› A paid advertisement in this newspaper on Sunday by Dr. Edward L. Baker Jr., son of former 3rd District Congressman LaMar Baker, said he was “certain” that his father “would join others who have concluded that the current nominee of the Republican Party lacks the character and core values to lead our country.”
He based his opinion on the fact his father concluded, 50 years ago this month, “that President Nixon was not the kind of person he could support” because of the Watergate scandal in which he was involved.
In the ad, the younger Baker also said his father was “initially a loyal supporter of Richard Nixon” and that “his decision to turn away from Nixon … came too late in his 1974 reelection campaign, which he lost … .”
According to newspaper archives, the congressman supported the president almost to the very end of his presidency. On the day before Nixon resigned on Aug. 8, 1974, Baker said in a United Press International article that he found himself in a hard situation “because the man has done so much good.” In an Associated Press report, Baker was called “one of the President’s most vociferous backers.”
Baker said in the UPI article he would vote for impeachment if Nixon didn’t resign and said in another story in the same edition he “would find it difficult to vote against the first article of impeachment (obstruction of justice).”