Did democrats vote for Humphrey in 1968? Did democrats vote for Carter in 1980?

[Herman Munster]

Did republicans vote for Ford in 1976?

Long drawn out nominations equate to candidate weakness. It doesn't matter if the nominee is chose by the superdelegates in June.

Obama had his chance on March 4th to close this race out.

He failed miserably and showed how weak a candidate he truly is with the party's base.

The meme here that democrats are all one big happy family and will fall in line and will gladly fall behind and vote for Obama if he wins the nomination is complete and utter fantasy.

[LSparkle]

1. I haven't heard the "fall in line" stuff from Obama's camp as much as from HRC

The way she's conducted this campaign -- focusing only on the "big" states and
ignoring smaller ones; first saying she'll follow the rules in Michigan and Florida
and then pandering to those voters only when she realizes (too late) that she needs
them -- has shown her disrespect for the grass roots. She's as much as said that
MANY of us don't count ... but she ASSUMES we'll fall in line if she's the nominee.

Obama has run a true 50-state campaign -- no dissing, no favorites. I think he's
shown that he takes NO VOTE for granted, and doesn't assume ANYONE will just "fall
in line" after the primary season is over.

[99th_Monkey]

2. Any Democrat who cannot vote for Obama, should change their registration to DINO.

There are plenty of sensible Republicans who will cross-over to vote for Obama, not because Obama is conservative and NOT
to cross-over to bugger the Democratic Primary outcome, but because they've seen what 8 years of Bush/Cheney policies have
done to America and they want a change in the worse way.

Hillary, of course, could have gotten some of these cross-overs too, had she won the Democratic nomination... but I think
it's even more true of Obama, because he hasn't gotten all "cozy" with Bush & McCain like the Clintons have done.

[JoFerret]

5. Welcome to 1968 and 1972 and 1980

- banner years for democrats.

Listen - the candidate has to run as president of the USA not your little club.

[99th_Monkey]

22. Thanks for making my point. Obama is precisely the candidate who WILL be Prez. of whole country.

He's shown time and again, that he can appeal to people across various "divides" in American public, young/old,
white/people-of-color, rich/poor, you name it.

Anyone who refuses to see that, well... I don't know what to say to them, because they obviously already have
had their mind made up for them by some other agenda than uniting America.

[JoFerret]

23. Oh right. Sure. Like Bush the uniter

I am feeling the love fest right now on DU.

[99th_Monkey]

24. The DU war's not Obama's doing, but you knew that.

[JoFerret]

3. Obama needs to stop being a sore winner for a start

.

[FredScuttle]

29. You mean Obama needs to stop winning, right?

n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. I voted Peace & Freedom party in '68.

I'll have few qualms about doing something similar in '08.

And, no qualms about doing so if the candidate is Hillary.

[AZ Criminal JD]

7. Thanks for giving us Nixon

[Hippo_Tron]

9. If I were 18-25 in 1968 I probably would've voted third party too

Usually I think that voting third party is childish and self centered. But if my life were literally on the line, I don't see how I could've voted for Humphrey when he gave no indication that he'd get us out of Vietnam any faster than Nixon would.

[JVS]

25. If you were 18-20 in 1968, you wouldn't have been voting at all!

:P

But you're right. That must have been one fucked up election. Remember too that Nixon actually promised a secret plan to end the war.

[Hippo_Tron]

30. Yea I forgot they didnt' change it to 18 until '72

But couldn't 18 year olds still vote in some states?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Thank the Democrats for running Humpty Dumpty

Instead of a peace candidate.

[Hippo_Tron]

6. The "Reagan Democrats" went to Reagan because they weren't really Democrats

At least not in anything that I would recognize as the Democratic Party. It would be one thing if they had gone to Reagan in one election simply because they did not like Carter. But the vast majority of them stayed with the GOP. Clinton won a certain percentage of them back in 1992 and '96 but his margins of victory were pretty small.

The good news is that the "Reagan Democrats" have been partly replaced by people who may have used to vote Republican but are fed up with the religious wrong and pointless wars. Obama is bringing in more and more of that demographic every day.

I still no reason why Democrats will flee, especially to McCain, if we nominate Obama. He is virtually identical to Hillary on the issues and Democrats care, above all, about issues.

[george_maniakes]

8. umm hillary had her chance on super tuesday to win it too,

should she drop out now then?

[Drachasor]

10. Err, doesn't your argument actually imply Clinton is weak? She was the favorite coming into this

Certainly weaker than Obama.

[TheDonkey]

15. Exactly. What is the point of the OP? Other than Hillary has hurt the party by continuing this

primary even though she still trails Obama some months after he won Iowa.

If by some nightmare scenerio and Hillary does win due to super delegates then how could she possibly be a strong candidate in the GE according to this poster????

[Benhurst]

11. If we had real leadership in this party, they would insist upon

Clinton and Obama sitting down and hammering out a compromise. If none could be reached, then both our two biggest losers in the quest for 2025 elected delegates should be told the convention will be thrown open, with the distinct possibility of a compromise candidate walking away with the prize.

