Serious conservative opposition to Nixon in the GOP primaries 1972

To me it has always been slightly surprising that Richard Nixon didn't face serious conservative opposition in the 1972 GOP primaries. (I don't consider Congressman John Ashbrook's campaign very serious.) Budget deficits, the creation of the EPA, wage-price controls, closing the gold window, race-based affirmative action (the Philadelphia Plan), detente with Red China and the USSR, even a proposed guaranteed annual income--apparently none of them could break the Right's support of Nixon. (He had not yet proposed universal "pay or play" health insurance, though--that was to come after the election.) Of course, liberals by demonizing Nixon as if he were a hard-line right-winger no doubt improved his standing with the Right, but still I would expect him to get something more than token primary opposition. After all, his primary opponent could always say, "I am a good Republican and of course will support
Mr. Nixon against the Democrats if he wins renomination."

Any idea of who a more serious conservative primary opponent than Ashbrook would be, or how well he could do?
 
liberals by demonizing Nixon as if he were a hard-line right-winger no doubt improved his standing with the Right...

He was taking so much flak from the liberals and radicals that he was immunized against attack from the Right.

And in those days, the ideological-conservative wing of the Republican Party was not dominant, as it is now.

For instance, the 45 Republican Senators in 1972 included several outright liberals (Brooke, Case, Javits, Hatfield, Weicker) and several additional centrists and moderate (Mathias, Percy, Packwood, Stafford). Stafford jumped to the Democrats in 2001. This was reflected in the party rank-and-file.

So IMO there was not a base for such a run.
 
It is true that there were still plenty of moderate Republicans in the Senate in 1971-2. But the GOP Senate caucus may not have been representative of the GOP rank and file. Remember that we are talking about a party that had nominated Goldwater in 1964 and which almost chose Reagan against an incumbent Republican president in 1976...
 
Well, it is rare to have serious renomination opposition if you are an incumbent President, at least post WWII (Ford-Reagan is the exception that proves the rule, maybe Johnson-Kennedy-Humphrey).
 
Well, it is rare to have serious renomination opposition if you are an incumbent President, at least post WWII (Ford-Reagan is the exception that proves the rule, maybe Johnson-Kennedy-Humphrey).

But Ford was never elected, so Reagan was not running against reelection, with all the party support and party infrastructure that an initial election would have brought to Ford. He was running against Ford's election. And I argue that is the reason Reagan, or any serious candidate, did not run against Nixon in 1972. He was the Republican President. Even with something like Watergate, Reagan did not turn off from Nixon. He continued to support him and said it would blow over. As did other Conservatives. And the thing that disgusted Hunter S. Thompson was how quickly these Conservatives threw their adulation back to Nixon after Watergate, where the man that broke the law and the soul of the country could give a speech and get applause.
 
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