Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Democrats Have Their History Wrong - and Are About to Make a Grievous
Mistake
________________________________________
Democrats Have Their History Wrong - and Are About to Make a Grievous
Mistake
By Kathy Donohue [1] / Salon [2]
March 7, 2016
This election cycle, Democratic Party leaders are pleading with younger
voters to heed the lessons of history. Echoing George Santayana's famous
warning: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,"
they urge millennials to take a close look at what happened to Democrats in
1972. That was the year, they explain, that the Democratic Party made a
monumental blunder at its national convention by empowering young people,
women and minorities at the expense of party elites. The result was the
nomination of George McGovern, a candidate whose ideas were so radical that
they guaranteed a landslide victory for Richard Nixon.
Leaving aside whether such an interpretation of 1972 is accurate, there is a
more fundamental issue here. What if pundits and Democratic Party leaders
are focusing on the wrong election? What if the lessons that history has
for us are to be found not in 1972 but in 1968? What if we are heeding the
absolutely wrong warnings?
Much like 2016, the 1968 election was supposed to be a coronation. Lyndon
Johnson had won the White House four years earlier with one of the landslide
victories of the 20th century. Few doubted he would be reelected, and no
establishment politician even considered challenging Johnson for the
nomination. But also like 2016, a relatively obscure senator felt that
there had to be a candidate in the race who would bring up issues that were
in real danger of being ignored. In 1968 that senator was Eugene McCarthy of
Minnesota and the issue was the Vietnam War.
Political pundits dismissed McCarthy as a fringe candidate who had
absolutely no chance of winning. But McCarthy's campaign galvanized young
people. An army of volunteers descended upon New Hampshire. Hippies, who a
few weeks earlier had been wearing jeans and long hair, decided to "Get
Clean for Gene." Young men shaved their beards, young women donned dresses
and all began going door to door throughout the Granite State.
McCarthy did not win New Hampshire but he took 20 of the 24 delegates, a
result that sent shockwaves through the political establishment. Four days
later Robert Kennedy, who had earlier declined to run because he assumed the
election belonged to Johnson, threw his hat into the ring. Two weeks after
that in an absolutely astounding turnaround of events, the inevitable
front-runner Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the race. Much like 2016,
"inevitability" was not quite as inevitable as everyone had initially
assumed.
With Johnson's departure, the Democrats needed an establishment candidate
and looked to Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey. Throughout April
and May, as Kennedy and McCarthy battled for votes in the primaries,
Humphrey followed a different strategy. Well aware that the majority of
delegates in 1968 were not going to be selected by voters but by the party
elite in the non-primary states, he focused his efforts on wooing
establishment politicians. By doing so Humphrey managed to build a
formidable delegate lead much like Hillary Clinton is trying to do by
locking in Super Delegates, today's version of non-elected delegates chosen
by party leaders.
When the Democrats met in Chicago late in the summer of 1968, the field had
been tragically narrowed two and a half months earlier with the
assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Only two candidates remained, Hubert
Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy. Humphrey had not won a single primary. Indeed,
his primary total was a minuscule 161,143 votes. But he controlled the most
delegates. By contrast, McCarthy had received 2,914,933 primary votes,
almost 20 times the number that Humphrey could claim. Yet, by the time the
balloons had settled onto the convention floor, a Democratic Party
controlled by machine politicians and union leaders had chosen Hubert
Humphrey as the Democratic nominee.
As the race for the White House entered its final phase, a war-weary
electorate, clearly frustrated by the status quo, had a choice. They could
go with the establishment Democrat, who promised to continue Johnson's
policies, or they could elect a Republican, who had long ago mastered the
sorts of campaign strategies that are currently propelling Donald Trump's
campaign. Much like Trump, Richard Nixon offered solutions without providing
specifics, telling voters that he had a "secret plan" to "end the war but
win the peace" in Vietnam. And while Nixon did not target Mexicans or
Muslims, he did promise to restore law and order by cracking down on
entitled and unruly young people demonstrating on the nation's campuses and
black people taking to the streets in urban neighborhoods. When the results
came in, Nixon had edged past Humphrey in the popular vote and had a
comfortable margin in the Electoral College.