Neither has achieved a majority. Both have had more Democrats vote against them than for them. Without a compromise agreed to by both, the followers of the candidate not dragged across the finish line by non-elected delegates are going to feel cheated, and we'll be going into the general election with a divided party. Hello, President McCain.

[SoCalDem]

12. I voted for Anderson

in 68 I may have voted for Nixon..can't remember

[yardwork]

13. By that logic, Hillary should concede. Obama is ahead in delegates.

Mathematically, Hillary can not win the nomination unless super delegates appoint her. That would be far more damaging to the party than having Hillary concede the nomination to Obama now.

I agree with you that long drawn-out primaries are harmful to the party.

[book_worm]

14. In '80 Carter got about 70% of Democratic vote--Reagan and J. Anderson divided the rest

Anderson was a liberal republican who ran as an Independent and his presence in the race (he got almost 7% of the vote) hurt the Carter campaign more than Reagan democrats, I think. This is particularly telling in the Northeast. For instance, Reagan won Massachusetts by only about 5000 votes while Anderson received almost 400,000 in MA. Almost certainly MA would have been a Carter state otherwise. The same with New York, Maine, and Vermont and a few other states.

In '68 by the end of the campaign Humphrey did win back many democrats because he broke with LBJ in his famous late September "Salt Lake City" speech where he said he would support a bombing halt without conditions. But George Wallace also took white working class voters who were nominally Democratic in states like Michigan, Ohio and PA.

[karynnj]

28. From the attached link, it looks like what Anderson did was

to make it look like more of a Reagan landslide than it was. http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1642 It looks like Reagan stil would have won if Anderson didn't. There were also many incumbent liberal Senators who lost, so that election really was based on people wanting to move to the right. (We lost McGovern, Bayh, Culver, Magnuson etc)

[grantcart]

16. how time flies seems like 68 was not so long ago, and a week takes a day!!

[NJSecularist]

17. By that same theory, how does Hillary have a chance to win this election? n/t

[Mooney]

18. And Hillary had her chance in February.

And if HRC can't knock out a candidate as "weak" as Obama, then doesn't that mean she's even weaker?

[surfermaw]

19. I have been a democrat all my life, and will change my name to nothing beside Democrat, Obama isn't

I will vote obama, but he isn't God, asking someone to chang their name to 0000 is stupid move on a Obama voters part, my dear child many people didn't like Kennedy but in a short time they loved the guy, and Obama will be the same way probably, however telling me an old democrat to change my name, you can just jump.

[muntrv]

20. Considering that Hillary was supposed to wrap up the nomination by Valentines Day,

she's also a weak candidate.

[onenote]

26. Do you think that democrats will fall in line behind HRC?

Not sure what your point is. That its hopeless no matter what happens?

[JVS]

27. 1968 is an election so strange that it defies comparison to any other

Only McCarthy was willing to challenge incumbent Johnson in the time leading up to the primaries.

The Tet offensive occurs.

Johnson narrowly wins NH 42-47, McCarthy looks like the real deal.

RFK enters the race 4 days later: peaceniks pissed off!

Johnson quits the race

HHH enters the race, but only courts delegates that are not decided by elections. Only 13 states did primaries back then.

Party splits into 4 factions:

Daley and other city bosses back HHH

Students and peace activists back McCarthy

Blacks and Catholics back RFK

Southern Whites back HHH to a degree, but are about to jump ship as LBJ predicted when he signed the Civil Rights Act.

RFK and McCarthy engage in primary slugfest.

MLK assassinated. Riots rage.

RFK narrowly wins CA, McCarthy vows to continue in NY, RFK assasinated that very day.


Nixon was promising to end the war

At the moment of RFK's death, the delegate totals were:
Hubert Humphrey 561
Robert Kennedy 393
Eugene McCarthy 258

Which seems backwards compared to
Popular vote:
Eugene McCarthy - 2,914,933 (38.73%)
Robert Kennedy - 2,305,148 (30.63%)
Stephen M. Young - 549,140 (7.30%)
Lyndon B. Johnson - 383,590 (5.10%)
Thomas C. Lynch - 380,286 (5.05%)
Roger D. Branigin - 238,700 (3.17%)
George Smathers - 236,242 (3.14%)
Hubert Humphrey - 166,463 (2.21%)


HHH is convention favorite, Daley sics cops on protestors, ugly riots.

George Wallace decides Southern Democrats are not represented, runs 3rd party on racist platform.

Nixon runs on "law and order" appeals to south, Secret Plan to end vietnam

On weekend before election Johnson halts bombing in Nam, makes motions for a settlement.

Nixon, who had been tipped off and expected this October surprise, has Anna Chenault tell N Nam that they'd get better deal from him and not to come to the table.

Election close with several Southern states going to Wallace, Nixon wins.

read the detailed story here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1968