anyone here old enough to remember eugene mccarthy?

[DesertFlower]

http://www.4president.org/brochures/1968/mccarthy1968brochure.htm

[elleng]

1. Hell yes!

[yeoman6987]

2. Sounds familiar

I was born in 1969 so maybe not actually remember him but remember hearing the name.

[840high]

3. Yes.

[guillaumeb]

4. I voted for him.

But did not go "clean for Gene".

[Freelancer]

5. Wasn't he the professor on 'Gilligan's Island'? -- kidding

Or was he Thurston Howell III?

[Snobblevitch]

6. I was just a little kid,

but hanging on a wall in my dad's house there is a photo of me and my brothers posing with Senator McCarthy.

There are photos of us with VP Mondale and VP Humphrey after he went back to the senate.

[scarletwoman]

7. Of course. "Clean for Gene."

I couldn't vote in that election because they hadn't changed the voting age to 18 yet, but I campaigned for him. It was just the first of many elections which broke my heart.

[DesertFlower]

10. broke my heart when i couldn't vote

for JFK. i was 19 and the voting age was 21.

[msongs]

8. "a breath of fresh air" - with bernie hair lol nt

[DesertFlower]

9. yes. i was 26 at the time and so many

people i knew liked him.

[murielm99]

11. Of course.

I liked him. I was not old enough to vote yet.

[Hekate]

12. My first presidential campaign was for McCarthy; I was still 20 when my friends and I ran the HQ ...

....in the town, not on campus, and when the votes were all counted that June 6, we carried our end of San Bernardino County for Gene McCarthy... Which was some small comfort in the utter shock of the next day, when I woke up to find out that Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated and all our hopes were dead along with him. I turned 21 at the end of September.

Yeah, I remember.

Aside from me being a lot older, the political circumstances this year vis a vis Bernie Sanders are different than they were in 1968. If that's where you were going with this -- one "silver haired Solon" to another.

Jeb Bush is no Richard Nixon, though the people who have gravitated toward him may be akin to Tricky Dick. Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson. The mess in the Middle East is not the Vietnam War, and we sure as hell don't have a draft. In some respects it might be better if we did have a draft -- as Ben Franklin said, "The prospect of being hanged in the morning wonderfully concentrates the mind," and it sure made my generation sit up and take notice.

We obviously have problems of our own right now, and maybe Bernie is the answer. Or maybe Hillary. But surely if we remember anything at all from 1968, it's that Democrats and the Democratic Party can do a really really good job of defeating ourselves. Because we did that then. Hubert Humphrey, a good populist from Minnesota, was defeated by Richard Nixon with the help of police riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention and a whole lot of angryDems who wanted RFK (who was dead) or Gene McCarthy (who lost), and who decided that HHH was irretrievably tainted by having been LBJ's veep.

Amazing what I remember.

[appalachiablue]

13. Imagine having to settle for a Humphrey now, what different times.

[Hekate]

17. Disappointed Dems said so many nasty things about Humphrey. It was truly self-defeating.

Don't you remember that part?

We can do that again, you know. Help a Republican extremist win by destroying a Democratic nominee or front runner.

[appalachiablue]

18. I was too young, but vaguely remember Humphrey being considered second rate at

least for a while. What a difficult, turbulent time obviously. No GOP extremist help.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

26. It was awful

I was not born, but people really don't realize how much Hubert Humphrey did to transform the Democratic party from the old South to a plank of progression on civil rights as far back as the late 40's.

[DesertFlower]

20. exactly.

[yardwork]

45. Yes, I remember too. It could happen.

I strongly disagree with attacking Democrats. We can run positive campaigns in the primaries without tearing down ourselves.

I hope never to see another year like 1968 again in my life.

[DesertFlower]

19. what's amazing is how young we were. like i said i was 26 -- a divorced

mom working to support my child, but with an interest in politics and i also wanted to have fun. got married at 19 -- way too young. so i juggled them all. fortunately i had family who took care of my son. never had to worry if i had to work late or if i wanted to go out and party.

my grandfather was president of a democratic club for most of his life, but it wasn't my family who made me a democrat. it was my choice.

i'm sure grandpa who passed in '70 would be proud of me.

[pnwmom]

14. Yes, and he is why I think Bernie is a pipe dream.

But we shall see.

[Paladin]

36. Agreed.

Living through McCarthy '68 and McGovern '72, I got over my ideological purity tests for presidential candidates. I hope to hell we don't have to learn it all over again---but then, we don't seem to have learned very much from Viet Nam, have we?

[pnwmom]

44. The other thing we didn't learn after Vietnam, apparently,

is that having a military draft won't solve our problems. After so many of us struggled to rid the country of a draft, many DUers seem to think that a reinstated draft could bring an end to unwanted wars.

