Posted on 04/27/2017 5:42:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Forty-nine years ago, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic candidate for president.
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one that saw the assassinations of rival candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. Lyndon Johnson's unpopular lame-duck Democratic administration imploded due to massive protests against the Vietnam War.
Yet Humphrey almost defeated Republican nominee Richard Nixon, losing the election by just over 500,000 votes (43.4 percent to 42.7 percent).
Infighting Democrats could have defeated the unpopular Nixon if not for a few unforeseen developments.
Their convention in Chicago turned into a creepy carnival of televised rioting and radical protests. Hippies and leftists were seen battling police in the streets on primetime news.
The former Democratic governor of Alabama, George Wallace, ran as a states' rights third-party candidate and drew 13.5 percent of the vote. Wallace destroyed the Democrats' traditional hold on the old "solid South" by winning five Southern states outright. He also siphoned off enough traditional Democratic supporters to give Nixon astonishing Republican victories in half a dozen other states in the region.
Nixon won over a few Northern blue-collar states that had often voted Democratic, such as Wisconsin and Ohio -- again with help from Wallace, who appealed to fed-up, working-class Democrats.
What was the lesson from 1968?
The Democrats could have recalibrated their message to appeal more to working-class voters.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Either Clinton 2.0:
Or perhaps even Clinton 3.0:
All while AntiFA continues its nonsense:
Dare I say the Last Democrat who actually cared for America.
After 1968 the Dem's went full on Total Anti-American Communist.
Yes during the FDR administration they were up the gills in the government too and tried to sell us out the Soviets at every turn.
After '68 and Vietnam. I don't know. I don't what changed. I admit, I was born 20 years later so I have no concept of what life and politics was like back then.
Still, Hubert Humphrey once tried to outlaw the Communist Party U.S.A.
Can you imagine the Dems doing that today?
I can. Why divide their base into two parties with different names but the same goals and political positions? They would outlaw the democrats to unify all socialists (Soviet Socialists, National Socialists, and other progressives) under the banner of the Democrat Party.
I agree, because the thought of either one of them to make it is very scary
Communist New Democrats fought for control of the Party and the Media in 1968, won, and have colluded on elections ever since.
They also hold the power in academia and big business these days. Corporate liberalism (and globalism) is king.
The first-ever year I voted. Interestingly enough, it was also the last year I ever voted Democrat.
Is it possible to write the words “civil rights” without them being followed by the word “icon?”
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Exactly! Icon implies veneration, almost worship. I’m pretty sick of it.
Not sure what this has to do with 1972 as most of it is based on a shaky comparison with 1968, but a good history summary nonetheless.
The events of 1968 were not analogous to 2016. Donald Trump was a particularly strong candidate in blue-collar working class states with an independent appeal that resonated and still resonates with voters that are fed up with establishment uniparty politics.
There was no Wallace in the 2016 race. Sanders had no such appeal. The Wallace phenomenon was a reaction to a heavy-handed Kennedy-Johnson Civil Rights crackdown on states that saw massively unpopular forced busing. No such animus existed in 2016.
What existed in 1968 that is analogous to 2016 is a failure to inspire and lead. LBJ and Obama are alike in that both were failures in leadership. They are different in that Obama had achieved some sort of bizarre cult status which in my opinion is paper thin. But Obama was followed by Hillary Clinton whose platform was never well-defined other than it was her turn and she had a vagina. Her alternative was a geriatric fellow that had a few sound bites but very little energy and speed. The entire slate of democrats for high office was a dismal spectacle.
My view is that democrats may regroup and regain lost ground but it won’t be by 2020. It will be well beyond 2020.
I voted for McGovern at age 18-a proud 18-year-old. The first time 18-year olds were allowed to vote. 12 years later I voted Reagan. What changed? Age 30. You know yourself better then. Too bad the rest of us boomers never grew up.
[Infighting Democrats could have defeated the unpopular Nixon if not for a few unforeseen developments.]
Nixon was unpopular in ‘68?
He was the Law and Order candidate.
Humphrey was the candidate (VP) representing the disastrous Johnson administration.
Go ahead. Just try to get that gear cluster to turn.
American Independent Wallace got 9.9 million or 13.5%.
Nixon 301 ELECTORAL votes from 32 states.
Humphrey 191 ELECTORAL votes from 13 states + DC.
Wallace 46 ELECTORAL votes from 5 states.
Even if the 46 electoral votes for Wallace were swung to Humphrey, he would only have 237, and Nixon would still have 301.
At that time, the South was still Democrat, even though Wallace took Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
So then where were you in 1980 when Reagan ran and won the first time?
FReegards!
VDH makes a good point that Nixon took a lot of southern states that ordinarily would have gone for Humphrey but for Wallace siphoning off dem votes to cause those states to fall into the GOP column.
So yes, Wallace likely caused Humphrey the election.
But there was no Wallace presence in 2016, not one as strong and pervasive as Wallace was in 1968.
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