1968: Nixon vs. Kennedy

Sorry, Millennial Moderate, I am getting my info from firsthand knowledge. To refer to my earlier post, I was a teenager living in N YC in 1968 and was very aware and involved in politics in that year. Many of today's young people lack the ability to understand historical perspective.

America was a very different place in 1968, much more conservative and family-oriented in that our WW2 and Korean War veterans were in their prime years then. True, RFK was popular among minorities, but young liberals were split between him and Eugene McCarthy. Remember, Kennedy joined the race for the Democratic nomination for President only after McCarthy had shown that LBJ was vulnerable. Many potential supporters considered RFK a self-serving opportunist and would never support him for the nomination. You may overlook that in 1968, the voting age was 21, making many college students unable to participate in the election that year. Most working-class whites and blacks supported our country's efforts in the Vietnam war, as Nixon and Wallace garnered over 57% of the total vote for President in 1968. The majority of Americans continued their support for the war through 1972, evidenced by Nixon's landslide victory over peace advocate George McGovern, even with the voting age lowered to 18 the previous year.

You seem to want to add RFK's appeal to Humphrey's totals to declare him the victor in 1968. Unfortunately, politics is not a zero-sum game. LBJ worked hard for Humphrey but would reverse-course if Kennedy, whom he hated, was the nominee. The enmity of a sitting President and the powerful leader of the Democratic Party would, in itself, ensure RFK's defeat. It is not hard to imagine Johnson enlisting J. Edgar Hoover's participation to embarrass Kennedy.

One must also subtract organized labor from Kennedy's vote totals and fundraising efforts. Unlike today, organized labor was a very strong political factor in 1968 and was a significant part of Humphrey's base. Union leaders, however, hated RFK for his aggressive and humiliating questions investigating the Teamsters and his participation in ending the US Steel strike. Even Kennedy's appeal among minority voters has to be discounted as it is hard to envision any stronger support for RFK then that was shown in 1968 for Humphrey. Hubert Humphrey had much more credibility with black Americans in 1968 than Kennedy. It was Mayor of Minneapolis Humphrey's brave speech on civil rights to the 1948 Democratic Convention that hastened the walkout of the "Dixiecrats" leading to Strom Thurmond's State's Rights Party and his candidacy for President that year. Lastly, Mayor Daley of Chicago, being a loyal Democrat and close to President Johnson makes it inconceivable that he would have broken with LBJ to support Kennedy.

The veneration for long-dead politicans may be admirable, but any effort to understand the politics of over 50 years ago with only the perspective of today's electorate is limiting. RFK would not have won the nomination nor have beaten Nixon in 1968. I urge anyone interested in the Presidential Election of 1968 to read James Rogan's excellent book "On To Chicago" which depicts the scenario: What if RFK lived?.

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