Harold Meyerson: Patching Up the Democrats
[Harold Meyerson is executive editor of The American Prospect and a columnist for the Washington Post.]
Forty years ago tonight, I was one of a number of very young staffers on Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign crammed into a Los Angeles hotel room, where we watched on television as Robert Kennedy, a few miles down Wilshire Boulevard at the Ambassador Hotel, claimed victory in the California primary. A few minutes later, the networks reported that Kennedy had been shot. The rest of the evening was a mix of anxiety, nausea, tears, misgivings and despair.
The dynamic between the two campaigns was nothing if not complicated. Throughout 1967, anti-Vietnam War activists in the Democratic Party, led by Allard Lowenstein, had implored Kennedy to challenge Lyndon Johnson's reelection bid. Kennedy consistently demurred, and, improbably, McCarthy -- cool, skeptical, nobody's idea of a crusader -- stepped up to carry the antiwar banner. Only after McCarthy shocked the political world by almost beating Johnson in New Hampshire did Kennedy enter the race.
The hard-core McCarthyites viewed Kennedy's entry as the rankest opportunism. It soon became clear, though, that Kennedy attracted supporters who were quite distinct from McCarthy's. He won overwhelming backing from African Americans and Latinos. His candidacy resonated among working-class whites as well, even though the country was being pulled apart by massive urban riots. It was even possible that the political bosses, such as Chicago's Richard Daley, who still controlled the Democratic Party (primaries that year were few and far between), might throw their support to Kennedy rather than to Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy, by contrast, wasn't likely to receive any support from the Democrats' old guard.
On matters of policy, there were really no significant differences between Kennedy and McCarthy. Both sought to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam; both were solid liberals on domestic and economic issues. But each campaign had about it the shock of the new. Each activated constituencies that had never before been so important within Democratic ranks: upscale professionals and students for McCarthy, blacks and Latinos for Kennedy. Both candidates inspired intense commitment from their supporters, and in each campaign there was a palpable feeling of making history, of upending the party's traditional order in a year when traditional orders were crumbling everywhere you looked.
A number of prominent McCarthy supporters had gone over to Kennedy when he entered the race. Some were simply loyal to the House of Kennedy; some understood that Kennedy was the tribune of a progressive coalition that was broader than McCarthy's ever could be; some understood that McCarthy would at some point have to defer to Kennedy if the antiwar forces were to unify and prevail at that summer's Democratic convention in Chicago. McCarthy himself had planned to stand down and back Kennedy if Kennedy won California and began racking up establishment endorsements...
Read entire article at The American Prospect
Forty years ago tonight, I was one of a number of very young staffers on Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign crammed into a Los Angeles hotel room, where we watched on television as Robert Kennedy, a few miles down Wilshire Boulevard at the Ambassador Hotel, claimed victory in the California primary. A few minutes later, the networks reported that Kennedy had been shot. The rest of the evening was a mix of anxiety, nausea, tears, misgivings and despair.
The dynamic between the two campaigns was nothing if not complicated. Throughout 1967, anti-Vietnam War activists in the Democratic Party, led by Allard Lowenstein, had implored Kennedy to challenge Lyndon Johnson's reelection bid. Kennedy consistently demurred, and, improbably, McCarthy -- cool, skeptical, nobody's idea of a crusader -- stepped up to carry the antiwar banner. Only after McCarthy shocked the political world by almost beating Johnson in New Hampshire did Kennedy enter the race.
The hard-core McCarthyites viewed Kennedy's entry as the rankest opportunism. It soon became clear, though, that Kennedy attracted supporters who were quite distinct from McCarthy's. He won overwhelming backing from African Americans and Latinos. His candidacy resonated among working-class whites as well, even though the country was being pulled apart by massive urban riots. It was even possible that the political bosses, such as Chicago's Richard Daley, who still controlled the Democratic Party (primaries that year were few and far between), might throw their support to Kennedy rather than to Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy, by contrast, wasn't likely to receive any support from the Democrats' old guard.
On matters of policy, there were really no significant differences between Kennedy and McCarthy. Both sought to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam; both were solid liberals on domestic and economic issues. But each campaign had about it the shock of the new. Each activated constituencies that had never before been so important within Democratic ranks: upscale professionals and students for McCarthy, blacks and Latinos for Kennedy. Both candidates inspired intense commitment from their supporters, and in each campaign there was a palpable feeling of making history, of upending the party's traditional order in a year when traditional orders were crumbling everywhere you looked.
A number of prominent McCarthy supporters had gone over to Kennedy when he entered the race. Some were simply loyal to the House of Kennedy; some understood that Kennedy was the tribune of a progressive coalition that was broader than McCarthy's ever could be; some understood that McCarthy would at some point have to defer to Kennedy if the antiwar forces were to unify and prevail at that summer's Democratic convention in Chicago. McCarthy himself had planned to stand down and back Kennedy if Kennedy won California and began racking up establishment endorsements...