Yes. We should have. But the outcome will never be known. The knowledge I hold in relationship to Mr. Obama skews my ability to be confident in what could have happened with Mr. Humphrey. I think I liked Mr. Humphrey better.

I liked HHH and worked in his campaign. No, I don’t think he would have continued the policies of LBJ. Very different people.

I think even then the MIC/CIA were so entrenched, presidencies had become superfluous.

I’ve always suspected that Humphrey had to be happy he lost.

Obama and W are very different people. The policies don’t seem different. HHH might have been grand in his state in the day, but in 1968 he was a tool.

I’m proud to say, however, that my first gig playing an electric bass (as opposed to stand-up) was at a Humphrey rally. Woulda voted for him, too, but I was only a HS frosh.

As a current Medicare beneficiary, I’m extremely grateful to Hubert.

I didn’t vote in 1968 (have an explanation, though). My dad voted for Wallace, after voting for the Democratic candidate his whole life until then. He was not a racist in any sense. He was just convinced that there wasn’t much difference between the two major party candidates.

Hubert was a wonderful man who did so much good for his fellow Americans. He never should have accepted the VP slot. He was so compromised in that role. Maybe the downhill path started in 1960 in the West Virginia primary, in which Hubert was unfairly portrayed as a draft dodger and a bigot.

The thing is, LBJ was actively trying to end the war — hence the Paris Peace Talks — and Nixon was actively working to sabotage those talks by sending people like Anna Chan Chennault to them, to make sure that nothing came of them. (Just like Reagan in 1980, Nixon in 1968 wanted to ensure that there was no “October Surprise” that could undo his plans for victory in November — even if it meant keeping our troops in Vietnam an extra six years.)

Im sure that the pro cold war, anti working class, un-progressive Kennedy, had he not been murdered, would have won because he was seen as “credible”, and “the one who could win”, a “serious” and “moderate” democrat and god knows where we’d be now if that had happened. As it turned out Nixon did more damage to the cause of the hawks and the republican party than Mcgovern, Mcarthy or Humphrey ever did or probably could have.

Hubert was the one who pushed the Democrats to adopt a pro-civil-rights platform — and caused Strom Thurmond to bolt the party.

Elections have consequences. Not voting is voting for the winner by default. And you don’t escape responsibility for the winner’s policies by not voting or voting a symbolic protest. You might as well choose.

Historical footnote. It was the way that Hubert Humphrey was chosen and role of the establishment, especially Richard J. Daley in his choosing–going so far as using a police riot to suppress anti-war protesters–that cause a lot of folks to sit it out. Yeah. Blame us for the last forty-two years; we were young and stupid and not seeing the danger of Richard Nixon. Nixon and Humphrey were seen as two side of the same coin.

There is this same danger if the Republicans do not lose this November’s election in a way that puts the crazies out of office.

good times.

Can’t think Obama would ever do anything like that. He isn’t even pro-dem.

Of course I voted for HHH. What I didn’t do was to work on the campaign. And that’s the question. Should we work for the democrat even without any reason to think the dem will work for us?

no but they should have started a new party. The establishment dems will never give up the party.

I hate that question cause I have no idea what the answer is.

I resent having to vote for a party that is destroying our democracy at a slower rate than the other party. And I cannot think my way out of it. grrrr.

As a Minnesotan there is no way to not remember Hubert Humphrey, he’s a giant in the state (although a string of non-DFL governors in the past 20 years has dimmed his legacy some). More to the point, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Laber party (DFL, the Democratic party in the state) exists because Humphrey brought the Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party together. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken are both DFL senators who carry the Humphrey torch, most especially Franken. Now we need to elect a DFL governor this year, which is looking promising.

One of the stories my father told from the Chicago convention of 1968 was standing with his state delegation just a few feet from HHH who, with tears on his cheeks, begged them to support him.

That was back before the candidate was selected in advance of the convention. I recall (before we had cac-a-laters) that we would sit and write the numbers of the floor votes down and add them up to find out if there would be a second ballot.

My father was with the anti-war contingent. He went to Grant Park. He came home saying he wanted to join the SDS.

We know Obama instituted policies far to the Right of anything McCain/Palin could have done: Dems would have opposed Fascist “reforms” and spoken up, not letting them go into effect.
But the “Democrats” let Obama do anything Fascist without even wimpering.
We know if we work for him again, he will betray us and do much worse than the worst Republican we can imagine.
Suicidal people will vote for Obama.
Stupid people, and those who want to drag the country much further to the Right will work for Democrats.

The farm labor party was perfectly viable without the democrats, and elected many candidates. The dems destroyed the social democratic tendencies of the farm labor party. It is just another neoliberal party now.

Humphrey stunk.Nixon and H.K. were shrewd enough to realize that ending the draft would destroy the movement. The establishment does not reform itself or cede power without being threatened from an outside movement willing to lose and be hated for causing the loss.

IIRC, at the end of the campaign, HHH said he would end the war. None of us anti-war people believed him. For me it was too late, because I went into the Army in October. In retrospect, he was probably telling the truth. And Nixon was a lying monster.

yep, that and the left got too comfortable and no longer willing to recognize the great mlk’s lesson that you have to provoke crisis to get change.

So you disagree that HHH would have been better than the monster Nixon.

Is your dad still alive? That was such a moment in history…those kids being hurt and the convention out of control. Even the press was mistreated….someone, maybe Brinkley, referred to the powers/the Chicago powers as “goons” as they manhandled people of the press. Really hard to think how dangerous it had become…a “police riot” was the phrase that caught on and no one was ever held responsible though lots of people were hurt.
Your dad was brave.

I think you were probably right to not believe him. Just because Nixon lied doesn’t mean Humphrey was telling the truth. Quit using your dualist mindset. The whole system is bad. What was needed was not Humphrey, but a peoples movement to force the President to get an authorization of war if a police action goes over a couple of months. Getting rid of the draft was dumb too.

We don’t know what Humphrey would have done, but we do know what Obama’s done. His domestic and foreign policy is to the right of Nixon’s. Enabling phony progressives who govern to the right only pushes both parties further to the right.

Wildly enough my vote strategy is to now vote for Change I Believe in!

And by that I mean, nope, no votes for Degette or Bennet here in CO. I will vote for the Dem in the Governor’s race, and the local ballot initiatives. Those are things with a modicum of local control, and those changes can be controlled, albeit only somewhat.

But the National Parties and their focus/abilities/promises?

I simply don’t believe in them. At all.

And that way they know you went to the polls and didn’t check the box next to their dishonest names.

I don’t know. When HHH died, I watched the speech he gave to the 1948 convention. It was soul-stirring. That was the first time I realized that maybe I had made a mistake.

obama made me cry too, did that make him any good as a man or politician. Good speeches are just agitprop from would-be actors in the wrong business. You are in no way responsible for asinine politicians that betray you.

“Should anti-war people have actively worked to elect Hubert Humphrey?”

That depends on your perspective. To start, is it clear that Humphrey would have ended the War any sooner than Nixon did? I don’t think so. And THAT was the vital question at the time. Upon that question, although not limited to that alone, the Democratic Party broke with its Liberal wing and there still been no rapprochement. At this point I think that Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again. Liberals must organize independent of the Democratic Party. Some umbrella organization like a political party is necessary to maximize efficacy. It needn’t be a political party necessarily. But if the organization isn’t a political party then it isn’t doesn’t exist to deliver votes. What then will this umbrella organization use for power, if not delivering masses of individual votes? It seems obvious that such an organization would almost certainly be overwhelmed financially by its plutocratic opposition. If not votes, if not money, how then could an organization of people dedicated to principles of Liberalism make itself vital?

Thoughts?

The way I’m interpreting your question is essentially “Is one’s cynicism responsible for potentially overriding good works?”

I think the answer is yes, but only to a certain degree. If, in fact, you had acted against a belief, you would have been guilty of being a hypocrite.

In other words, belief can have a cynical component, and that’s fine. One believes what one believes, and acting consonant with one’s belief is never a bad thing.

It’s REALLY bad when one doesn’t.

I think HHH was a decent man. Those were such different times, in DC.

I was too young to vote and cast my first ballot in 1972 for McGovern.

My father died last year, but he worked for peace until his last breath.

Would Humphrey do what Obamarahma is doing, act as a Trajan Horse using the cover of being the nominee of the titular party on the left to enact far more regressive policies than Nixon could get away with? I frankly prefer Nixon’s policies on health care and virtually any other issue to Obamarahma’s. I am becoming more and more convinced that the D branch of the Republicrat Party has the capacity to do more damage than the R branch because of their phony-baloney left image.

if you want to know what hubert Humphry really represented read John Emerson’s work at openleft. http://www.openleft.com/user/John%20Emerson

Guys like Humphrey, had been actively suppressing progressives and the working class since the squashed the new dealers.

Thought-provoking question, masaccio. I think I might be “too close” to it to give a good answer. I was just a little younger, not quite old enough to vote in ’68 (and I was in IN, too, in Bloomington! A freshman.) So, I, too, worked for McCarthy, and saw RFK much the way you did. I’ve since come to see him far more favorably, and Humphrey, too.

At least, HHH’s past and future were much better than what he was stuck with doing/saying as VP.
So I didn’ have to decide or feel guilty about making the wrong choice that time. I just knew for sure Nixon was NOT the one! That part turned out to be correct.

