Mary Louise Smith Biography
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President Gerald Ford selected Mary Louise to stop the party’s demise and begin the laborious process of rebuilding it from the precinct up. Politicians and political commentators moaned and groaned over Ford’s choice. They argued that a gray-haired grandmother from Iowa, a woman with decades of precinct-level experience, ten years on the national committee, and less than six months as RNC co-chairman was not a professional politician—and that was what the party needed—a professional.
With her Midwestern optimism and her confidence at the podium, she appealed to audiences across the nation, reminding them that they really were, at heart, Republicans and she slowed the mass defection. She assembled a staff of creative (some observers thought too creative), risk-taking professionals and gave them the leeway to try new approaches. Sometimes the ideas worked, other times not so much.
In politics, winning is the only measure of success. Yet, in 1974, the party’s status was so vulnerable that some wondered if it would survive as the second party in a two-party system. Party leaders who knew the party’s day-to-day financial struggle and who watched the polling numbers collapse worried that the Republican Party would become a minor party, one of those listed at the bottom of the ballot, the parties that are so insignificant that few people have ever heard of them.
Mary Louise provided the party with the leadership that kept it from sinking into that abyss of minor parties. Despite Ford’s loss in 1976, Republicans lost only one seat in the U.S. House and maintained the same number of seats in the U. S. Senate. Admittedly, those numbers were dismal, but not as dismal as they were for Republicans in the 1930s.
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Mary Louise is a fascinating political figure. She is the only woman to chair the RNC. She is the only woman to organize a quadrennial presidential nominating convention for a major party. A fiscal conservative who supported Barry Goldwater’s disastrous 1964 presidential candidacy, she became a social moderate, supporting abortion rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, and gay rights and remained a fiscal conservative. She was almost sixty years old when she accepted the chairmanship and while it was not a lifelong dream, she loved leading the party.
After Ford’s loss, the party took a sharp turn to the right, which is well-documented and beyond the scope of this overview. Mary Louise, however, maintained her moderate views, becoming more visible in her advocacy for them, challenging presidential candidates and presidents to moderate their positions. President Ronald Reagan appointed her to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and then went to great lengths to get rid of the former chairman of his party—it was a thoroughly captivating drama. Ultimately, the party rejected her. Maybe ejected is a better word. In 1996, she was denied access to the floor of the party’s convention. She could get a pass to the balcony, but not to the floor of the convention, where her friends were, where the action was, where every former chairman could go, except her.
Maybe you knew Mary Louise. Maybe you have a favorite story about her. Maybe you were a party state chairman during her time as chairman and have a few words you’d like to say about her leadership. If you do, please send your comments to:
