A lot of people who weren’t alive to witness the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago are wondering if it’s legendary chaos. I evaluated that possibility at New York:
When the Democratic National Committee chose Chicago as the site of the party’s 2024 national convention a year ago, no one knew incumbent presidential nominee Joe Biden would become the target of major antiwar demonstrations. The fateful events of October 7 were nearly six months away, and Biden had yet to formally announce his candidacy for reelection. So there was no reason to anticipate comparisons to the riotous 1968 Democratic Convention, when images of police clashing with anti–Vietnam War protesters in the Windy City were broadcast into millions of homes. Indeed, a year ago, a more likely analog to 2024 might have been the last Democratic convention in Chicago in 1996; that event was an upbeat vehicle for Bill Clinton’s successful reelection campaign.
Instead, thanks to intense controversy over Israel’s lethal operations in Gaza and widespread global protests aimed partly at Israel’s allies and sponsors in Washington, plans are well underway for demonstrations in Chicago during the August 19 to 22 confab. Organizers say they expect as many as 30,000 protesters to gather outside Chicago’s United Center during the convention. As in the past, a key issue is how close the protests get to the actual convention. Obviously, demonstrators want delegates to hear their voices and the media to amplify their message. And police, Chicago officials, and Democratic Party leaders want protests to occur as far away from the convention as possible. How well these divergent interests are met will determine whether there is anything like the kind of clashes that dominated Chicago ’68.
There are, however, some big differences in the context surrounding the two conventions. Here’s why the odds of a 2024 convention showdown rivaling 1968 are actually fairly low.
Horrific as the ongoing events in Gaza undoubtedly are, and with all due consideration of the U.S. role in backing and supplying Israel now and in the past, the Vietnam War was a more viscerally immediate crisis for both the protesters who descended on Chicago that summer and the Americans watching the spectacle on TV. There were over a half-million American troops deployed in Vietnam in 1968, and nearly 300,000 young men were drafted into the Army and Marines that year. Many of the protesters at the convention were protesting their own or family members’ future personal involvement in the war, or an escape overseas beyond the Selective Service System’s reach (an estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada during the Vietnam War, and how to deal with them upon repatriation became a major political issue for years).
Even from a purely humanitarian and altruistic point of view, Vietnamese military and civilian casualties ran into the millions during the period of U.S. involvement. It wasn’t common to call what was happening “genocide,” but there’s no question the images emanating from the war (which spilled over catastrophically into Laos and especially Cambodia) were deeply disturbing to the consciences of vast numbers of Americans.
Perhaps a better analogy for the Gaza protests than those of the Vietnam era might be the extensive protests during the late 1970s and 1980s over apartheid in South Africa (a regime that enjoyed explicit and implicit backing from multiple U.S. administrations) and in favor of a freeze in development and deployment of nuclear weapons. These were significant protest movements, but still paled next to the organized opposition to the Vietnam War.
One reason the 1968 Chicago protests created such an indelible image is that the conflict outside on the streets was reflected in conflict inside the convention venue. For one thing, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey had not quelled formal opposition to his selection when the convention opened. He never entered or won a single primary. One opponent who did, Eugene McCarthy, was still battling for the nomination in Chicago. Another, Robert F. Kennedy, had been assassinated two months earlier (1972 presidential nominee George McGovern was the caretaker for Kennedy delegates at the 1968 convention). There was a highly emotional platform fight over Vietnam policy during the convention itself; when a “peace plank” was defeated, New York delegates led protesters singing “We Shall Overcome.” Once violence broke out on the streets, it did not pass notice among the delegates, some of whom had been attacked by police trying to enter the hall. At one point, police actually accosted and removed a TV reporter from the convention for some alleged breach in decorum.
By contrast, no matter what is going on outside the United Center, the 2024 Democratic convention is going to be totally wired for Joe Biden, with nearly all the delegates attending pledged to him and chosen by his campaign. Even aside from the lack of formal opposition to Biden, conventions since 1968 have become progressively less spontaneous and more controlled by the nominee and the party that nominee directs (indeed, the chaos in Chicago in 1968 encouraged that trend, along with near-universal use of primaries to award delegates, making conventions vastly less deliberative). While there may be some internal conflict on the platform language related to Gaza, it will very definitely be resolved long before the convention and far away from cameras.
