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.
*** Do not feed the freep…err…trolls ***
— Bush with a surprisingly modest (lead) in the solidly red states (48-44).
key notes:
— even in solidly red states, Bush’s reelect # is below 50%!
— Bush’s lead in solid red states is less than Kerry’s lead in solid blue or even purple states!
— Bush’s base of support is less than solid — previous polls have noted many instances in which Bush leans of soft support more than Kerry does on numerous issues and even in horserace comparisons.
— Democrats are making more inroads into red America than GOP is into Blue America! Kerry is confident enough and financed well enough to expand the battleground states to include some considered solidly red!
–compare this anemic 4% Bush lead to 2000 results in the solid red states:
AL +14 (elected a Democratic governor)
AK +31 (Democrats are actually competitive for a senate seat in solid red AK!)
AZ +6 (Democratic governor)
CO +14 (Kerry may just swing CO and has begun airing aids. Democrats are competitive for a senate seat and a congressional seat. One candidate is the incumbent attorney general Salazar.)
GA +12
ID +39
IN +16 (Could Senator Evan Bayh as VP swing IN and consolidate the midwest?)
KS +21 (KS elected a Democratic governor!)
KY +16 (KY-6, which went Bush +13 has already
repudiated a GOP congressional candidate who tried to run on Bush’s record, giving the Democrat Ben Chandler a +13 victory!)
LA +8 (Kerry is confident enough to run ads and compete for LA, which already has a Democratic governor and 2 Democratic senators.)
MS +17 (elected a Democratic governor)
MT +25
NE +29
NC +13 (even Rasmussen’s pro-republican polls still see NC is in play, a double digit Democratic swing. NC is developing the high-tech economy and diversified ideopolises that foster Democratic voting patterns. Could Senator John Edwards as VP place NC in the blue?)
ND +28
OK +22 (Democratic governor Henry is providing leadership in health care that Bush is seriously lacking! OK has 5th highest number of uninsured residents)
SC +16 (elected a Democratic governor)
SD +22 (elected 2 Democrtic senators and a Democratic congresswoman, giving the GOP its second straight defeat in special elections in solidly red states in a row in 2004, even after Karl Rove and Speaker Hastert and Laura Bush worked to campaign and raise money for their candidate!)
TX +21 (Even after engineering a favorable district map for his reelection, Tom DeLay is vulnerable. A 2:1 republican district TX-22 gives him a sub-50 approval rating and a relect # of 36%. Residents of his district have come to see his power-grabs and ethics violations and pending grand jury investigations as an embarassment and believe that he is not doing enough for his district, specifically blocking federal money to build much needed high-speed rail in his own district! Donations have been pouring in from across the country to his Democratic opponent Richard Morrison at http://www.richardmorrisonfordistrict22.com)
UT +41
VA +8 (even Rasmussen’s pro-republican polls still see VA is in play, a significant Democratic swing. VA is developing the high-tech economy and diversified ideopolises that foster Democratic voting patterns. Could Democratic Governor Mark Warner as VP place VA in the blue?)
WV +6 (Historically one of the most loyal Democratic states that could return to its Democratic roots out of dismay at Bush’s poor economic policies. Many feel that the state party did little to help Gore and merely lifting a finger for Kerry in 2004 could make all the difference it would take to swing WV back to blue.)
WY +41
All these states provided Bush with margins of at least +6, many of them by double digits, and as much as +41, how much has Bush’s base eroded if he only holds a 4 point lead today? Every one of these states gave Bush at least 51% of the vote in 2000, but now the average reelect # is only 48!
Bush’s support is failing just as Democrats are becoming more motivated and unified. 2004 may just be the embarassing landslide defeat that Bush deserves!
Keep up the hard work and support to make it happen: volunteer, donate to campaigns, write to editors criticizing Bush, endorsing Kerry, and appealing to the obvious need for new leadership and a new direction. We need more eloquent voices for progress to be heard and read throughout the nation, in our media and in our daily lives!
Reagan’s effectiveness in helping bring about the end of the Cold War without a shot being fired was attributable to a degree of flexibility George Wannabee Bush has yet to exhibit.