From now until November, yes. Handing it over to the Republicans now would be suicide.

The day after the election we start a new party. I’d recommend it now, but it is too close to the election, there is no time to get anything done. But there is a lot of time before 2012, just enough to start a new party.

I think it’s also a question about the people/the public. How far right have we gone? Our paper today had a good piece on the history of the Rs taking over TX, and no view of things being very different for awhile. Almost as if all the forces that hated FDR have finally coalesed to get what they want.

I used to live in Denver (near DU), I am curious what is up with DeGette for you, I haven’t been following since I left in 2005. Back then she (and Shroeder before her) were viewed as progressives.

What a wonderful legacy you have! My father and I were more typical of the “generation gap,” I’m afraid. Too many stories of political discussions ending in shouting and tears (mine)and estrangement for fairly long periods of time. Though even my “rock-ribbed” Republican dad would, I like to think, be appalled at the travesty that has become of his party. He was not a radical, as the current nutjobs running the party are.

In 1968 I would not have guessed that 40 years later, the word radical would apply to the right wing (I will not call them conservative) instead of the left.

My dad was a delegate in 1968 and told me he watched the riots from his room in the Palmer House. He was originally an RFK delegate but then supported Humphrey. Fortunately, he saved all his delegate credentials, passes and the other items they gave to them. It is interesting reading now—and sad to see how the Democratic Party has sold its soul to corporate interests instead of being the progressive party of the people.

Given their stair step into government during the Nixon administration were Cheney and a whole cabal of the criminals of the WH from Hell, the Abramoff cadre that put war criminals into control of our government. Yes, you should have voted for Humphrey.

So Nixon won, got embroiled in the Watergate scandal, which gave Ds another several decades in control of congress that they wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Idle and fruitless speculation on counterfactuals.

Yes, of course.

Nice try Mas.but your question wasn’t which piece of shit we preferred.So let me reframe your question without the specious debate element.Yes I would be willing to suffer Nixon pursuant to advancing a progressive movement.

It’s a good point, one wonders what a paranoid like Nixon would be like in modern times. No EPA, no medicaid for all would be my guess.

I fear you are correct because the liberals ( not the left) went to sleep in the arms of Obama, busily patting themselves on the back for the first black president and thus he ash gotten away with murder.

Yup, the unitary executive was born in the Nixon admin

It is always important as a, especially an American, citizen to vote for the best available candidate. As far as being an American citizen, it is especially important to cast a well-reasoned and prudent vote due to the nature of the American experiment in self-government (and especially not due to any nationalistic or theocratic strain).

If voting for McCarthy in 1968 was one’s prudent vote – or for Nader in 2000 – well and good. But not necessarily as a protest vote against Humphrey or Clinton. If someone from the left should primary Obama in 2012, the same dilemma of sorts reemerges: the responsible thing is to vote one’s conscience. I suspect, if Andrew Bacevich – among others – is on the right track, we are about to bring our global empire to a close one way or another, and we are doing so in the midst of a generation shift of national identity. There’s a lot of anger and uncertainty out there, and it’s not subsiding anytime soon.

If anything, we’ll all learn soon enough that being angry won’t solve much. Progressives need to hang in there.

Appreciate your patience with this posting; thanks for letting me throw in my two-cents worth.

Fair enough. That was in fact the question. I despise Nixon, a man devoted to killing. I could never have voted for him, no matter what the outcome might have been.

The answer to your question is YES. And if you doubt we should support the dems and Obama, I invite you to read Frank Rich’s article in the NYT today or Jane Mayer in the New Yorker this week. They tell a chilling tale brought to you by the likes of the Koch brothers. You may have heard of these billionaires who collectively have 33B just a notch below Gates and Buffett to pursue their weird conservative agenda. But you really don’t want them in control. Did I mention they are the big daddies of the Tea Party, and oh,so many other neat things.

My dad saved a lot of stuff, but I have not come across his credentials. One of his sisters was a nun, and she has since told a story that she and some of the nuns (lived in Chicago) wanted to go to the convention. My father came up with some kind of credentials for them to get in. I can’t recall if he made them somehow or got some of the other delegates to lend theirs. The nuns were so thrilled.

One thing I have found among some of his papers are the working documents that were used by the anti-war contingent to take over the ward meetings statewide to elect their delegates to the convention.

He said that Sterling Black (son of Hugo and our neighbor) who was powerful in the local Democratic organization made it possible for him to go to the convention. But I recall that it was local organizing to turn out anti-war people that created a state delegation that was supporting McCarthy on the one side and Wallace (!) on the other. Or at least that was the first ballot. I don’t know what the strategy was on the floor with those ballots, but of course the bargaining was all face to face. All of the organizing happened by snail mail, and maybe on the phone. It is fairly stunning that organizing could happen that way, but it was such a different time.

The Koch brothers also contribute to the dlc and sit on the board of the dlc.

They run the show when you elect dlc democrats too.

Seniority is a killer; she’s Chief Deputy Whip and won’t buck the party.

Never took the PO pledge, was the designee to fight Stupak; voted against Stupak, backed the final Health Care shibboleth anyway.

She’ll be re-elected, but it will be without my help, and the first time in 5 times at bat for her.

And now isn’t stunning all that stuff..organizing,deals, etc. are done today. Locally when they want to do alot of phoning, they say bring your cell. Thanks for the discussion.

Of course antiwar lefties should have gone out to back Humphrey — although just showing up to vote for him alone would have put him over the top against Nixon.

We know now that HHH argued forcefully as VP that Lyndon not escalate in Nam during LBJ’s final decision-making process. Johnson thought this an act of disloyalty and banned Humphrey for a long time from future WH discussions on the war. In 1968 in the fall as Humphrey tried to distance himself, however moderately, from LBJ’s awful VN policy, Johnson again considered him a turncoat and thought about even quietly backing Nixon (LBJ is said, reliably, to have favored Nelson Rockefeller as his successor in the 1968 cycle).

All the prior relevant evidence suggests Humphrey, had he won, would have then gone on to end the war for the US as quickly as possible — i.e., not remotely close to the 4 yrs it took Nixon. HHH was a true liberal, unlike the warmongering Johnson. (Cojones? Okay, lacking there, granted.)

.

We also need systemic reform of the committee system to get rid of seniority. Seniority on the intelligence committees was how the dlcers lied the other dems into voting for the war.

These are fascinating stories. I was in San Francisco visiting a college friend during the convention. We watched on TV and were horribly upset. I didn’t mention that Mayor Daley was a supporter of HHH and that cut against HHH too.

That was a miserable year.

A better question is, do progressives have the balls to find a democratic candidate to primary a failed, sitting democratic President or will they simply vote for a lame duck because they’re too partisan to do anything else?

I think that is wishful thinking! It is a myth that he was a great liberal. When he merged the dems with the farm labor party he purged most of the farm labor people. He particularly targeted the supporters of Henry Wallace. He was cold warrior to the bone. They probably one supported equality for blacks because Segregation made them look bad in Africa. Then they only supported those blacks that accepted establishmentarian views like Obama.

So, no matter how far to the right the democravens move, we must vote for them because the repugs will be slightly MORE right? If they start wearing black uniforms and goose stepping down the street will we be warned about how slightly worse it can get? No fucking way, a protest vote has value for me.

An even better question is, should progressives start encouraging Barack Obama to not run for a second term?

I checked out the link above to see what was said about HHH. He did work against the progressive element, but what is not really examined is how the Party was trying to hold itself together nationally during a very tough time with a lot of divisiveness not unlike what we see and feel today.

It seems like we progressives have always been seen/are really marginal, despite the need to have us work/turn out at the polls. From the perspective of those who are trying to hold the Party together, it appears they do what they are still doing.

How this plays out, we will see this fall. I think the point of this whole post is to consider the result of not showing up.

I’m not sure about that unless it is misdirection. There were lots of organizations mentioned but that one was not. I seriously doubt they woud do that since they are as close to anarchists as one can get without being one. They want government solely for the purpose of protecting property rights.

That is one way to start the ball rolling.

Ps the Kochs actively fought against Pres Clinton as well.

Another way is to start a Draft Elizabeth Warren movement to replace the Citigroup administration we have now.

Remember the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” They have been doing this for about 30 years.

there was a link.

AmericaBlog

The source is American Prospect. The press is very sly in refusing to mention it but they are part of the reason people wrongly think the parties are different. The actions of the dlc candidates show them to be anarchist in deed even if they aren’t in word.

I don’t see any particular reason to think Humphrey would have been better than Nixon (or enough better to matter). But it’s impossible to say what things would be like forty years after a Humphrey presidency. Might be better, might be worse, might be about the same. Maybe Nixon would have won in 1972 and then again in 1976 and then … Too many variables to solve.

Also, I don’t get the “I’ll vote for them, but I won’t campaign/give money” thing. (I see this in blog comments all the time.) The Democrats get all the money they need from corporate interests. Your vote is the only leverage you have. If you want to cast it for the Democrats, be my guest, but don’t kid yourself that not giving money or knocking on doors matters to them. Personally, I spent twenty years voting for the lesser evil, and this year the lesser evil is gearing up to gut Social Security.

