Charles Mathias, R.I.P.

Former U.S. Sen. Charles Mathias has died.  He was 87 years old.

Mathias is one of those figures who achieved a certain prominence in public affairs for a few brief years before being quickly forgotten.  He was, to date, the last Republican to represent the state of Maryland in the U.S. Senate, serving from 1969 until his retirement in 1987.

Mathias was, in many ways, the epitome of the type of liberal Republican who dominated the party from the Goldwater debacle of 1964 until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.  As such, Mathias represented the wing of the party that, in the end, accomplished little beyond giving us Watergate.

Which is not to say that Mathias was not deserving of praise.  Most notably, Mathias was an outspoken supporter of civil rights, openly championing proposals that, at the time, put his political career in very serious jeopardy.  Representing a Southern, heavily Democratic state in the Senate, it took a certain amount of courage for Mathias to support even the mildest of civil rights measures.  That alone makes Mathias worthy of some amount of praise.

Much like Daniel Brewster (the youthful incumbent that Mathias defeated in 1968), Charles Mathias flirted occasionally with running for President.  (Brewster served as Lyndon Johnson's stand-in during the 1964 Democratic Primary in Maryland.)  In 1976, Mathias openly contemplated either entering the Republican primaries or running as an independent in the general election.  At the time, Mathias said that he felt that Ronald Reagan was forcing Gerald Ford too far to the right.  Though Mathias never actually officially entered the contest, contemporary reports would seem to indicate that he spent a lot of time openly thinking about it.  If nothing else, this would indicate that Charles Mathias was the Chuck Hagel of his  time.

After 1976, Mathias appeared to spend the majority of his time not only worrying about the conservative direction of the Republican Party but also talking about it as well.  One should perhaps not be surprised to discover that Mathias was not extremely popular with many Republicans and even after the Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate in 1981, Mathias was something of an odd man out.

Mathias emerged from obscurity in 2008 and endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency.  This would be surprising if not for the fact that almost every out-of-office liberal Republican in the nation ended up endorsing Obama in 2008.  Mathias was unique in that, unlike such men as former U.S. Rep. Pete McCloskey, he did not officially switch his party affiliation at the same time.

Charles Mathias, R.I.P.

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