When they ran against Grant, the Liberal Republicans had badly misjudged their own ideological appeal. More than that, they both overestimated the power of ideology in American politics and misunderstood how the Civil War and its aftermath had changed those politics. Liberal Republicans had expected one or both of the old parties to disappear in 1872, and they thought that voters would coalesce around their issues and positions. They were wrong about many things. This was one of them.