That organization you mentioned sounds like one of the Koch’s. I do not believe they would give anything to a democrat. Sorry. These guys are bat shit crazy.

HHH was a liberal within the Cold War context of his time. I.e., not a hard far-lefty, and he had to show his anti-commie chops in the 50s.

But as for starting an unnecessary war in VN — go check out the evidence. In early 1965 as Johnson was going through the process (or motions) formally to escalate, he wrote a long unsolicited memo to LBJ arguing against it (largely taking the anti-escalation JFK and Mike Mansfield arguments).

In the fall of ’68 clearly HHH was in a tough place — wanting to carve out more distance between himself and LBJ on the war, he couldn’t go too far lest he upset Johnson and lose the backing of the conservative (LBJ) wing of the party. Lefties of the time warmed a bit to HHH as he began this modest distancing, but should have seen his dilemma more clearly. Obviously Gene McCarthy didn’t help the situation by sitting on his hands, petulantly, as he waited until the final week to endorse HHH with a tepid nod.

It is more than 30 years. Their daddy was doing it before them. You really gotta read Jane Mayer. She lays it out pretty good. I never thought the “vast right wing conspiracy” was that vast.

It depends on the historical context and where you live. Questions like:

Would you work for a Blue Dog Democrat who is running against Sue Myrick?

Would you work for a Blue Dog Democrat who is running against Louis Goehmert?

Would you work to elect Alvin Greene in SC or work to have the Green Party candidate win against DeMint?

Would you work for Bobby Bright in Alabama or let his Republican challenger win?

Would you help Howard Katz beat Darrell Issa? Go look at Katz’s web site to see why this is a relevant question.

Do you hang back from working for Barbara Boxer because of what Obama has done? Or would you work for Nancy Pelosi’s re-election given the compromises she has made? Or Chuck Schumer?

But that would mean that you would have to be able to relate to the state. Someone obviously from Northern California Democrats could not just drop into Bobby Bright’s district and be helpful, unless they could reference family in the South or in Alabama.

A lot of the folks who would sit have that luxury without affecting the results. As it turns out, there would have had to be 140,000 or so folks like me in Illinois voting for Humphrey instead of sitting out–which would have narrowed the margin by 26 vote. Not enough. It would have taken similar changes in California, New Jersey, and Oregon to reverse the results. The Democratic Convention in August was devastating to Humphrey. Not only did it alienate the anti-war movement but it also made it look like Democrats could not keep order in the country, which caused a lot of moderate Democrats to switch.

It’s a different decision that almost everyone has to make.

As far as helping financially, there are some folks that almost anyone can help that would make a difference:
Most important is Justin Coussoule, who is opposing John Boehner.
Then there is Billy Kennedy, who is opposing Virginia Foxx; Tarryl Clarke, who is opposing Michele Bachmann; Elaine Marshall, who is opposing Ricard Burr; Roxanne Conlin, who is opposing Chuck Grassley; Jack Conway, who is opposing Rand Paul. Electing all of these folks would have an immediate change on the tone in Congress.

They physically sat on dlc’s board!

And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC’s executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC’s executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively–meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

Misinterpreting what the link says and acting like you can’t read it doesn’t prove your point.

the wallacites weren’t communists they just didn’t see the point of the cold war. The people who purged are the neolib dems of today.

Getting involved with Blue Dogs removes any integrity progressives have. If a progressive candidate cannot win we shouldn’t be running in that district. This isn’t a game, it isn’t football, winning elections isn’t everything, in fact it isn’t anything. It is the policies that matter.

So here’s my question. Should anti-war people have actively worked to elect Hubert Humphrey?

This is a strawman, support Hubert Humphrey or take responsibility for Nixon. But worse, it casts the question in completely the wrong way. No one owns my vote. It is up to the candidate to give me a good and sufficient reason to support him/her. If they can’t do that, they don’t get my vote, period.

We have seen what all this lesser of two evils results in, crap corporate Democrats facing off against crap corporate Republicans. A vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a vote for kleptocracy and war. That is not a strawman but a cold, hard reality.

Nixon’s record, despite his continuing the war, was quite liberal. He created the EPA, OSHA, signed the Clean Air Act, signed the Clean Water Act, imposed price controls in 1972, and appointed Harry Blackum to the Supreme Court. With a record like that in 2010, Mr. Nixon would find him out on his ass, ostracised by both parties. The Republicans would call him a Communist, and the Dems (led by Obama/Rahm) would throw him under the bus for being a “far lefty” (which he was anything but).

What’s my point? It may be we don’t know how a presidency is going to turn out. Bush I appointed Douglas Souter, a very liberal judge.

Now back to Pleasures from the Harbor by Mr. Ochs, who didn’t like Richard Nixon very much, but probably wouldn’t like Obama very much either.

How do we know HHH didn’t in fact win, but the bastards stole the election?

That sounds right. To my mind I have to consider if things are going to be any better with some of the Tea Partiers in charge and investigations of the day contolling the House. Imagine listening to the Orange Man spouting his wisdom come January.

Actually, at the 1948 convention HHH read the Dixiecrats out of the party.

In his famous speech at the convention Humphrey passionately told the Convention, “To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years too late! To those who say, this civil rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!”

After that speech the Dixiecrats bolted.

HHH was a great champion for civil rights.

Sorry, the Kochs would never support a dem cause. Misdirection maybe but no. That guy Fink is an ass. He is NOT a supporter of anything I would support. Read the article by Mayer and see if you feel the same.

The thing is, LBJ was actively trying to end the war — hence the Paris Peace Talks — and Nixon was actively working to sabotage those talks by sending people like Anna Chan Chennault to them, to make sure that nothing came of them. (Just like Reagan in 1980, Nixon in 1968 wanted to ensure that there was no “October Surprise” that could undo his plans for victory in November — even if it meant keeping our troops in Vietnam an extra six years.)

Bears repeating verbatim.

I won’t call the right wing radical. To me they’re reactionary: they want things to go back to the way they think that things were, when they were kids. And they never, ever see that that requires giving up what they have now.

The cold warrior dems were good on civil rights because segregation made them looked bad to brown people that wanted social-democracy in the third world. They are however the reason why the party is so obtuse on foreign policy and the economy.

The system is stupid. I won’t be blamed for its stupid results. I would like constitutional changes and am not concerned with politicians.

True. We are truly in the proverbial Catch 22. Some problems are intractable. *sigh*

since the dlc has been more effective at enacting koch industries agenda than the republicans, I don’t agree.

We don’t need Constitutional changes but it would be a good thing if we followed the one we have.

Ps I just saw that HP has the Rich article.

Actually, at the 1948 convention HHH read the Dixiecrats out of the party

The problem is that 1948 was not 1968, and the Hubert Humphrey of the one was not the Hubert Humphrey of the other.

That’s nonsense.

don’t believe your lyin eyes!

This year it is a very serious game; it comes close to being the mentality of war. It is the choice between governance or a circus that makes 1994-1998 look tame. If the choice is between Blue Dogs and crazies, I’ll take Blue Dogs. Fortunately, I don’t have to make that choice in my vote. And for most folks talking about who owns their vote and the integrity of the progressive movement, it’s an abstract issue.

During the Nixon administration, Reagan Republicans never used the general election to punish liberal Republicans; they always took them out with primaries. That’s how they have held ideological power for 30 years. That was just smart strategy. You kept the fight within the party. And you eventually took over the party.

It is very clear from the conversations that I have had with my rightwing Republican friends that Republicans are counting on progressives sitting out a lot of races this year. And they have been working hard to exploit the cynicism, especially in North Carolina and the rest of the South. And they are also counting on the independent voters to either vote for them or sit out because the Democrats have not accomplished the 2008 agenda.

If you want to see the return of actual governance in the US, you have to make you decision over against that very clear GOP strategy.

The cold warrior dems were good on civil rights because segregation made them looked bad to brown people that wanted social-democracy in the third world.

Horsefeathers!

Rich’s article adds a few points to the Mayer piece but to me this looks like more of Rich’s MO of drafting off the creative work of others.

HHH was far from a perfect liberal at that convention in 1968. And I thought his post-police riot comments were not only off the mark but politically obtuse.

That said, he was trying to work with the Kennedy and McCarthy delegates on a peace plank for the party platform, and they had a moderate compromise agreed to when Lyndon found out and put a stop to it.

Credit Humphrey for the effort, but up against Johnson — who was the one truly running the convention and who also hoped for a last-minute draft from convention delegates for another nomination — up against Big Daddy, Hubert was powerless, mostly.

Huh?

“Should anti-war people have actively worked to elect Hubert Humphrey?”

Knowing both candidates’s histories, the answer is yes. Humphrey was a solid progressive, broken to harness by the very shrewd LBJ. Nixon had an appalling history as a cold warrior.

In the current election, I’d say support progressive Democratic candidates, and vote Democratic. As to Obama in 2012, we will simply have to wait and see.

In the long term, as I keep writing, “More women in the House, more women in the Senate, more women on the Federal bench. Electoral reform. Separation of church and state. Health care for everyone. Jobs. It’s the environment, stupid!”

Could be but,as I suggested, it is chilling to think of the scope of what those people do. They have a lazer focus on their political agenda.

And for most folks talking about who owns their vote and the integrity of the progressive movement, it’s an abstract issue.