For backup on this (descriptive text and links courtesy of Josh Marshall, at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com):
Check out Fred Kaplan’s piece in Slate http://slate.msn.com//id/2102081/ on the interplay between Reagan and Gorbachev, how Reagan did play a key role in triggering, though not causing, the end of the Cold War — though not in precisely the way his hagiographers imply. Also take a look at this piece by Sid Blumenthal in Salon http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/06/10/reagan/index.html , which looks at this dimension of Reagan’s presidency from a distinct though complementary perspective.
“Or at least watching a baseball manager at work.”
An even better example might be how Lincoln ran through a number of generals before settling on Grant as the really *effective* one.
“You may not like Bush (according to polls, there’s a lot of you that don’t!), but he makes a decision and sticks to it.”
Where I come from, this is the sign of someone who can’t think. Decisions should always be reevaluated according to the changing facts on the ground. He should have learned this in business school. Or at least watching a baseball manager at work.
Who never changes his batting order as the game progresses? Who never takes a starting pitcher off the mound when the game goes into crucial late innings?
Come on, this ‘makes a decision and sticks to it” mantra is nonsense.
Lawrence,
No, you didn’t get my dander up. I thought maybe I got YOUR dander up.
The war medals (at least the Purple Hearts) are under some scrutiny. His subsequent protest of the war and indictment of all his fellow soldiers lessens him, at least IMHO.
Yes, I was going for the cheap laugh with the gravitas remark.
I was never too impressed with the Iran-contra investigation, and I’m not the only one who saw no reason to establish relations with Vietnam.
I’m not at all familiar with anything Bush did as governor. In 2000, I voted for him as an unknown (with conservative tendencies) over Gore because Gore’s views did not agree with mine.
This year, Bush will be running on his record as President, not governor. That may save his job or be his undoing; it’s up to the voters to decide.
bt, I just meant that he could use it TO win. He can have a detailed plan, but he doesn’t have to be very specific about it until after the election thus preventing the Bushies from using anything in it to club him over the head with it. My point was for campaigning ONLY not once Kerry wins.
P.S. I was hoping for an answer to this question as well:
“Can you tell me what your positive reasons were to vote for W in 2000 (i’m assuming of course that you did).”
“War hero”? Debateable. I’ll say he served his country and leave it at that.
“20 years in the Senate” – Sure, but doing what?
“gravitas” – Is that Latin for “I can’t make up my mind”?”
Well, Mr. Robinson, I seem to have gotten your dander up.
War Hero – he was awarded a Silver Star, as well as the usual and not very difficult to obtain Purple Hearts. That would usually be considered a reasonably sufficient qualification.
“20 years in the Senate” – Sure, but doing what?
He launched the Iran-Contra investigation (and got left out of the panel when it got going). He and McCain were the prime movers behind re-establishing relations with Vietnam, and going there to investigate and put to rest the persistant rumor that there were thousands of G.I.s being held in prison camps. His investigatorial focus seems to derive from his years as Assistant Attorney General of Massachusits (spelling?). Contrast that with Bush’s activities of the same time period: Failing to make a profit with his Arbusto oil company, getting bought out by a friend of his father, and then going on to baseball management.
Now you tell me what Bush did as Governor of Texas.
I’ll assume that you know the meaning of Gravitas and that that is merely a humorous remark.
‘War hero”? Debateable. I’ll say he served his country and leave it at that.’
Kerry received a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and 3 Purple Hearts. By just about any definition other than that of a wingnut, that would qualify as a war hero.
‘You may not like Bush (according to polls, there’s a lot of you that don’t!), but he makes a decision and sticks to it. ‘
The problem is that he makes mostly bad decisions.
Lawrence,
“War hero”? Debateable. I’ll say he served his country and leave it at that.
“20 years in the Senate” – Sure, but doing what? No major legislation, and voted against every military weapon. Now he wants to make sure we have a strong defense.
“gravitas” – Is that Latin for “I can’t make up my mind”?
You may not like Bush (according to polls, there’s a lot of you that don’t!), but he makes a decision and sticks to it. He doesn’t need a pollster to help him make it, either. In the face of all his negatives, the best thing Bush has going for him is his optimism for America and for Americans. Kerry strikes me as a doom-and-gloom type who is better suited for criticizing than leading.
