elections – 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.

Bruce, Stipe, Mellencamp, Matthews & More (and Farewell NABLOPOMO)

Consider this post a public service announcement.

We’re ending this month with so much sadness and bad news and facing an election year sure to bring much more. SO instead of the long NABLOPOMO meditation I’d planned I offer you the last song from the best concert I have ever been to IN MY LIFE, not just because this amazing lineup* (it was almost too much to absorb,) but because it existed to serve the 2004 Democratic ticket as John Kerry challenged George Bush.

Yeah I know he lost, but the song – this song – written by Patti Smith, still helps to remind us today of the task that lies before us. “The People Have the Power.” We, the people, need to do all we can to protect our rights and fight to revive those stolen from us: the Voting Rights Act, the terrible assaults on women’s healthcare providers, especially Planned Parenthood, racial injustice and pain beyond describing, xenophobia and hate speech from those who would lead us. We can’t afford to lose.

So, enjoy the music and take it to heart, then remember for the next year that those people who have the power?

They’re us.

*Babyface, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews Band, Dixie Chicks, Eddie Vedder, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, John Fogerty, John Mellencamp, Jurassic 5, Keb’ Mo’, Pearl Jam, R.E.M.

Do We Love this or What?

Politics Online Conference: The Political Speakers – A Summary

For the past two days I've been at this Politics Online Conference here in DC.

It's been around for a few years now, but this one was huge and rich. Among those who spoke: Politicians: Senator Claire McCaskill (MO), Reps. Steve Israel (NY), Cathy Morris Rogers (WA)and Tim Ryan (OH), Secretaries of State Jennifer Brunner (OH) and Debra Bowen (CA). Their panels were about the uses of mostly social media to maintain consistent and two-way contact with their constituents. It's fascinating to realize that when a congressman shows up at an event, constituents "know what books I've been reading from me Facebook page" and stop by to discuss them. Ryan had an interesting take on it: "FDR had the radio, JFK had the television, and Obama has — you." The confluence between the politician and the tool and the times seems to be of utmost importance.

According to all the speakers, these kinds of interaction have radically altered their relationships with voters, and, according to McCaskill, with staff. The communications staff has no control or prior knowledge of her tweets. As she put it, holding up her blackberry "I'm on my own with this thing." Sometimes, apparently, they aren't thrilled with the result.

The other great political panel was, to paraphrase Spencer Tracy in Pat and Mike, "small but choice." Obama Director of Online Media Joe Rospars (on the right) nd McCain eCampaign Director Michael Palmer (on the left) discussed, and disagreed, with a focus on their work online. There was lots of great information, both anecdotal and strategic, but sadly, the overriding element turned out to be the bitterness Palmer still feels about their defeat. It's tough to let go after working that hard, but, as many observed, this seemed beyond that. Even so, it was revealing to hear Rospars, as he often does, attribute their online success as much to "respect for people and treating them like adults" as to any technological parlor tricks. It's actually consistent with the Obama folks when they're on panels or appearing in public events; they never talks about "I" did this or that. They are all very careful to attribute their success to their team. When complimented for that, the response is usually "but it's true!"

To come: A riveting youth vote panel and one on mobile campaigning, and a look at some of the cool but more esoteric events.

OH and if you're wondering why this post is so late, it's because there was no usable wireless at the Reagan Center and the damn Mac Air has no Ethernet plug! How frustrating do you think that was?

BLOGGING BOOMERS #93 AND I’M HOST. ELECTION POSTS AND LOTS MORE

From here in Washington, DC, nerve center of exhausted political junkies and traumatized McCain supporters comes this week’s Blogging Boomers Blog Carnival.

Those two Fabulous After 40 gals (who are fabulous) remind us that if we think we might be shrinking "You’re right. Starting at 40 we lost half an inch in height every decade."

What’s a boomer gal to do, other than wear high heels? Check out
Fabulous after 40 for fashion advice on How to dress to look taller.

John at SoBabyBoomer has found a new study has found that women have a
greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do. So, he wonders, "Should guys worry about holding hands with
women? Find out at SoBabyBoomer.com

Maybe those germy women would feel better if they knew how to manage in today’s economy? If, so this week’s Vaboomers is for them. They’re sponsoring a free seminar: How to Manifest What You Need in Difficult Times" for women coping with the current economy.

The Midlife Crisis Queen has something different on her mind:

We
make all kinds of mistaken assumptions about the opposite sex when it comes to
sex. Here’s some wrong assumptions made by men and here’s some made by women.

Boston’s own Rhea Becker, like most of us, still had the election on her mind. As she says "History was made this week. A baby boomer was elected president of the United States. Learn more at The Boomer Chronicles.

Also with elections on her mind, Janet at Gen Plus shares her reaction to Obama’s acceptance speech. And, like any of you, yes….she wept.

Meanwhile, over at LifeTwo, we’re getting some exciting ideas: The key to happiness, according to university researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is the concept of "flow." Flow are those activities in which you are so deeply involved that you feel outside reality.

As usual, I Remember JFK has a great social memory to offer: TV Trays. "The living room of the 1960’s was a warm, friendly place. True, times had changed since our parents might have first purchased our modest homes fifteen or twenty years prior. Most living rooms in the US had a new center of attention: the television set. That one-eyed monster changed the purpose of the home’s central location from a place of casual conversation, or possible listening to the radio, to the spot where our parents unwound after a long day at work, accompanied by a cocktail, Walter Cronkite and a TV dinner.

Thankful for new leadership in the land, Dina at This Marriage Thing challenges us all to bring that same feeling home with the Gratitude Project. I’ve actually been there – it’s pretty cool.

Oh and if you can stand one more election post, here’s mine. It’s about having been in Grant Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention riots, and watching Obama accept the presidency on that very spot.

