Dick was definitely all in for it. But this goes back to Goldwater and congressional conservatives in the 1964 election. Goldwater was totally opposed to any form of civil rights legislation and thought the White South could move to the Republicans based on this if Republicans became the Party of the White Man. About this, he was absolutely right, if a bit before his time. Miller completely supported all of this.

So, Goldwater paid Miller back by naming his VP. Other than Beltway folks, no one had any idea who this guy even was. He was also a nasty ankle biter as a politician. He took potshots at Kennedy all the time, amusing Republican insiders. And because Miller was a northern Catholic who had personally voted for civil rights legislation, they could now attack JFK without being accused of anti-Catholicism and have cover that they weren’t actually racist, just opposed to federal overreach. Then JFK died so that part of the plan wasn’t needed, but Miller still served his role. He could attack LBJ just as easily, even if it mattered less.

Of course, Goldwater and Miller were absolutely crushed in one of the biggest blowouts in American history. Conventional wisdom was that they were too radical, but they were in fact just before their time. It was too early for that level of outright radicalism on the right and too early for too many whites to change their political allegiance, though the states they did win in the Deep South showed the potential of the Southern Strategy to work with a more sophisticated figure at the head of it in Nixon and then Reagan.

After the election, Miller just totally disappeared from public life. He was done with politics. He went back to Lockport and restarted his law practice. The only time he showed up was in the classic American Express “Do You Know Me?” commercial which was great because no one knew who the hell that guy was. Otherwise, he was happy just being a New York Republican Party insider. He had a stroke in 1983 and died shortly after, at the age of 69.

Incidentally, his daughter Stephanie became a strong liberal, as well as a stand-up comedian and she hosts a liberal talk show on the radio. His son on the other hand became another Republican politician at the state level. Thanksgiving must be interesting.

William Miller is on the confiscated lands of the traitor Lee, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

If you would like this series to visit other losing vice-presidential candidates, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Lloyd Bentsen is in Houston and John Bricker is in Columbus, Ohio. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.