That’s a great way to dismiss a point you don’t agree with. Obama, Rahm, and the Democrats count on people like you thinking exactly that way. They are happy to provide you with no end of the lesser of two evils. Their people get elected and you get what exactly? worse and worse candidates because as long as you are willing to vote for them they will give you more and more of them.

Haskell Wexler’s movie, Medium Cool (1969) tels the story of1968 and Chicago as well as it can be or has ever been told. (“Look out, Haskell! It’s real!”)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064652/

there is truth in that but one has to be more selective. Now to lose a few Blue Dogs (maybe a few supported by Koch Industries?) that’s a good thing. But not en masse.

Credit Humphrey for the effort

No thanks, I’ll pass. As Harry Truman said, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. If Humphrey couldn’t stand up for his beliefs when his whole candidacy was on the line, then he was never going to stand up for them.

Yeah, it’s the DLC that brought the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act – that seems EXACTLY the types Koch would like to buddy up with. If the Koches are billionaire anarchists, I’d say repealing Glass-Steagall advances their cause.

And I went into the Navy in November being too unprincipled to go to Canada, not having voted. Couldn’t feel for Humphrey even though he said he would end war.
By the way the SDS at the University of Kentucky did a great thing when George Wallace spoke on campus. They gathered in a small group at the back of the immense auditorium where he spoke. Along about midway during his speach they started cheering wildly from time to time, loudly enough to interrupt him. He initially started to heckle them, but stopped, saying well, they are for me.
But in answer to your question. Sure we all should have voted for Hubert Humphrey back then, because having been long since burned, we would have fought tooth and nail to elect some one other than Obama in the primaries, and we never would have supported him for President.

Those people want to do away with pretty much anything you can think of including the FBI and the CIA. You name it they will donate to the cause.

It’s a fundamental difference in view. I see the Democrats as corrupt as the Republicans, just in different ways. But the way every so-called progressive caved on Obama’s healthcare sellout showed me that there were no real progressives in Congress, or in the Democratic party for that matter. Why should I vote for people who not only don’t represent me but are willing to screw me and every other ordinary American in such important and significant ways? Now they are trying to do it with Social Security. Progressives can’t work with Democrats. They will stick it to us every chance they get. We can only oppose them.

Lefties should not have done more to elect HH. Instead they should have rallied around a real third party candidate so that the world could measure precisely the number of votes the Dems lost by running HH.

You’re right. It is a fundamental difference in viewpoint. I choose not to be governed by the likes of Palin, et al.,if I can help it. I suppose you know all the things I will say and I know pretty much all the things you want to say. Just a difference in viewpoint as you said.

Before everyone rushes to say hell ya we should have supported Humphrey, take a moment to remember the 1968 Democrat Convention and the beating the Democratic Party establishment laid on the anti war crowd…in the convention hall and on the streets….I’m sorry, but it’s pretty god damn difficult to “support” the establishments candidate after the party thugs had their goons kick and beat the crap out of ya! Humphrey was a good and decent man that succumbed to the head rush one gets when being that close to the most powerful job in the world. His reaching out to the anti war crowd was too little to late and it cost him the election.

The difference I see is that you get more or less the same results with either of them (actually worse results with Democrats because anything they do is automatically labeled as liberal/progressive), just Republicans are more honest about being corporatists while Democrats lie more about their true intentions – one stabs you in the front while the other stabs you in the back.

If you vote for evil, you can expect evil. If you try and make a deal with the devil, the devil is going to get the better of you rather than you getting the better of the devil.

McCarthy could have been the nominee if he could have connected to people outside the anti-war movement. I agreed with his views but he had all the charm of John Kerry.

Sorry, but credit where due, even if just partial credit. And further proof of HHH”s basic antiwar sentiments on Nam. As HHH said later, he should have done more to distance himself from his warmonger boss, and I agree. But it would have been dicey, and Johnson still had clout to manipulate things behind the scenes to damage Hubert.

LBJ was the real culprit in 1968, failing to do more himself as president, as opposed to party nominee, to end the war and to help his loyal VP to win the presidency. But he stubbornly stuck to his rigid cold warrior principles, and also decided not to publicize Nixon’s treasonous efforts in thwarting the Paris Peace Talks. He should have given his VP much more latitude on carving out his own war stance, but, hey, he was Lyndon — the same paranoid borderline insane guy who tapped the office phones of his own VP Humphrey for (probably) the entirety of Hubert’s time as #2.

Impossible to reason with such a whackjob. Johnson likely was pleased when Nixon won, the guy who he believed would better continue his war policies and not embarrass him. That largely turned out to be correct.

But with Bad Daddy Lyndon finally out of the way and no longer having Hubert’s pecker in his pocket, Humphrey would have been free to end things much sooner.

Is it an abstract issue or a concrete one in your Congressional District?

You talk about “Democrats” and “Republicans”, but what about the only ones you can vote for, the candidates on your ballot plus the option to sit out? Are they so much the same that you would vote so that you in effect create a winner you might not want or do you sit out? Not abstractly, but in this election in your Congressional District.

Is dinner over? Is it time for coffee and the chocolates to be served? During dessert let’s consider:

In 1960 JFK’s father rigged the election’s outcome; evidently Nixon had won.
1964 was a no-brainer.
1968 – who knows?
1972 – it’s incredulous that McGovern got so few votes, but hey, the Nixon WH had perfected its skullduggery.
1976 – the Republicans threw that one, knowing that double-digit inflation would destroy the incumbent and his party.
1980 – Iran and GHWB fixed that one.
1984 – see 1964.
1988 – electronic voting machines, there were many voting flips during the proof-of-concept trials in 1986
(published in The New Yorker in 1988: http://www.newsgarden.org/columns/dugger.shtml).
1992 – Perot quit and re-entered, he knew how the electronic codes worked, and with three major candidates, you can’t ‘flip’ a ballot.
1996 – see 1984.
2000 – fuckit. Emma Goldman: “I think voting is the opium of the masses in this country. Every four years you deaden the pain.”

So you vote against Palin and get Obama. What’s the difference? Sure, she and McCain are crazy, but could they have organized the sellout to healthcare insurance companies and Big Pharma that Obama did? Could they have gotten the anti-choice language added to it? Could they have gotten $400 billion in cuts to Medicare? Could they have the odds Obama has of slashing Social Security?

That is how I remember things.

Your abstract and concrete is bull. By your definitions, it would in fact be “concrete”, but I am done with Republicans and Democrats, corporatists both. I am done too with the lesser of two evils. We pursued that strategy and we ended up with Obama, a politician as radically conservative as Bush or maybe more so seeing as not only has he kept Bush’s policies but expanded them.

Yes, I will vote for Obama because, as you noted, she and McCain are crazy.

Now that you mention it, I felt that way, really angry about the willingness of the establishment dems to allow the attacks on the anti-war people.

At this moment I can’t see voting for Obama but if Palin is on the R ticket, I certainly will have to re-think that.

1972 – it’s incredulous that McGovern got so few votes, but hey, the Nixon WH had perfected its skullduggery.

What r u implying? That Nixon’s Hunt-Liddy team didn’t want Wallace to take votes away from Nixon in 1972 the way he took votes away from Humphrey in 1968? So they tried to use extreme prejudice against Wallace? r u insane?

(note to Lurking Mod: can one mock oneself?)

But what Obama accomplishes is actually worse.

There is no end to this sort of “debate”. I don’t see it as lesser of two evils (not in all contests anyway). There are only 2 political parties. One of them is run by a far right bunch of nut jobs ( like your crazy Palin and McCain imagery and the Kochs money) who want to repeal good portions of the constitution and other such things and havn’t had a brain cell they really liked in 30 years. Not much to say after that.

Teddy Partridge is upstairs!
Sunday Late Night: Look Who Else “Restored Honor” Alongside Beck & Palin

Exactly how is my abstract vs. concrete argument bull? You only can vote for the folks presented on your ballot or not vote at all. You can’t vote for against all Democrats or all Republicans. And if you want to vote for a third party, you have to go through the concrete activities of building its popularity among voters. That is the practical reality. You might not like it. You might withhold you vote for philosophical reasons. But it’s acting like you are hurting Democrats or Republicans by not voting for them is bull. You can hurt only those on the ballot. And Barack Obama is not on the ballot in November. That is very concrete; Barack Obama is not on November’s ballot. Nor are all Senators in the Democratic caucus. So if your local US Senator is Nelson or Johanns, you are out of luck. If you are in Arkansas, you can punish Blanche Lincoln. But you better hope that I and the progressives in NC get Elaine Marshall defeating Richard Burr; that moves the Senate in a more progressive direction and makes up for the loss of Lincoln’s seat.

But if you want to be a spectator, that’s your choice.

1972 is what happens when Establishment Democrats go Galt.

I have no issues with obama getting investigated since the parties are wasting everyones time anyway.

“But it’s acting like you are hurting Democrats or Republicans by not voting for them is bull. You can hurt only those on the ballot. And Barack Obama is not on the ballot in November.”

OK, so if you don’t vote for a Democrat, all you’re going to do is hurt one politician whose name is on the ballot – hardly catastrophic.

