The following two articles ran in the NY Times today:
Democrats Wonder if Kerry Should Stay on Careful Path
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/politics/campaign/27DEMS.html?hpCiting a 'Shamed America,' Gore Calls for Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet and 3 Others to Resign
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/politics/27gore.htmlThis campaign has a lot of the political dynamics of 1968. Although the incumbency situation is turned around, this is a very similar battle, to produce a Democratic constituency united from left to center, made near impossible by a war that is unpopular (to differing degrees) among Democrats, but generally popular among Republicans.
1968 Democratic nomination: President Lyndon Johnson, who had achieved one of the greatest landslides in history four years before, was battered by anti-Vietnam war protests and the anti-war candidacy of Eugene McCarthy. After losing an upset to McCarthy in the NH primary, LBJ announced in March that he would not run for re-election. Hubert H. Humphrey (HHH), the Vice President, stepped in for the nomination against McCarthy and the newly announced Robert Kennedy. In April Martin Luther King was assassinated. In June Robert Kennedy was assassinated on the night that he won the California primary, in effect making him the frontrunner for the nomination. George McGovern stood in for Kennedy, but Humphrey made off with the nomination as the Chicago police were beating protesters bloody on national TV outside the convention.
The Republicans nominated Richard Nixon, who had completed his political comeback, and was staunchly pro-war and anti-Communist.
1968 campaign (where the similarity begins): Democrats were split between the anti-war left and the left-to-center, which hadn’t yet gotten on the anti-war bandwagon. Humphrey was in the position of being the candidate while his administration was fighting the war. He waffled on the issue until mid-fall, when he finally announced he would bring the troops home as President. By that time, Humphrey, who was a veteran Senator and one of the greatest of the prairie populist liberals, had lost his credentials with the left. Many stayed home, not seeing a difference in the two candidates.
Nixon beat Humphrey by .7% of the PV, although he racked up 300+ EV s. The Deep South went to George Wallace in that election, marking the transition between Democratic and Republican Presidential voting patterns in those states.
Can Kerry overcome the HHH dilemma?