[JEB]

15. I was 16 and watching and reading Eugene McCarthy

helped form my political ideals. My friend's dad said he was voting for McCarthy and my friend and I decided that he thought Joe was running.

[former9thward]

16. Eugene McCarthy would not be popular on this site by today's standards.

His campaign was completely funded by Stewart Mott, heir to the GM fortune, and a couple of other millionaires. Under today's law his campaign would not even be legal.

[sgtbenobo]

24. At least this guy tried to do the right thing with his money.

He came, he lived, and then died quietly.

While pursuing his education, Mr. Mott worked as an apprentice in various family enterprises. In the academic year of 1963-64, he taught English at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich. His philanthropy began when he returned to Flint and started the city’s first branch of Planned Parenthood. He then traveled the nation on behalf of Planned Parenthood.

He was not your normal 1%. He tried and lost. The entitled do that sometimes.

Carry on.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

25. If I recall, he was cagey about his abortion stance, too

Said something like he'd let the VP handle it or something.....

[former9thward]

39. Almost no one was in support of abortion in 1968.

So I won't hold that against him.

[KT2000]

21. Absolutely

I wore his campaign button to a job interview and got the job even though they didn't agree with it!

[Divernan]

30. The hearings were Senator JOE McCarthy, as in McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism."[1] The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened political repression against communists, as well as a campaign spreading fear of their influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army%E2%80%93McCarthy_hearings

[Hekate]

23. The great thing was that my political self awoke, and I knew I'd be a Democrat for life....

To me it has always been a matter of ethics. It was and is so important I knew I could never marry a Republican.

[Kablooie]

27. I liked his friend Mortimer Snerd better.

[SheilaT]

28. Oh, yes.

Although I wasn't a fan of his, probably wouldn't have voted for him, not that it matters much since I wasn't old enough anyway, having been born in 1948.

I will say that the election of 1968 was a huge exercise in frustration for me, since I was not quite old enough to vote. I knew that Richard Nixon was a horrible choice. Not that Hubert Humphrey was a good choice, but I'd have voted for him over Nixon any day.

Because I was unable to vote until I turned 21, I was sufficiently turned off that I did not vote in 1972, which I still regret.

In 1976 I voted. I was a student at my local junior college (part time, working full time) and on election day that year, in my psychology class that morning, the professor at the beginning of class looked at us students and said,"Today is election day, as I'm sure all of you know. And I do hope that all of you are planning on voting today. But I'd like to remind you that a low voter turnout favors Republicans, so if you're a Republican, DON'T VOTE." I almost fell out of my chair laughing, and I was the only person in the class who got the vote. My instructor look at me with an expression of profound gratefulness.

I have voted in every election since then, including primary elections. I do often feel very angry that because of our totally stupid and anachronistic Electoral College, that my vote never really counts, and I threaten not to vote almost every election cycle, although I have always voted.

[Ms. Toad]

29. My first campaign work.

Not yet old enough to vote, but I could support the campaign in other ways.

[rogerashton]

31. We were canvassing for Gene --

I was a first-year prof at an upstate teacher's college and went out along with some of my students -- the leader was another prof from the soc department, I believe, a professed anarchist but doing electoral work for peace -- and that was when we heard that MLK had been assassinated. Yes, different times, and thank God, or whoever, for that.

[SteveG]

32. I went Clean for Gene

[Vinca]

33. Yes. It was a time when Democrats were still Democrats.

Then along came the "new Democrats" . . . ugh.

[MineralMan]

35. I am. In fact 1968 was my first presidential election.

I was in the third year of my enlistment in the USAF, and recently returned from 15 months stationed in Turkey. I got back just in time to be horrified by the convention in Chicago. I voted for Humphrey, but had hoped that McCarthy would be the nominee. Disappointed again. In the spring of 1969, I had the displeasure to be introduced to Nixon at the place where I worked, near the end of my service.

Shortly after that, my enlistment ended and I resumed trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. I still haven't decided, really. 1968 was my first truly disappointing presidential election. There have been others.

[DesertFlower]

37. it was disappointing and then in '72

nixon was re-elected. couldn't believe it, but then came watergate.

i was unemployed at the time so i was glued to the tv for those hearings.

[olddots]

38. my first vote

and hopefully DUers my age first vote .

[ladyVet]

40. I have vague memories of McCarthy during that year.

I was just turned eleven in 1969, and my teacher had us do a segment on elections and voting. We were assigned a candidate and had to do a campaign slogan and poster (I drew Richard Nixon!).

[LiberalElite]

41. I am. nt

[Blue_In_AK]

42. Yes.

I supported him for president.

[UTUSN]

43. Yes. Winner takes it all & he wasn't winner. & we Dems love our NOBLE LOSERS. n/t