Another significant difference between then and now is that convention delegates and Democratic elected officials generally will enter the convention acutely concerned about giving aid and comfort to the Republican nominee, the much-hated, much-feared Donald Trump. Yes, many Democrats hated and feared Richard Nixon in 1968, but Democrats were just separated by four years from a massive presidential landslide and mostly did not reckon how much Nixon would be able to straddle the Vietnam issue and benefit from Democratic divisions. That’s unlikely to be the case in August of 2024.
Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley was a major figure in the 1968 explosion in his city. He championed and defended his police department’s confrontational tactics during the convention. At one point, when Senator Abraham Ribicoff referred from the podium to “gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago,” Daley leaped up and shouted at him with cameras trained on his furious face as he clearly repeated an obscene and antisemitic response to the Jewish politician from Connecticut. Beyond his conduct on that occasion, “Boss” Daley was the epitome of the old-school Irish American machine politician and from a different planet culturally than the protesters at the convention.
Current Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, who was born the year of Daley’s death, is a Black progressive and labor activist who is still fresh from his narrow 2023 mayoral runoff victory over the candidate backed by both the Democratic Establishment and police unions. While he is surely wary of the damage anti-Israel and anti-Biden protests can do to the city’s image if they turn violent, Johnson is not without ties to protesters. He broke a tie in the Chicago City Council to ensure passage of a Gaza cease-fire resolution earlier this year. His negotiating skills will be tested by the maneuvering already underway with protest groups and the Democratic Party, but he’s not going to be the sort of implacable foe the 1968 protesters encountered.
The 1968 Democratic convention was from a bygone era of gavel-to-gavel coverage by the three broadcast-television networks that then dominated the media landscape and the living rooms of the country. When they were being bludgeoned by the Chicago police, protesters began chanting, “The whole world is watching,” which wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Today’s media coverage of major-party political conventions is extremely limited and (like coverage of other events) fragmented. If violence breaks out this time in Chicago, it will get a lot of attention, albeit much of it bent to the optics of the various media outlets covering it. But the sense in 1968 that the whole nation was watching in horror as an unprecedented event rolled out in real time will likely never be recovered.
The New York Times latest poll numbers are excellent news for Kerry. While the article says nothing has changed in the race for the Presidency, with Kerry leading by only 2 points. The fact remains that Kerry was down by 3 points in the last Times Poll and is now up by 2. This is a 5 point swing! That is excellent news! A 5 point swing toward Bush would have the press saying it was a significant development.
For those who will not be getting to Richard Clarke’s book (which I highly recommend) there is an excellent review of it in the New York Review of Books:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17092
A public opinion poll around the time of his 9/11 Commission testimony found that only about 25% of the public saw him as a dedicated public servant. Sheesh. Not saying I would have wanted to get crosswise with him in the federal bureaucracy but I think history will be kind to him. And I mean to be kind to him now.
I had the feeling while reading his book that someone was turning the lights on inside the federal government so just us citizens could get some idea not only what has been going on but how it might be done better.
There’s one way to interpret these numbers so that the Iraq was is still working in Bush’s favor.
It’s probably fair to say that it is indeed Bush’s base who embrace the notion that the fight against terror is the most important issue. Yet those who believe this probably also buy into Bush idea that the war in Iraq is simply a part of the larger, more important issue of terrorism.
Put together the numbers for the voters who put Iraq number one in importance with those who likewise place terrorism number one, and Iraq turns out to be a MUCH more favorable issue for Bush than the Iraq numbers alone would suggest.
Please pardo my previous typo… (rpress)… Once again passion overtakes accuracy. 🙂
Forget waiting for the rpess to cover this stuff. We shoudl encourage MoveOn and all the others to organize demonstrations which literally SURROUND the New York Times, the WashPost, LA Times, all the major outlets. ABC, CBS – God knows they never have anyone else outside on the plaza for their morning gig!
Seriously. We need to take this fight for information directly to those responsible for the job. They aren’t doing it. Nothing else will get their attention.