Looking at 1968, it would seem the lesson that history has for us is that
Democrats need to be really careful about assuming that the establishment
candidate is the key to electoral victory. But what about 1972? Isn't the
lesson of that election that Democrats suffer their most devastating losses
when they run candidates who speak to the party's progressive base.
Actually, no. The lesson of 1972 is something quite different. To begin
with, McGovern was not a particularly strong candidate. He had secured the
nomination with only a quarter of the primary votes. The unions refused to
work for him. And he ran a poor campaign. Even more significant, he was
going up against a sitting president, Richard Nixon, who had brought troop
levels in Vietnam down from almost half a million to around 30,000, had
eased Cold War tensions by going to China and had stabilized the economy, at
least temporarily, by implementing wage and price controls. Nixon would have
been tough to beat under any circumstances, and McGovern was not the
candidate to do it.
But the real lesson that McGovern's defeat teaches us is not the dangers of
progressivism so much as the dangers of being out of step with the
electorate. Every few decades, the existing political order is completely
overturned and in the upheaval a new order emerges. This happened in the
1930s, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt replaced what has been called the
"Republican Ascendancy" with his New Deal Coalition. It happened again in
the late 1960s and early 1970s when the rise of the right replaced the
liberalism of the New Deal.
We are due for another upheaval and there are indications that we are
actually in the middle of one right now. If that is the case, then what the
election of 1972 teaches us is not that McGovern was too liberal for voters
but that he was too out of step. He was trying to run as a '60s liberal when
the electorate had moved well beyond the '60s, just as Clinton is running as
a '90s triangulating liberal when voters are hungry for change.
History has some important lessons to teach. They are just not the one that
pundits and establishment politicians are claiming.
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Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/democrats-have-their-history-wrong-and
-are-about-make-grievous-mistake
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kathy-donohue
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Democrats Have Their
History Wrong - and Are About to Make a Grievous Mistake
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Democrats Have Their History Wrong - and Are About to Make a Grievous
Mistake
Democrats Have Their History Wrong - and Are About to Make a Grievous
Mistake
By Kathy Donohue [1] / Salon [2]
March 7, 2016
This election cycle, Democratic Party leaders are pleading with younger
voters to heed the lessons of history. Echoing George Santayana's famous
warning: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,"
they urge millennials to take a close look at what happened to Democrats in
1972. That was the year, they explain, that the Democratic Party made a
monumental blunder at its national convention by empowering young people,
women and minorities at the expense of party elites. The result was the
nomination of George McGovern, a candidate whose ideas were so radical that
they guaranteed a landslide victory for Richard Nixon.
Leaving aside whether such an interpretation of 1972 is accurate, there is a
more fundamental issue here. What if pundits and Democratic Party leaders
are focusing on the wrong election? What if the lessons that history has for
us are to be found not in 1972 but in 1968? What if we are heeding the
absolutely wrong warnings?
Much like 2016, the 1968 election was supposed to be a coronation. Lyndon
Johnson had won the White House four years earlier with one of the landslide
victories of the 20th century. Few doubted he would be reelected, and no
establishment politician even considered challenging Johnson for the
nomination. But also like 2016, a relatively obscure senator felt that there
had to be a candidate in the race who would bring up issues that were in
real danger of being ignored. In 1968 that senator was Eugene McCarthy of
Minnesota and the issue was the Vietnam War.
Political pundits dismissed McCarthy as a fringe candidate who had
absolutely no chance of winning. But McCarthy's campaign galvanized young
people. An army of volunteers descended upon New Hampshire. Hippies, who a
few weeks earlier had been wearing jeans and long hair, decided to "Get
Clean for Gene." Young men shaved their beards, young women donned dresses
and all began going door to door throughout the Granite State.