I still have all the badges and ID’s they gave the delegates that were on the floor. There was also a roster of the attendees with John Glenn’s autograph on it. What was most interesting was the summary of the positions the candidates took and the party’s information on the platform. An excerpt from a DNC publication:

Vice President Humphrey is telling his fellow Democrats that “our great work of building this nation will be carried forward by a Democratic victory or it will not go forward at all.”

Humphrey is calling on the Party in 1968 to bring the American people the “new principles of a New Day- Our party is the only party open to all the people, and truly ready to serve all the people.”

How far we have gone backwards in over 40 years.

Cute. But actually it was Gary Hart’s masterminding of the reformed primary campaign system and national convention procedures that got his man, McGovern, the nomination. Hart acknowledged that he was the inventor of ‘running against expectations’. He parlayed that invention and design into ‘coming out of nowhere’ in Iowa in 1984 to finish something like third. That got him all the media attention. Being ‘handsome’ didn’t hurt either. It’s how he fared so well in NH the next week. “Where’s the beef?” knocked him down and out. Voters luv Wendy’s, TV, and everything else bad for them.

Should anti-war people have actively worked to elect Hubert Humphrey?

Yes, absolutely. But they should ALSO begin to persuade Progressive Democrats that it is TIME to leave the party and form a new one. The Democrat party doesn’t represent liberals any more. It is the party of the status quo.

We need to go back to our history books and figure out how the Republican party broke away from the Whigs and formed a new party.

All you people complaining about nothing changing, why don’t you something about that and start the drumbeat to start a new party?

Brother Nixon was more sinned against than sinner. Here’s a summary of Russ Baker’s amazing book, Family of Secrets, scroll down to…

Chapter 10: Downing Nixon, Part I: The Setup

SUMMARY: Compelling evidence points to a staggering new interpretation of Watergate: That the same constellation of corporate, military and intelligence elements which removed JFK from power orchestrated the events that forced Richard Nixon to resign.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/01/family-of-secrets-part-2-poppy.html

As far as being an American citizen, it is especially important to cast a well-reasoned and prudent vote due to the nature of the American experiment in self-government (and especially not due to any nationalistic or theocratic strain).

First, one cannot make a rational voting choice, as to do so would require being able to assert the outcome of your selection. This is impossible. A politician can campaign as Gandhi, but govern as Gengis Khan, and your only recourse is to wait and attempt to replace them with someone else equally capable of pulling the same reversal. You’re essentially saying that you can make a rational choice between two sealed blackboxes.

Which brings us to the idea of self-governance. That’s not what our “experiment” is about. If it were, then our elected officials would just be daily legislative functionaries, and the actual voting to enact something would be left up to us. They wouldn’t have decision making power, we would. Our “experiment” is about whether or not glorified popularity contests, to select which shameless self-promoting narcissist you want making your decisions for you, can actually produce a functioning government.

I agree – in 1960 I helped JFK, but felt West Virginia was a low point for JFK because of the lies and mud he allowed/encouraged to be thrown at HHH.

In 1968 I was keep clean for Gene – but it was obvious we did not have the votes (a bit over 30% only) – not enough were listening – and in disgust I wanted to vote for no one – but I pulled the lever for HHH. Nixon on social issues was so far left of Obama and most of the Democratic Party of today that it is ridiculous. I hated him om the war – but loved the moves on Social Security and proposed moves on Health (that were killed by Ted as being too little rather than working toward a compromise – but I agreed with Ted back then – single payer or nothing was the idea). The media was as far right as now but more obvious – HHH did not have much of a chance against that media – yet he was surging in the last week and if the election was a few days later may well have won.

masaccio, don’t know if you’re still reading late comments, but that’s a good and provocative question. I deduce from your revelation of being of voting age at that time you’re a couple years older than me. I was not voting age at the time. So I think for me, as a college sophomore, the question of who to vote for was academic. My political activism (which I did not view as such) was limited to my active support of Republican candidates for Congress, for Governor and the US Senate (then Robert Griffin later author of the Landrum-Griffin amendment to the Taft-Hartley Act to my later shame). So, if anything, my sympathies then leaned toward George Romney (Mitt’s father) who had been a respected Republican Governor of Michigan, where I lived at the time. I think I probably was sympathetic and hopeful for Nixon after he beat Romney for the nominee.

I say that because, as a draft age male, having no vote, I became increasingly politicized when I did get to vote to support George McGovern in 1972. I have not turned back from my youthful flirtation with conservatism after Nixon’s betrayal with his real politik.

Humphrey would have ended the war sooner and without the invasion of Cambodia, I believe and without the additional cost of American and Vietnamese lives. The end would have been just as ugly and demoralizing though. And the Goldwater right would have re-emerged from under their rocks possibly sooner with their lies and fake patriotism. The DINO Dixiecrats would have left the party sooner. We might have arrived where we are today sooner. Since I cannot imagine what the future may bring, I cannot imagine what an earlier ascendancy of the right might have brought.

Just exactly where has voting for the lesser of two evils gotten us?

D’oh-bama was the lesser of two evils and we have more epic war failures as the wars are not to win but simply just to have. What’s a poor pentagon supposed to do but find boogiemen and the proceed to not catch them? During the campaign D’oh-bama claimed he would kill or capture Bin Laden but, he is no longer interested because a general told him it was not the goal. Humphrey may have been different than LBJ but, you still have o be a man and stand up to the pentagon. Would Humphrey been willing to fire a handful of generals?

” think that is wishful thinking! It is a myth that he was a great liberal. When he merged the dems with the farm labor party he purged most of the farm labor people. He particularly targeted the supporters of Henry Wallace. He was cold warrior to the bone. They probably one supported equality for blacks because Segregation made them look bad in Africa. Then they only supported those blacks that accepted establishmentarian views like Obama.”

The work Hubert did to merge the Farmer Labor Party with the MN Democrats was at the direct and personal request of FDR. Hubert had been a state WPA Administrator, had run a good, but ultimately failed campaign for Mayor of Minneapolis, was a political appointee, and he was called to DC in early 1944 to meet with FDR, who was concerned the FL and the D’s would have seperate slates of electors, and given polling FDR had in hand, that would mean the Republicans would win MN’s then 11 electors. HHH came back to the state, worked both the FL and D leadership, and arranged the merger in the summer of 1944, thus one DFL slate of electors in the 1944 election. In 1945 Humphrey was the successful candidate for Minneapolis Mayor.

As MPLS Mayor, Humphrey established the first City Fair Employment Commission, and sponsored the first in the nation Civil Rights Commission for a city. His commitment to Civil Rights was authentic from the get go, as was his commitment to rid Minneapolis of the “fame” of being the Capitol of Anti-Semitism in the US. Humphrey worked with the USDA to indict and convict the Kid Cann gangs (a Jewish Mafia outfit that controlled the after hours clubs and all — a hangover from Prohibition days), and he brought in major reforms to the Police Department which had been in league with the anti-Semities and the anti-Labor Forces since the early 1900′s, but he also indirectly attacked First Baptist Church and the Rev. Riley who was the mentor of Billy Graham, and who was the major promoter of a number of anti-Semetic organizations that had national HQ’s here. He used his Civil Rights Commission to break the “no Jews hired here” policy of the local banks, major merchants, and the city hospitals which would not hire Jewish Doctors or Nurses. And while his Civil Rights Commission did not empower him to deal with the same policy at the University of Minnesota, he used his powers of persuasion to break the no Jewish Faculty ban at the U. He also got the Quota on Jewish Students somewhat liberalized at the U. It would not be abolished until 1966 when that was necessary given the provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill.

Hubert’s Senate Candidacy in 1948 had the full support of Democratic Party Liberals and Progressives. Having read my way through Eleanor Roosevelt’s correspondance on file at Hyde Park with Hubert, I would suggest there were few other races that year she cared about as much as Hubert’s. Hubert was selected by the party liberals and Labor to give what is now known as the Sunshine Speech at the Democratic Convention, in favor of a much stronger and far reaching Civil Rights Plank. That speech, and the floor vote that followed strengthened the stand of the Democratic Party on Civil Rights and was the first stage in casting the unreconstructed Confederates out of the Democratic Party. To understand how important it was, you have to read the Black Press of the day — it was absolutely crucial in getting the Northern Black Vote for Truman in 1948, and cementing the place of Northern Urban Blacks as part of the Democratic Coalition. The irony of 1948 is huge — one reason the pollsters missed the call for Truman was because they didn’t poll any blacks, Gallup didn’t employ any black pollsters, and because of wartime generated shortages, all too many blacks in the North didn’t have telephones. But the CIO did a huge voter registeration campaign, the Black Press was solidly for Truman (and Humphrey’s speech and plank), and Truman’s win in Industrial States was the key to his 48 surprise victory.

One of the best descriptions of Humphrey’s early days in the US Senate is in “Master of the Senate” Robert Caro’s third volume in the planned four volume bio of Lyndon Johnson. It was Johnson who broke out of the Southern Dixiecrat Senate Coalition and “romanced” Hubert who was being given the cold treatment by all the Southern Senators due to his constant speaking out on Civil Rights, both on and off the Senate Floor. Caro has pages and pages of notes from Johnson’s records on his talks with the Humph, during the early 50′s, when Humphrey hardly had a friend in the Senate, so rough was the racist hazing. Eventually Humphrey got a few friends by helping elect them in fairly Liberal states. Johnson helped out by carefully promoting Hubert’s interests by passing out the money.