The economy is important, but I think, despite this poll, Bush is vulnerable on terrorism, too. A strong case can be made by Kerry that the war on Iraq has made us weaker on the war on terrorism. It has distracted us, first and foremost, from looming security issues here at home: tankers, air freight, train transport – no safer than we were before 9/11. Second, the war on Iraq has handed to Bin Ladin a great recruiting tool. Third, there’s solid evidence that the war on Iraq diverted attention from the search for Bin Ladin, and the deTalibanization of Afghanistan.
Kerry needs to point out that there never was a link between the war on terror and Saddam Hussein. This delusional link in the public mind has to be erased. There never was a link between Al Queda and Saddam, and yet many Americans still believe otherwise.
Bush is SO vulnerable on his handling of the war on terror that I can’t understand why this point isn’t being made over and over, not only by Kerry, but by the media. It seems so obvious that I must be missing something here.
I certainly admire Ruy’s panglossian optimism — no cloud without a silver lining for Kerry — and I hope he’s right.
But, as I stated in yesterday’s comment to the previous post, Kerry would be better positioned to benefit from the increased opposition to the war in Iraq if Kerry were opposed to the war in Iraq.
I noted with interest today’s New York Times article reporting that Bush’s numbers on his handling of the war are plummetting, but Kerry is not benefitting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/politics/29POLL.html?hp
That article states in part:
“The diminished public support for the war did not translate into any significant advantage for Mr. Bush’s Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. ”
Too bad, but not all that surprising. As I stated yesterday, if Kerry had from the start adopted Sen. Bob Graham’s stance on the war on terror, these erosion of support for Bush on the war would be helping Kerry much more.
–LB
aRuss- In 1956, Adlai turned the VP nomination to the convention. Estes Kefauver beat out the original JFK for the VP nomination. Stevenson-Kefauver lost. I’m not certain this is the best idea. for one thing, there would be no real vetting of the VP candidate.
Re the finding that among the 28 percent of respondents saying terrorism would be the most important issue affecting their vote Bush wins 83-14, I find that an amazing result.
MDtoMN may be right–these may be Bush’s hard core supporters. But if a significant portion of them are persuadables, another way of looking at that number is that it presents a fat target to come way down.
Other polling data suggesting that, for example, more respondents now see the Iraq war as making us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks rather than less suggest that–again, only among those who have not already made up their minds for Bush– Kerry may have some daylight on this issue to get those numbers way down.
I’d like to clarify that in earlier posts I did not mean to suggest that Kerry *should* select national security as his primary issue thrust to try to win the election. What I was trying to say is that, especially if there is strong Q3 job growth, we are going to need to know how we’re going to win making the national security issue work for us. I may be at one pole among those who frequent this site in believing that is actually possible!
In any case I am unable to see how establishing that as our goal is likely to hurt us. The way Kerry will make the issue work for him will be by coming off as commanding, as knowing what he’s doing and what he’s talking about. And if that perception of him takes it will help him generically. That may be part of why the Republicans are working so hard to portray him as exactly the opposite–as the opportunistic flip flopper who has no core principles or larger vision of where he wants to lead the country.
Most of the commentary has until recently assumed the economy and health care will favor Kerry and that his strategy to win should stress these issues. That may yet turn out to be the way to go. And I’m not suggesting this is an either/or matter where he talks mostly about the economy or mostly about national security.
What I’m suggesting is that it would be a disastrous mistake not to have a plan B. The point is that with both the economy and foreign policy in a high degree of flux right now we don’t know now which issues will work best for us in the fall.
Others here have written, and this makes sense to me, that it takes the public time to digest developments that cut against their earlier perceptions. I would add that may be especially true in issues of foreign policy, which have a large knowledge component to them, than the economy, which is something voters have some concrete experience with as well as an intuitive feel for.
Laying the groundwork for the national security argument now, during a period when the public is being presented with many developments unfavorable to Bush in his area of strength, seems like a common sense precursor for a plan B to win. I’m looking forward to the Westminster speech tomorrow.
I believe the 28 percent who picked terrorism are in fact the Republican Base. I don’t think this is really the issue, I think that it’s ideologues who need something to cling to. They are responding to Bush’s constant talk about terror, and they are embracing it because it cannot be examined empirically (is he actually good at terror?) by our present media. So, I think that 28% is our lower bound, and nothing can be done to ever make them waver.
