Ex-Congressman calls moderate Republicans a "vanishing breed"

Republican Richard Mallary narrowly list a U.S. Senate bid in 1974Former Republican Rep. Richard W. Mallary is not certain he would have been re-elected to the US Senate had he defeated Democrat Patrick J. Leahy in his 1974 U.S. Senate bid, Mallary told PolitickerVT.com on Sunday.

“Given my political philosophy, I would not have lasted long. I’m a moderate Republican and that seems to be a vanishing breed,” said the 78-year-old Mallary, who won a Special Election for Congress in 1971 and was re-elected in 1972.

Mallary faced off against Leahy, a 34-year-old Prosecutor in a state that had never sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. But it was 1974 – the Watergate scandal had cost Richard M. Nixon the presidency and Republicans four Senate seats and 48 House seats nationally. Leahy beat Mallary by 4,406 votes – 49%-46%. (Bernard Sanders, the Liberty Union candidate, won 4%.

Reflecting on the 33-year Senate career of Leahy, the powerful Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mallary said: “From his perspective, he’s been quite successful. He’s been re-elected.”

“Does that mean I agree with him?” the former Congressman was quick to add. “No.”