No question that Hubert was author of the Communist Control Act — a sad chapter. Apparently the Republican plan was to run against Hubert in 1954 with a Joe McCarthy type opponent, and call Hubert Pink — and Johnson’s strategy against that was to get Hubert’s name on the bill as one of the Co-authors. Hubert got re-elected, though I suspect that would have been the case without the cover of the stupid Communist Control Act. Point is the necessity of understanding the power of political McCarthyism as it existed in 1954.

I have some insight into Hubert and Vietnam etc. I don’t think he ever supported the kind of troop commitment Johnson made, (and I believe Johnson’s political calculations had much more to do with his fear of a latter-day McCarthy style attack on himself and Democrats for walking away from a Communist challenge, than any real national interest style attachment to Vietnam), but once Hubert was out of the Senate, and in the VP office, he had little influence. In fact his offices were not even in the White House Compound — they were two blocks away, where he shared a building with US Information Services and some of the Great Society projects. (I know, I visited him to talk about some aspects of Affirmative Action in 1966.) Hubert was profoundly unhappy as VP — moreso all the time. The best source on this is Walter Mondale who has written quite candidly about it. It very much influenced what Mondale insisted on when Carter asked him to serve as VP.

I did not support Hubert in the Minnesota Caucuses of 1968 — I organized my neighborhood and Precinct for Gene McCarthy, and in the process helped push a number of the power figures linked to Humphrey out of party offices when the McCarthy forces took over our Congressional District given the results of the Caucus delegate selection process. In fact, I ran against the Mayor of Mpls at one level, and defeated him, and ran against Jean Kirkpatrick at the next level, and defeated her. Sadly, the McCarthy Forces just missed controlling the State DFL — we won outright three of eight congressional districts, but were about 50 votes shy of control of the state convention. It was a straight up anti-War versus Humphrey but War Lite division of the house. Because Party Rules called for proportional representation, McCarthy had about a third of the Minnesota Delegation in Chicago. I wasn’t in Chicago. I was a delegate to a World Council of Churches Conference on Racism at the University of Edenburgh in Scotland, gave a speech in one section on the Kerner Report, and then watched the police riot in Chicago in the bar at the Glasgow Airport — they were running BBC and US Network bits on TV there for the edification of Scotch sipping American Expatriots. After the murder of King and then Kennedy, it was enough to turn one toward single malt stuff. In the end, I voted for Hubert, and talked lots of other discouraged McCarthy types into being rational and voting for Hubert. The Editor of the Local Black Newspaper, Cecil Newman, got on my case about turning my back on Hubert, and he made a lot of sense.

Now, my insight into Hubert. A friend, Historian and U Professor and long time friend of Hubert’s was with him visiting when Nixon was tooling around China during his trip in 1972. They had met over dinner to work out division of labor in a course they were team teaching at the U. Apparently Hubert watched some video of the planeside greetings by the Chinese officials, and then watched as Nixon walked the Great Wall, and eventually shook hands with Mao, and went into talks. Apparently Hubert just cried his eyes out — not because Nixon was doing the honors and all, but because Hubert realized that even if he had been elected, he could never have made the deal to “go to China.” Only an old time Commie Basher like Nixon could turn on a dime, and make the kind of deal the opening to China implied. From Nixon’s viewpoint (and Kissinger’s) making some sort of deal with China leading eventually to diplomatic recognition and trade split the Soviet led Communist World, and thus allowed the US the gradual withdrawal from its exposed position in Vietnam. Hubert cried his eyes out because our Domestic Politics, so conditioned by McCarthyism, made it impossible for a Liberal Democrat to do such a deal. I trust my Historian Friend who sat with Hubert in 1972 watching the Nixon Show from China.

I am a green. I have my party!

Superb comment! Thank you so much!

It probably would have been better to have a President Humphrey; however, I am not sure if the anti-war movement people had been more aggressive for him, that he would have won in any event.

It was 301-191-46 in the Electoral College.

The most likely alternative looks to be that Humphrey could have denied Nixon an electoral college victory (or vice versa). And so the election would have been thrown into the House. (This is what should have happened in 2000, by the way.)

It’s anybody’s guess what the House would have done.

Abstentions vote with the majority, as the saying goes. People on these site comment boards should remember that.

Yeah I remember. I came out of the army in July, 1968. And no. Nobody should have supported Humphrey OR Nixon. Just like I didn’t support McCain or Obama. When you vote for, work for, give money to a war monger, you are a war monger.

Nice post. I’m proud that I voted for Humphrey in ’68, supported sitting President Carter (as opposed to Ted Kennedy) in ’80, and voted for Gore (as opposed to Nader) in 2000. Some were more conservative than I wished, but I played no part in cursing the nation with Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 2. Likewise, I will contribute everything I can to prevent a “Speaker Boehner” or a “Leader Mitchell”.

Problem is, Republicans will investigate him for the wrong offenses.

No. Anti-war people should put their energy into working to end war not to elect dubious candidates. Social movements are more powerful than individual elections.

“Social change does not come through voting. It is delivered through activism, organizing and mobilization that empower groups to confront the hegemony of the corporate state and the power elite.”

And Obama is a greater curse to the nation than Nixon ever was.

as opposed to helping the wrong people? Sorry can’t work up any outrage.

““Social change does not come through voting. It is delivered through activism, organizing and mobilization that empower groups to confront the hegemony of the corporate state and the power elite.””

Foolishness — you need both a movement and Politicians who know how to play the political game.

Without the work of Hubert Humphrey in electing around the country Senators and Representatives who supported major Civil Rights Legislation, the Democratic Party could not have been part of the cross-party coalition that broke the long filibuster, and passed the 1964 bill. Period.

But yep, you also needed a movement, and that had been building since the mid 1930′s. There were lots of small pieces of it before King came along in 1955, but after Montgomery AL, it was SCLC, in 1960, SNCC, CORE which dated from the early 40′s, NAACP and Urban League, which date back to the early 20th Century, and about 185 other organizations — at least that was the count of members of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights through which all lobby work FOR the legislation was organized. Could never have done it without Labor and Religious Organizations. Humphrey and Dirksen who were Floor Leaders in the Senate met with representatives of the Leadership Conference every day the Senate was in Session.

I got a precious gallery seat for part of the final action on the 1964 Bill, and never has anyone seen old Hubert “dance” as he handled part of the ritual of closing out the final version ready for passage, after we had endured the Filibuster for at least two months. (They kept the Senate in round the clock session in those days, with the Senators sleeping on cots in their clokerooms.) At the Leadership Conference victory party after the conclusion of the last Senate action, Hubert showed up — all smiles, until someone asked him to read a few passages from the Sunshine Speech. Then all he could do was cry. (He was a very emotional man.) 1948 till 1964 — that was how long it took. And we had to go back in 1965 to do Voting Rights which we didn’t have the votes for in 1964 — in all honesty, Voting required a little more blood sacrifice from the movement. Then in 1967 we returned to the Senate for the Fair Housing Bill. That more or less completed the necessary legislative agenda. We had finally killed Jim Crow.

Evelyn, I would suggest you read a little about Nixon and HUAC, about Nixon’s recommendation as VP to Ike in 1957 that we nuke Vietnam after the French left, and if you don’t know the details of the story, get up to speed on Watergate. Then tell me what Obama has done either as Senator or President that is even a shadow of Nixon’s actions and crimes.

Well, we can start with prosecuting a child soldier using coerced testimony; whose alleged offense is attacking soldiers of an illegal occupying army on an active battlefield.

On civil-liberties abuses there’s a loooooooooooooooooong list of things we can go over if you like.

“whose alleged offense is attacking soldiers of an illegal occupying army on an active battlefield.”

Sorry, I don’t buy the Illegal Occupying Army. The US and NATO and others have resolutions passed in 2001 by the UN Security Council authorizing military action against Al Quada and the then Taliban government of Afghanistan who were protecting Al Quada and its affilates. Under International law, that makes the US action quite “legal.”

Now I think the decision to try to prosecute not a good one, but I do think about such things in political terms, and fully understand that if Obama’s DoJ does not prosecute someone seemingly a member, and directed by the leadership of Al Quada, we go into a snit storm of “Soft on Terrorists” which would fire up the Right Wing Legions ten times as much as an Islamic Community Center in an old Burlington Coat Factory store. Like it or not, Politicians have to make decisions like this — and since Obama’s DOJ and Commissions is pretty much prosecuting those Bush selected for Prosecution, I think he has to follow through till the Prosecution tells him they tried, and it is a hopeless prosecution. It is strictly a political call. Presidents don’t fight battles they don’t have to if they have little or nothing to gain. In this case, the kid killed an American Soldier, and the Commander in Chief is expected to respect the lives of his own troops. If he fails, he would hear about it from the ranks.

