Chicago convention – Don't Gel Too Soon

Big Birthday Memory #16: (More 1968) Obama, Clinton, New Hampshire And Primaries – 1968 And 2008

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I’ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today – from January 8, 2008.

In the 1968 New Hampshire primary, 40 years ago, Senator Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote running against Lyndon Johnson .

That was enough to be viewed as a win, since no one thought he’d get anywhere close to those numbers. That victory by the only national politician with the guts to run against the Vietnam War sent a shock through the Democratic Party.

McCarthy’s effort, often called “The Children’s Crusade,” was comprised largely of college students (including me) who abandoned their studies to come to New Hampshire and work to help to stop the war. Now, as I watch Barack Obama, and see the the numbers of young people propelling his success, I know just how they feel — and what awaits them if they fail.

Then too, win or lose, things will be tough for Senator Clinton. Obama, seen not only as a change agent but also as someone who offe

That’s exactly what happened in 1968. The New Hampshire victory brought Robert Kennedy into the race – establishing, until his tragic death, a three-way battle – two dissidents against the juggernaut of the Democratic establishment. Then later, Hubert Humphrey , candidate of that establishment and for years, as Vice President, public and energetic supporter of Johnson’s war, won the nomination.

To all of us, he had stolen the nomination. Many (not me) were so bitter that they refused to vote for him. (2016 NOTE: Let’s not let this happen again! That reluctance led to the election of Richard Nixon and all that followed. Think how different things would be…) Remember, for most of us, as for many of Obama’s young supporters, this was our first presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, should she prevail further down the line, will face the same broken-hearted campaigners. Once the anti-establishment, anti-war student and Watergate hearing staffer, in the eyes of these young people she’ll be cast as the villain.

For evidence of how long that bitterness lasts, take a look at this quote from the American Journalism Review, from the 1968 Chicago Convention recollections of veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder. It’s about me – but it’s also about any young American who takes a stand and loses .

He recalls coming into the hotel lobby from the park where demonstrations were underway and spotting a woman he had first met during the Eugene McCarthy campaign in New Hampshire. “Her name was Cindy Samuels,” Broder still remembers. “She was seated on a bench crying. She had been gassed. I went over and I put my arm around her and I said: ‘Cindy. What can I do for you?’ She looked up at me with tears on her face and said: ‘Change things.’

NOTE: As I searched for links for this post I found a David Corn piece saying much the same thing. I want to take note of it since the ideas came to me independently but I didn’t want it to seem that I drew from his.

1968-2008 FORTY YEARS SINCE THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION IN CHICAGO AND I WAS THERE

I wonder if you can imagine what it felt like to be 22 years old, totally idealistic and what they call “a true believer” and to see policemen behave like that. To see Chicago Mayor Richard Daley call the first Jewish Senator, Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, a “kike” (you had to read his lips – there was no audio but it was pretty clear) and to see your friends, and colleagues, and some-time beloveds with black eyes and bleeding scalps. To be dragged by a Secret Service agent from your place next to Senator McCarthy by the collar of your dress as he addressed the demonstrators, battered, bruised and angry. To see everything you’d worked for and believed in decimated in the class, generational and political warfare.

That’s how it was. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, of course, on this momentous anniversary – when hopefully another, happier landmark will emerge in the extraordinary nomination of Senator Obama. I’ve been to every Convention from 1968 until this year. It’s kind of sad to break the chain after 40 years but I think I’m ready. I did a workshop on convention coverage at the BlogHer conference to pass the torch; I’m so excited for all the women who are going. Just as Senator Obama is a generation behind me – in his 40s to my 60s – a little kid when we faced billy clubs and tear gas in his home town, so are many of the bloggers credentialed to cover the week. I know it will be great for them and that they’ll make certain we know – in twitteriffic detail, what’s going on.

I know too that, 40 years from now, it will still be a milestone
memory in their lives. I started to write “hopefully, a happier one”
but despite all the agony of those terrible days in 1968, I’m embarrassed to tell you that I wouldn’t trade the memory. It’s so deep in my soul and so much a part of my understanding of myself and who I’ve become that despite the horrors within it, I cherish its presence. So, what I wish my sisters in Denver (and Minnesota) is to have conventions — happy or not — as important to their lives, sense of history and purpose and political values as Chicago was to mine. Along with, of course, the fervent hope that this time, there will be something closer to a happy ending.

OBAMA, CLINTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE AND PRIMARIES – 1968 AND 2008

In the 1968 New Hampshire primary, 40 years ago, Senator Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote running against Lyndon Johnson .

Then too, win or lose, things will be tough for Senator Clinton. Obama, seen not only as a change agent but also as someone who offers the hope and optimism of a JFK, has captured the imaginations not only of young people but also of many journalists, most notorious of whom is the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. That means that anyone who wrests the nomination away from him will be perceived as the breaker of young hearts, standing in the way of idealism and the candidate who brought young people fully in to the system.*

To all of us, he had stolen the nomination. Many (not me) were so bitter that they refused to vote for him. Remember, for most of us, as for many of Obama’s young supporters, this was our first presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, should she prevail further down the line, will face the same broken-hearted campaigners. Once the anti-establishment, anti-war student and Watergate hearing staffer, in the eyes of these young people she’ll be cast as the villain.

For evidence of how long that bitterness lasts, take a look at this quote from the American Journalism Review, from the 1968 Chicago Convention, riot and Hum prey coronation recollections of veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder. It’s about me – but it’s also about any young American who takes a stand and loses .