1968/2016: Humphrey/Clinton
Here's a lesson that I learned in 1968. Back then, I knew people who loved Hubert Humphrey, LBJ's VP and the eventual Democratic nominee after the food fight on steroids in Chicago. The folks who loved him were often (but not always) Black. They loved him because of all the things that he had done for Civil Rights. As LBJ's VP, he had worked like a dog to gather the necessary vote to pass the Voting Rights Act and other legislation.
However, equal rights under the law were not the only issue on the table in 1968. The other big topic of concern was the draft. Young men were dying in Vietnam, in a war which LBJ could not win but from which he could not extricate the country, either. Realizing what a mess Vietnam was, LBJ decided not to run again, so that he could concentrate on ending the war. His man, Henry Kissinger, conspired with the GOP candidate Nixon to derail the peace talks and keep the war going, because the war was Hubert Humphrey's big weakness among Democratic voters.
You see, all those young men subject to the draft and their friends and family members hated LBJ as much as Blacks folks loved him. I remember, in the same week, going with my 3rd grade teacher (Black) to greet LBJ when he arrived in Austin and attending an anti-war rally where he was vilified by my mother's UT friends.
The hatred of LBJ rubbed off on Humphrey. Being LBJ's VP, he could not run against the war---it would have been disloyal. So, he was labeled a hawk. He was reviled. A man whose focus had always been on domestic equality under the law was suddenly transformed into some kind of war criminal. No one cared about the good he had done at home for underprivileged people. They looked at him and saw only WAR. They were convinced that his only reason for being in politics was to promote war.
Humphrey lost by the narrowest of margins. Nixon, who ran on a campaign of "Four years is enough to end a war" promptly escalated the war and illegally invaded Cambodia and Laos. He is responsible for many more deaths of young US men. No doubt, some of those men stayed home in 1968 as a "protest vote" against Humphrey the Hawk. Some of them probably voted for Eugene McCarthy. And their votes may well have cost them their lives.
What does this mean in 2016? Be very careful of labeling any Democratic a "hawk" and deciding that a protest third party vote or stay home vote is the best way to turn the party to the left. Those protest third party votes in 2000 did not turn us to the left. They gave us eight years of Dumbya and then a middle of the road Obama. Those protest third party votes in 1968 did not turn us to the left. They gave us the Killing Fields of Cambodia. The Washington Post (briefly) turned us to the left because Nixon/Mitchell threatened some of Katie Graham's media holdings and so she turned loose two of her reporters on Nixon in order to get even. That is not likely to happen again, not with our current MSM. If we buy another GOP Neo-con we will be at war in Iran. If the Dems keep the White House, we won't. It is as simple as that.
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Nixon's win had much to do with the youth anti war vote being not old enough by 3 years to vote .
How many draft age people would vote for Hillary ? Things ate so much fifferent than 1968 , the middle class is gone along with leaders who weren't owned by banks and huge corporations .