If you need a Nixon Comparison, I suppose Mai Lia will do. Nixon let Lt. Calley out of the Brig, and put him under house arrest for killing several hundred women and children in Nam, and Nixon got wacked around by the Military for not cleanly stopping the prosecution. Equally he got wacked about for not subjecting Calley to Capital Punishment for war crimes. They made a country music piece called the Ballad of Lt. Calley, and it got play every hour on the Country-Western Stations. Nixon was fighting Watergate matters (tapes) at the time, and this did major damage to him with both crowds. Now my personal position at the time was that Calley should have been fairly prosecuted, if he was obeying legit orders he had a defense, if not, he was a mass killer war criminal. But when it got to be an argument via Country Music, finding out what really happened became a lost possibility. Later evidence suggests that Calley had been the target of a fragging, and probably had what we now call PTSD — but now is not how things were understood in the early 1970′s. Nixon could have avoided the matter by leaving Calley in the brig till he resigned the Presidency a few months later, and signed a pardon on the way out the door.

Sara, thx for your many interesting personal reflections on HHH.

Point is the necessity of understanding the power of political McCarthyism as it existed in 1954.

I’ve long felt some of the top leaders of the time were much too accommodating to McC, failing to speak out publicly and in numbers just encouraged Joe and his followers. Pres Truman dropped the ball, but even more Ike, better positioned as a very popular recently-elected prez with plenty of built-in nat’l security creds as a WW2 hero, could have and should have taken on Joe. Then, perhaps combined with Maj Leader Johnson in the senate (again, who would argue that a conservative Texan like Lyndon was a comsymp?) they could have shown strength in bipartisan opposition. But, sadly, all declined to directly confront McC.

but once Hubert was out of the Senate, and in the VP office, he had little influence. In fact his offices were not even in the White House Compound …

Early on in his VPcy, Feb ’65 roughly, as Johnson was going through the formal decision-making process on VN, Hubert decided to send the P a lengthy memo setting out why the US should not go with combat troops to Nam and instead seek a political solution. Johnson didn’t care for Humphrey’s take, considered it a “disloyal” act, and had his VP banished from further consults with the P on Vietnam for a good long while (until Humphrey had gone out publicly and sufficiently shown his “loyalty” to Johnson on the war). It might have been about then that Johnson also decided to tap the phones of his VP.

While it’s unlikely Hubert was aware of the latter situation, he was certainly keenly aware after the VN memo disaster that he was now in no more than a Yes Man position to the ultrasensitive and paranoid LBJ. Being a smart pol who was also well-studied in a number of policy areas, it’s no wonder that he must have felt stifled and a bit depressed in this new job, in addition to having to go out and support a war policy he privately profoundly disagreed with.

Humphrey and Dirksen who were Floor Leaders in the Senate met with representatives of the Leadership Conference every day the Senate was in Session.

As you probably know, Leader Mansfield assigned Humphrey not only as the floor leader on the 64 bill, but Sen Humphrey also was instrumental in working Dirksen, basically flattering the hell out of him and his potential to make history for the country on CR. HHH, along with Mansfield and AG Rbt Kennedy were the real heroes in passing that bill, more than LBJ.

Apparently Hubert just cried his eyes out — not because Nixon was doing the honors and all, but because Hubert realized that even if he had been elected, he could never have made the deal to “go to China.”

Maybe, but if Hubert thought some more, he might have come to the conclusion that Going to China could be something a solidly re-elected 2d term Dem president could do. Certainly this was in the mind of JFK — recognition of “Red” China in 1965 — but only after he’d been re-elected (see RFK oral history interviews).

LBJ was not trying to actively end the war in 68. With the Tet offensive in Jan 68 and his abdication in March 68, LBJ sabotaged HHH at the democratic convention in August by blocking through Daley a strong antiwar plank and forced HHH to make a “anti-war” statement in October in Salt Lake City without the support of the democratic establishment. Moreover, although LBJ knew that Nixon was fomenting contacts with the SV govt’s leaders telling them to wait out his election(which the SV govt did). LBJ concealed Nison’s treason from the American people and continued thereby to tacitly support Nixon who LBJ thought would actually support LBJ which NIxon actually did resulting in approx 36 thousand more combat or combat related deaths in Nam through 1975.

Should anti-war people have actively worked to elect Hubert Humphrey?

A second question: Was Humphrey pro- or anti-war?

A third: Was Humphrey pro- or anti-empire?

In 1968, anti-war activists had no rational reason to support Humphrey if they answered yes to either question two or three.

The Vietnam War was a symptom; militarism and empire were the intrinsic problems.

“And Obama is a greater curse to the nation than Nixon ever was.”-Evelyn

With the way this administration squashed so much of the ground game following the election and much to this day, yeah the threat is greater than Nixon.

Evelyn wrote:

Anti-war people should put their energy into working to end war not to elect dubious candidates. Social movements are more powerful than individual elections.

“Social change does not come through voting. It is delivered through activism, organizing and mobilization that empower groups to confront the hegemony of the corporate state and the power elite.”

Sara’s reply:

Foolishness — you need both a movement and Politicians who know how to play the political game.

My reply to Sara: What is needed is a compelling movement which motivates soft-liner politicians to break with “the political game.” The political game can be defined as the condition which makes “compelling movements” necessary but insufficient to achieve compelling and desirable reforms. The political game is normal politics at any given moment. A soft-liner politician may be defined an individual disposed to supporting movement reforms but not to representing the reform movement in the government. The soft-liner is a fence sitter, one who believes reforms are necessary but not one who desires radical reform or massive political input from below. The soft-liner thus acts as a mediator between civil society and its reform movements and the state in which the soft-liner is a player.

What is one goal radical reformers would want to pursue? Creation a political situation under which the soft-liners can choose to follow their reformist inclinations.

Thus the demand for politicians willing to break with the political game if the relevant short-term political goal entails radically reforming the system.

“I’ve long felt some of the top leaders of the time were much too accommodating to McC, failing to speak out publicly and in numbers just encouraged Joe and his followers. Pres Truman dropped the ball, but even more Ike, better positioned as a very popular recently-elected prez with plenty of built-in nat’l security creds as a WW2 hero, could have and should have taken on Joe. Then, perhaps combined with Maj Leader Johnson in the senate (again, who would argue that a conservative Texan like Lyndon was a comsymp?) they could have shown strength in bipartisan opposition. But, sadly, all declined to directly confront McC.”

The whole McCarthy thing (please — throughout this I mean Joe and not Gene), is very complex, with many threads historians have attempted to figure out, with some of them still hanging out there waiting for someone to do difficult research.

But I disagree with you on a couple of points here. Ike hated Joe McCarthy’s guts and always did. The crux of it all was how the Republican Party, particularly Wisconsin Republicans, had forced Ike to, in his mind, commit treason regarding his relationship with George C. Marshall. Ike had wanted to take on the McCarthy claim that Marshall was a conscious agent of the Communist Conspiracy during the 52 campaign, but was persuaded by others, including Nixon, to leave that bit out of his Wisconsin Campaign Speech. What we now know is that somehow, Ike let Marshall know that one way or another he would destroy Joe McCarthy, if elected, and while it is difficult to find Ike’s fingerprints on it, apparently he drew McCarthy into making his claims against the Army, and then as the good Five Star General that he was, he helped organize the destruction of Joe through the Army-McCarthy hearings. George Marshall always denied an understanding, but late in life, talking with Historians, Katherine Marshall let on that she knew of such an understanding. To comprehend this you have to get the near father/son relationship that existed between Marshall and Ike — a relationship that in some ways dated back to the World War One era. (they both were schooled by the same military theorist, Fox Connor.) When you consider that it was Marshall who designed the strategy for defeating Hitler and the Japanese — and it was Ike that carried out Marshall’s plan in the European Theatre, old Joe McCarthy looks, in contrast to that pair, like a very stupid churchmouse who bit into too large a piece of cheese.

The Senators who did in McCarthy were Ralph Flanders of Vermont, and Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. They introduced the first censor resolutions and forced the Republicans in the Senate to take them up in late 1954. In addition, Ralph Flanders traveled the country speaking anywhere he could get a Republican gig from 52 through 54, creating a national committee made up of Rotary Types, businessmen, Republican progressives, teachers, University Presidents, — all working through the National Committee for an Effective Congress Clearing House, and all with the intent of doing in Joe McCarthy. By the time Flanders was done, he had the National Council of Churches, any number of Newspaper Editors, and much else except Flanders did not recruit people McCarthy had attacked. It was super establishment, but in every state of the union. It was initially organized sorta sub-rosa, it only became very public when they were ready to shoot Joe down. Margret Chase Smith did similar organizing through Republican Womens groups.

You need to remember that through 1954, Lyndon Johnson was the Senate Minority Leader, but the 54 Election gave the Dem’s control of the Senate, so Johnson was in transition to Majority Leader. He made a deal with the Republican Leadership — he would provide a third of the votes needed to pass the Censor Resolution, but first the Republicans had to show their votes on Censoring McCarthy. Lyndon was not going to take responsibility for actually doing it, nor would the Democrats. So post election in the lame duck session, they did the deed, and Lyndon was true to his word, he provided adequate votes to do McCarthy up well. Post censor, no one spoke to McCarthy, he became a drunk clown, and died two years later.

