{"id":4371,"date":"2016-05-11T09:28:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T16:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=4371"},"modified":"2016-05-10T09:18:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T16:18:37","slug":"big-birthday-memory-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/11\/big-birthday-memory-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Birthday Memory #16: (More 1968) Obama, Clinton, New Hampshire And Primaries – 1968 And 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today \u2013 from\u00a0January 8, 2008.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"McCarthy<\/a>In the 1968 New Hampshire primary, 40 years ago, Senator Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote running against Lyndon Johnson <\/a>.<\/p>\n

That was enough to be viewed as a win, since no one thought he’d get\u00a0anywhere close to those numbers.\u00a0 That \u00a0victory by the only national\u00a0politician with the guts to run against the Vietnam War sent a shock through the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0work to help to stop the war.\u00a0 Now, as I watch Barack Obama, and see the\u00a0<\/a>the numbers of young people<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>propelling\u00a0his success, I know just how they feel — and what awaits them if they\u00a0fail.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

That’s exactly what happened in 1968.\u00a0 The New Hampshire victory brought Robert Kennedy <\/a>into the race – establishing, until his tragic death, a three-way battle – two dissidents against the juggernaut of the Democratic establishment.\u00a0 Then later, Hubert Humphrey<\/a>,<\/a> candidate of that establishment and for years, as Vice President, public and energetic supporter of Johnson’s war, won the nomination.<\/p>\n

To all of us, he had stolen the nomination.\u00a0 Many (not me) were so bitter that they refused to vote for him. \u00a0(2016 NOTE: Let’s not let this happen again! That reluctance led to the election of Richard Nixon and all that followed. \u00a0Think how different things would be…) Remember, for most of us, as for many of Obama’s young supporters, this was our first presidential campaign.\u00a0 Hillary Clinton, should she prevail further down the line, will face the same broken-hearted campaigners.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Mccarthy_poster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For evidence of how long that bitterness lasts, take a look at this quote from the American Journalism Review<\/a>, from the 1968 Chicago Convention recollections of veteran Washington Post columnist \u00a0<\/a>David Broder<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s about me – but it’s also about any young American who takes a stand and loses .<\/p>\n

He recalls coming into the hotel lobby from the park where demonstrations were underway and spotting a\u00a0woman he had first met during the Eugene McCarthy campaign in New\u00a0Hampshire. “Her name was Cindy Samuels,” Broder still remembers. “She was seated on a bench crying. She had been gassed. I went over and I\u00a0put my arm around her and I said: ‘Cindy. What can I do for you?’ She\u00a0looked up at me with tears on her face and said: ‘Change things.’<\/em><\/p>\n

NOTE:\u00a0 As I searched for links for this post I found a David Corn piece<\/a> saying much the same thing.\u00a0 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.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today \u2013 from\u00a0January 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 … Continue reading Big Birthday Memory #16: (More 1968) Obama, Clinton, New Hampshire And Primaries – 1968 And 2008<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3799,3800,3,4,3798,3801,27,9],"tags":[3413,278,279,3841,283,1306,1811,1813,865,1812,166,1304,1292,1934,1810,644,253,1809,92,21,1060,1074,1584,1679,1585,1815,1816,3840],"class_list":["post-4371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-3799","category-3800","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-big-birthday","category-big-birthday-70-1946-2016","category-current-affairs","category-politics","tag-3413","tag-278","tag-barack-obama","tag-believe","tag-campaign","tag-chicago-convention","tag-childrens-crusade","tag-cindy-samuels","tag-clinton","tag-david-broder","tag-elections","tag-eugene-mccarthy","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-idealism","tag-iowa-caucus","tag-mccarthy-campaign","tag-new-hampshire","tag-new-hampshire-primary","tag-obama","tag-politics-2","tag-presidential-campaign","tag-presidential-election","tag-presidential-nomination","tag-presidential-primary","tag-richard-nixon","tag-young-campaigners","tag-young-supporters","tag-young-voter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-18v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4371"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4408,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions\/4408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}