I think the Republican Party also recognizes the need for such an issue (an unexamined issue that the media will let them take credit for). That’s why they talk it up, and their ranks respond.
As a result, I’m not sure Kerry could sway these people whatever he does.
It’s an inescapable fact that a presidential nominee has to have a vice presidential nominee, though many would have been happy to do without. But there is no reason Kerry has to use the traditional selection method, which is only slightly more democratic than the British monarchy.
Win or lose, he could contribute to a lasting improvement in our political system by devising a better way.
Fourteen vice presidents have gone on to the presidency, including nine who ascended when a president died or resigned. As John Adams, the first person in the job, noticed, “In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.”
We could wake up tomorrow to find President Dick Cheney taking the oath of office.
But the Constitution doesn’t say we have to leave the choice entirely to the nominee. Kerry could offer a list of candidates he considers suitable and let the Democratic convention delegates take it from there. Or he could let the delegates nominate three or four possibilities and then make his choice from that list. Or he could announce that he’ll turn it over to the convention and invite aspiring veeps to campaign for the job.
Any of these would give the voting public a vastly greater role than it normally has. It would also have some advantages for Kerry himself, such as attracting favorable attention–after all, who could possibly object? It would also allow him to contrast his open, inclusive approach with the secretive, Machiavellian style of the incumbent vice president. It could win strong public approval.
IT WOULD BE GREAT TO HAVE TWO CANDIDATES RUNNING
THAT PEOPLE REALLY WANT!
Adapted from Steve Chapman’s article in the Chicago Tribune April 25, 2004
The problem with the economy as an issue is the media. It seems to me, and correct me if I have some misperceptions, that every time I turn on the news in any medium in any media outlet I’m seeing good news about the economy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not wishing away prosperity simply to see W lose his job, but the problem with the economy as an issue will be one of public perception. If the media keep saying the economy is fine or at least on its way there I think a large part of the public (especially his staunch supporters but more importantly the undecideds who don’t share the Dems disdain for W) will give him the benefit of the doubt on the economy.
If everytime you turn on CNN, NPR, etc, etc you see “the markets are up a little bit” and “we added a few jobs last month” and reports that are basically saying “things aren’t great, but they could be worse” the economy at the very least won’t be useful for Kerry. At the worse W and his media troops will be able to keep saying “if it weren’t for those perfectly timed tax cuts we’d be in a lot of trouble right now.”
Either way, at the end of the day I’m afraid that it doesn’t matter what the polls say. People are probably going to say the economy isn’t terrible but the war is, I think we should keep Bush there because he’ll do a better job protecting us even if he did create the problem.
What we need for the economy is some tangible issue that people can really understand. There has to be something more concrete for people to wrap their heads around. If there is a news report saying that we added jobs in the previous month (whether it’s 300 or 3 million) it doesn’t matter that Bush has a net loss of jobs on his watch. All that matters is that people will see the words “added” and “jobs” and the GOP media attack will begin with the line that “tax cuts are the solution to everything from job loss to bear attacks.”
Long story short (too late) it’s a problem of perception and the media
The latest poll seems to reflect Bush’s weakness in the numbers.
A couple of points occur to me: Is it possible that people are really beginning to listen to W now? I used to think of this sort of thing as a kind of a test: His manner of expression is so inchoate, so vague that any listener can, in the immortal words of Harry Nilsson, “see what he wants to see and hear what he wants to hear.” Oddly soft-focus talk — warm, kinda friendly — rich in baco-bits. Is it possible now that people are not so willing to fill in the blanks: Another phrase that must roll through the White House typing polls — cost of Iraq, cost of Medicare prescription, cost of steel tarrifs, cost of… We’ll fill in the blanks later.
The degree of mismanagement is such that all W has begun to bet on is the economy. All eyes are on the economy, was the word. Pocketbook isssssssues. When inflation tags interest rates, I’m not sure mortgage refinancing will continue to work as the nation’s economic engine. Imagine the water cooler conversation: Yeah, I had 4.5%, but wow! I’m in solid at 7.5%
Thoughts?
Everybody take a look at this new CBS/NY Times poll:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/28/opinion/polls/main614605.shtml