The most recent “look” at McCarthyism is interesting — the film, about Ed Murrow’s See IT NOW broadcast about McCarthy under Murrow’s line, “Good Night and Good Luck.” When Murrow broadcast the piece in March, 1954, McCarthy was about to attack Murrow as a commie symp or something like that, and Murrow just got out ahead of McCarthy, and broadcast his piece. What Joe McCarthy didn’t perhaps know — or overlooked — was that Murrow and Ike were fast friends, in fact smoking and drinking buddies from their time in London during WWII. They spent weekends together at country houses, and Ike was probably Murrow’s best source. Ike’s initial London office (1942) was like three doors down from Murrow’s apartment, and when the bombs were not falling, Murrow kept a sorta open house. McCarthy was nuts thinking he could cut into that kind of a war buddy relationship. The timing is most interesting, Flanders and Chase-Smith’s resolution went into the Senate Hopper at about 1PM on March 9th, 1954, and Murrow’s broadcast was that evening. Ike sent sweet notes to all three the next morning, saying precisely nothing — but he didn’t have to do more than show he noticed and was “with them”.

The real problem for many Senators was that Joe McCarthy was taking direction from J. Edgar Hoover, it was Hoover who furnished Joe with many files and all — and everyone knew that Hoover had files on everyone in Congress, and they were afraid of him in profound ways. McCarthy was also being mentored by Father Walsh of Georgetown’s School of Foireign Service — Walsh was very in with Hoover, and as a Jesuit, Walsh was also very much involved with the Vatican’s interest in making sure no American with any influence or power had the slightest good thing to say about anyone of a Socialist bent, let alone any interest in Communism, Marxism, or any such thing. Walsh had pretty much created the character Joe McCarthy become, and he was the third man in the relationship between Hoover and McCarthy. Walsh didn’t have to show himself, Joe McCarthy was sort of his puppet. But the Senators and Rep’s were frightened as to what was in Hoover’s files about THEM, so they laid low. It all appears a bit odd today when we know that Hoover was blackmailed by the Mafia, because they had pictures of Hoover in his rose colored party dress with feather boa, going to a meet-up at the Waldorf Astoria. But in 1954 no one knew about Hoover’s rather odd sexual orientation, his love of his dainty dogs, his antique collection bought with FBI funds, and his “marriage” to assistant FBI Director, Clyde Tolson. Well, not everyone was all that dumb — the Johnson’s lived next door to Hoover, and apparently Lyndon did figure it all out. The older Johnson girl has been quoted saying her dad thought Hoover — “As Queer as they come.”

As to Truman — yea, he made mistakes pre-McCarthy, particularly the Loyality Program. But Truman spent the first two years of his Presidency trying to arrange a settlement in Europe with Stalin, and only in 1947 with the failure of the Foreign Minister’s London Conference, did Truman move into full Cold War colors. At least until his election in 1948, Truman’s problems were more with the anti-internationalist Republicans such as Robert Taft. Then after the North Korean attack on the south, Truman’s problem was more General Douglas MacArther, and his confederate in the Senate, William Knowland and the “Who Lost China” crowd. MacArthur wanted War with China from 1949 on, and in this he was supported by Knowland and other Republicans. Taft of course remained an isolationist. Truman had to thread his way through all this. Joe McCarthy was a late arrival on the anti-commie scene, only juiced up in 1949.

It is a very juicy period in American Political History — virtually every act in the current Republican Play Book can be found in these years, perhaps run as a pre-test for later use.

“What is needed is a compelling movement which motivates soft-liner politicians to break with “the political game.” ”

Isn’t this what Hubert did in 1948 when he delivered the Sunshine Speech and changed the orientation of the Democratic Party?

Actually they were correct in fighting Humphrey. He had to bear the standard of the continued war in Asia or admit that his administration had failed there. It was almost guaranteed that he would be trapped in the quagmire.

I don’t know if your article is true or not or if you were just ill informed. First of all Johnson did not just drop out of a cloud, he was Johnson’s Vice President. Robert Kennedy had not won the primary. He was on the way to doing that when he was killed. Both parties worked to silence Gene McCarthy because his candidacy threatened the stability of the party machine. The elites of the Democratic party went against the wishes of the majority of their members. It ended with a horrible display of police power in Chicago in 68.

There are other differences between the Johnson administration and today’s Obama administration. Johnson fought both his party and the Repub party to enact landmark legislation on Medicare, Voting Rights, Civil Rights. His war on poverty was a great effort toward improving the lives of millions of Blacks and poor whites in this country. He knew that his work on civil rights would split off the South from the Democratic party forever. Yet he did the right thing. He did not broker a deal with the healthcare industry to see what they would prefer. He did not look to see if he had the votes. Once he had legislation he went out and got those votes.

Humphrey was a good man. He would not have had the freedom or the will to pull us out of Viet Nam. Even Nixon was campaigning on a secret plan to end the war. The Dems feared and rightly so they would be branded as cowards if they were to pull out of Viet Nam. Only Repubs are allowed to have scenes of our Helicopters hurrying to escape the oncoming North Vietnamese army as it raced to conquer the South. If the Dems had been caught with film showing the Helicopters taking the last Americans up from the roof of the Embassy, Beck would still be showing it today. So there was no chance that Americans were going to be leaving under Humphrey. He was an old school party man. That is why it was correct and proper for the left to resit the war under Johnson Humphrey as well as under Nixon. Perhaps if the popular vote had been more important in the primaries back then as less about the smoke filled rooms.

We should threaten a primary for every Democrat that embraces and votes for the Catfood Commission to cut SSN and Medicare. That includes Obama himself. If they can not defend two of the greatest legislative accomplishments since the party began, then they do not deserve our support. If they can’t defend SSN and Medicare then just what is the great difference between the parties then.

Isn’t this what Hubert did in 1948 when he delivered the Sunshine Speech and changed the orientation of the Democratic Party?

I’d say the Progressive Party had laid a just claim to the reform position in the 1948 election.

I don’t know if your article is true or not or if you were just ill informed. First of all Johnson [sic] did not just drop out of a cloud, he was Johnson’s Vice President. Robert Kennedy had not won the primary. He was on the way to doing that when he was killed. Both parties worked to silence Gene McCarthy because his candidacy threatened the stability of the party machine. The elites of the Democratic party went against the wishes of the majority of their members. It ended with a horrible display of police power in Chicago in 68.

We would do well to remember this history when it comes time to oppose the DP elite. They are not “friends of the people.”

On the topic of whether those on the left should support someone center-right like Humphrey or Obamarahma, has anyone seen this article at HP? I must say that I completely agree with the conclusion he reaches that the difference between a McInsane or Obamarahma regime is negligible. I am not saying that we should support or embrace Palin or Jeb Bush or whomever they run next time. What I am saying is that our support should not come cheap, and that if the democravens run a corporatist that we should either sit it out or support a third party candidate and let the cards fall where they may. We need to be strategic eventually, running candidates where they can win and supporting them even though we don’t live in their district (I live in a purple district with little hope of a left candidate winning).

“I’d say the Progressive Party had laid a just claim to the reform position in the 1948 election.”

And how many of their endorsed candidates did the Progressive Party manage to get elected?

Nope, they went the way of the Whigs, and after 1952 more or less went out of business. Henry Wallace returned to his earlier very successful profession of cross breeding food crops. Recently I found a most interesting biographical essay on the net about a Seminar Weekend at Cornell in the 70′s that brought Francis Perkins and Henry Wallace back together for a weekend program. They had been allies in the New Deal, and highly successful program administrators, but post FDR they had lost track of each other. Someone arranged an old home weekend for them, and apparently they supplied new ideas for the audience that kept them talking for months. Ironically, the host was Paul Wolfowitz, then a young Cornell grad student.

Would agree with reddflagg, that you nurture progressive candidates with potential, and elect them where you can. Example — that seat that Hubert won in 1948. He held it till he became VP in 1965, and was replaced by Walter Mondale, who following his appointment, won the seat outright twice, in both cases by more than 60% of the vote. Then the mess after Hubert’s death, and it was handed over to a Republican, Rudy Boschwitz, who was largely financed by the Koch Family, and he held it till 1990, when Paul Wellstone ran a poor man’s underfinanced campaign, with a zillion volunteers, and won it back in 1990. Re-elected in 96, was on the cusp of winning it a third time in 2002, but there was a plane crash…so it went to Norm Coleman, who was mentored by Boschwitz, and funded in part by the Koch Brothers. Coleman got one term — Franken won it back by a very narrow margin, but now has about 50% approval in state polls. So Humphrey to Mondale, to Wellstone, and on to Franken. It is a nice progressive tradition for one Senate Seat that is winable with the right candidate and an appropriate campaign. While Hubert, for example, may not seem particularly progressive in 2010 terms — in 1948 he was the most far left Senator that got elected, and had a good progressive Senate Career. In 1948 having someone who stood up every week and delivered a hard charging Civil Rights Speech on the Senate Floor was Progressive. Today, not so much. Today the platform is a little more about Franken taking up the Net Neutrality Issue, working on the inside on it, and (fingers crossed) wondering whether Progressives will get their act together and back up his efforts with an effective movement. He’s up against one of the best funded lobbyies of all time, the Telecommunications Giants. Anyone serious about regulation of Corporate Power needs to follow this closely. But it is very much in the Humphrey-Mondale-Wellstone tradition of progressive politics and progressive issues. It is just that this is 2010, and the times have generated different issues.

And how many of their endorsed candidates did the Progressive Party manage to get elected?

The PP got as many of its candidates elected as “the political game” permitted.