McCarthy did not win New Hampshire but he took 20 of the 24 delegates, a
result that sent shockwaves through the political establishment. Four days
later Robert Kennedy, who had earlier declined to run because he assumed the
election belonged to Johnson, threw his hat into the ring. Two weeks after
that in an absolutely astounding turnaround of events, the inevitable
front-runner Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the race. Much like 2016,
"inevitability" was not quite as inevitable as everyone had initially
assumed.
With Johnson's departure, the Democrats needed an establishment candidate
and looked to Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey. Throughout April
and May, as Kennedy and McCarthy battled for votes in the primaries,
Humphrey followed a different strategy. Well aware that the majority of
delegates in 1968 were not going to be selected by voters but by the party
elite in the non-primary states, he focused his efforts on wooing
establishment politicians. By doing so Humphrey managed to build a
formidable delegate lead much like Hillary Clinton is trying to do by
locking in Super Delegates, today's version of non-elected delegates chosen
by party leaders.
When the Democrats met in Chicago late in the summer of 1968, the field had
been tragically narrowed two and a half months earlier with the
assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Only two candidates remained, Hubert
Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy. Humphrey had not won a single primary. Indeed,
his primary total was a minuscule 161,143 votes. But he controlled the most
delegates. By contrast, McCarthy had received 2,914,933 primary votes,
almost 20 times the number that Humphrey could claim. Yet, by the time the
balloons had settled onto the convention floor, a Democratic Party
controlled by machine politicians and union leaders had chosen Hubert
Humphrey as the Democratic nominee.
As the race for the White House entered its final phase, a war-weary
electorate, clearly frustrated by the status quo, had a choice. They could
go with the establishment Democrat, who promised to continue Johnson's
policies, or they could elect a Republican, who had long ago mastered the
sorts of campaign strategies that are currently propelling Donald Trump's
campaign. Much like Trump, Richard Nixon offered solutions without providing
specifics, telling voters that he had a "secret plan" to "end the war but
win the peace" in Vietnam. And while Nixon did not target Mexicans or
Muslims, he did promise to restore law and order by cracking down on
entitled and unruly young people demonstrating on the nation's campuses and
black people taking to the streets in urban neighborhoods. When the results
came in, Nixon had edged past Humphrey in the popular vote and had a
comfortable margin in the Electoral College.
Looking at 1968, it would seem the lesson that history has for us is that
Democrats need to be really careful about assuming that the establishment
candidate is the key to electoral victory. But what about 1972? Isn't the
lesson of that election that Democrats suffer their most devastating losses
when they run candidates who speak to the party's progressive base.
Actually, no. The lesson of 1972 is something quite different. To begin
with, McGovern was not a particularly strong candidate. He had secured the
nomination with only a quarter of the primary votes. The unions refused to
work for him. And he ran a poor campaign. Even more significant, he was
going up against a sitting president, Richard Nixon, who had brought troop
levels in Vietnam down from almost half a million to around 30,000, had
eased Cold War tensions by going to China and had stabilized the economy, at
least temporarily, by implementing wage and price controls. Nixon would have
been tough to beat under any circumstances, and McGovern was not the
candidate to do it.
But the real lesson that McGovern's defeat teaches us is not the dangers of
progressivism so much as the dangers of being out of step with the
electorate. Every few decades, the existing political order is completely
overturned and in the upheaval a new order emerges. This happened in the
1930s, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt replaced what has been called the
"Republican Ascendancy" with his New Deal Coalition. It happened again in
the late 1960s and early 1970s when the rise of the right replaced the
liberalism of the New Deal.
We are due for another upheaval and there are indications that we are
actually in the middle of one right now. If that is the case, then what the
election of 1972 teaches us is not that McGovern was too liberal for voters
but that he was too out of step. He was trying to run as a '60s liberal when
the electorate had moved well beyond the '60s, just as Clinton is running as
a '90s triangulating liberal when voters are hungry for change.
History has some important lessons to teach. They are just not the one that
pundits and establishment politicians are claiming.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [3]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[4]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/democrats-have-their-history-wrong-and
-are-about-make-grievous-mistake
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kathy-donohue
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Democrats Have Their
History Wrong - and Are About to Make a Grievous Mistake
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