OBAMA’S VICTORY GARDEN – EXORCISING DAYS OF RAGE

Grant Park 1968 – in the heart of Chicago. Grant Park — where my friends and I were gassed and beaten – terrified and abused – during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Grant Park – haunted by so much.

Here’s how I remembered it on the 40th anniversary this summer:

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.

Why does this matter, you ask? Because, this moment – 40 years later — as Barack Obama assumed the leadership of our country with such an elegant speech, informed and supported in part by the values, and people, who fought, bled and wept through those awful days and by a majority of those as young now as we were then and just as committed to the vision they’ve been offered and by an enormous, excited turnout, black and white, — he did so on this same site, in the shadow of the Hilton where we put all the kids with broken heads — and tried to keep the tear gas out of our eyes. We’ve been haunted by that time for so long, and as far as I can tell, this was an exorcism. As I heard a commentator say this morning: “The culture wars are over. The Vietnam War is over.” And not a moment too soon.

What’s happening is far larger of course. Yesterday morning we voted in our lovely DC neighborhood, middle class, well-kept, bikes and an excellent walk-to-it elementary school, so of course
there was a long line waiting to vote in a riot of autumn color. We stood for two hours even though Washington would clearly choose Obama, (and did so with 92% of our votes.) Each individual vote
wasn’t urgently needed. Instead, it was the need to cast the vote that
was urgent.

Diverse in age and history, largely African-American, our community stood
together, talking, laughing, meeting new friends in front of or behind us
in line. People had their kids with them, called grown kids on the phone from line and waved at late-arriving neighbors. It was one of those moments where you feel history all around you, and a remarkable privilege to be voting in such company, who’ve worked through all the years of discord to maintain a civil, multicultural community. A bonus.

Beyond this landmark day, though, the next months are going to be tough. As the new White House staff, cabinet and administration form, all this free-floating joy will take on concrete forms that remind us of the huge challenges and risks that face us. There will be things that disappoint us, and things that make us mad. The reality that caused people to elect this man will descend upon us in a relentless economic, social, military and persona avalanche and we may be hard-pressed to remember the joy we felt last night; the promise that has so engaged us.

When that happens, I will think of the older African-American man who called out “shalom” to us in the canvassing orientation when he saw my friend’s yarmulke, of the excited first-voters — just 18 or newly naturalized — whom we met as we walked through one Virginia housing complex after another, of our four-year-old door-bell-ringer beside himself over “Obama” and asking everyone from the supermarket checker to his teachers to vote for him, of my sons last night calling and texting literally across a continent and an ocean, of the day I was electrified by the broadcast of Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, of the fact that 66% of under-30 voters, so long detached and cynical*, voted for Obama, and, finally, of the distance we have to go – and won’t — unless we work together to resolve each challenge and, perhaps more importantly, each disagreement.

This is a great day. And a scary one. And now, as our new president-elect prepares to do his part, we have to resolve to do ours: to work through those disappointments and disagreements, to accept the call to contribute and to sacrifice and, as he and Abraham Lincoln before him asked us, to heed to the “better angels of of our nature.” They’re there – and we’re going to need them. If they can show up, and Barack Obama can show up, so can we.

* (speaking of younger voters): A friend of my sons (a third son, really) sent me this from one of his favorite blogs. It’s just so sweet.

Stumble It!

OBAMA AND RACE: THE LESSONS OF DINKINS AND BRADLEY

I lived in Manhattan in 1989 when David Dinkins ran to become the first African-American mayor of New York, challenging an entrenched but increasingly unpopular Ed Koch in the primary, then defeating Rudy Giuliani in the general election. In that race, Dinkins was far ahead in the polls but didn’t win by much. Here’s how Adam Berinsky of The Monkey Cage describes it:

I
examined data from a 1989 New York City Mayoral election. There, the black
candidate David Dinkins held a fourteen- to eighteen-point advantage over his
white opponent Rudolph Giuliani in polls taken only days before the election,
but ended up winning the race by less than two percentage points. Correcting
the polls using statistical techniques that accounted for the “don’t know”
improved the predictive power of those polls. Clearly, some people who said
they didn’t know how they were going to vote in fact did know – they just
didn’t want to tell us.

The same thing happened earlier, in 1982, to one of LA’s most popular, and first black, mayors, Tom Bradley, when he ran for governor of California. The gap between the polls and the electoral results was so large that the phenomenon was named "the Bradley effect." Way ahead in polls right up to election day, Bradley lost decisively to George Deukmejian.

I’m so afraid that this presidential race may be tainted by some of the same behavior. Of course I’m not covering new ground, just aggregating some good thoughts. Listen to the work of the very wise Jill Miller Zimon at Writes Like She Talks, in which she quotes Tim Wise’s "This Is Your Nation on White Privilege." The fact that that post generated some very heated comments speaks to the currency of this issue, right now.

Continue reading OBAMA AND RACE: THE LESSONS OF DINKINS AND BRADLEY

DECLARE YOURSELF: VOTE. IT’S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO!

My good buddy Jenn Satterwhite posted this last week and although it’s a little nerdy, it’s kind of cute. At least it’s fun – especially if you’re my age and used to have to watch films like this for real. It comes from an organization called Declare Yourself. Aimed at 18-year-olds, it reaches out through these online PSAs and other tools to engage younger people in voting. Sponsors range from Yahoo to Clear Channel to Starbucks. I don’t know how they’re doing, but the videos are fun. There’s one here and more on the site. Enjoy yourself.

WARNING – INAUGURATION DAY

Today is January 20th. Just one year – one year — from today we will Inaugurate a new president. So if we care what happens we better get busy if we’re not already I guess. What happens that day is going to matter plenty.

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 .