Re SSJPabs, I think you may have answered your own question. Nixon (and, to be fair, Johnson) left a legacy of mendacity. Kerry devoted a chunk of his life to fighting the disastrous consequences of gross deception by two White Houses about the Vietnam War. I don’t see that he would want to adopt that style of leadership if he wins.
“Kerry’s best chance comes not from any great desire to vote for Kerry but from extreme dissatisfaction with Bush”
Well, yes, Bush is the incumbent. You could say the same, mutatis mutandis, for 1976 or 1992. But one should also distinguish between _our_ reasons for voting for Kerry and the reasons of swing voters (assuming that “reasons” is the correct word).
My positive reasons are mainly a 90+ career rating from ADA and a distinguished, courageous record in helping to stop the Vietnam slaughter. I don’t expect many swing voters to have the same reasons.
Roy
According to Professor Pollkatz, the Gallup Poll is the third most favorable to Bush ( http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/bushindexprobushtable.htm). Therefore, this is notable and not good for Bush.
“Kerry’s best chance comes not from any great desire to vote for Kerry but from extreme dissatisfaction with Bush.”
War hero, leader of VVAW, 20 years in the Senate, shows intelligence, skepticism, and gravitas. This makes quite a contrast to somebody who’s pre-presidential biography includes business failure and baseball team executive. I keep on thinking of what W was doing when Kerry was in the Senate casting all those votes that the RNC are criticising him for.
Can you tell me what your positive reasons were to vote for W in 2000 (i’m assuming of course that you did).
Vote Kerry – he would have thought twice before trading Sammy Sosa!
I can’t help but notice that all the posts so far (except for those from wellbasically and bt) focus on Bush’s negatives and not on Kerry’s positives. It seems the readers on this blog feel Kerry’s best chance comes not from any great desire to vote for Kerry but from extreme dissatisfaction with Bush.
Side note: Kerry’s latest ad in Ohio is terrible. It has him droning on in a retirement center about saving Medicare. The camera cuts away to seniors listening to the speech. The desired effect may be to show how intently the people are listening, but to me they look really bored. The ad certainly doesn’t make me want to run out and vote for Kerry.
But what do I know? I think anyone who has read my posts knows I’m voting for Bush!
Re: Reagan canonization bounce – CNN 24 hour funeral commentary. Fox, MSNBC, same thing. I pretty sure most people have already had more than enough. Looking at the polls, it’s possible that the lock-in point has already been reached, and Reagan funeral boredom is not going to help W. Maybe.
Why shouldn’t Kerry just stick with “I have a secret plan to win the Iraq war”
…it worked for Nixon.
I am wondering if Reagan’s death and attention to his legacy has helped the Administration see some value in flexibility and pragmatism. After all, they appear actually to have listened and attempted to accommodate the concerns of other UN Security Council members in connection with the UN resolution on Iraq just passed.
They might also have concluded they have no other choice at this point. So long as Kerry is permitting what appears to the public to be so little daylight between his and the Administation’s stance on Iraq, the Admin may conclude it has to rebut the argument Bush can no longer command the respect of the international community by showing they in fact are capable of listening and accommodating the concerns of other nations. They have to be able to make a passable case they can recover and lead in the world again and will swallow some of their pride to bolster their re-election chances.
The controversy over the legal memos seeking to justify violations of the Geneva rules on torture is a watershed event in recent world history, one that is likely to have long-term repercussions.
Right now it’s unclear whether the appearance of this story in the news during the week of Reagan’s burial will mean it is largely ignored by the public–or whether the national disgrace it amounts to will be exacerbated among those who feel the opposite emotion when recalling Reagan’s presidency.
Beware the Trojan Horse of High Oil Prices…..
As Prince Bandahar(sp?) told Bob Woodward the Saudi’s intend to drive oil proces down this summer, which by the way they have started doing, to drive gas prices down by election time in order to help Bush (or should we call him the Grand Inquisitor now??). If I remember correctly, something similar worked before. When oil proces collapsed in late 1983 inflation eased, unemployment went down and then voilla Reagans poll numbers went up. The next thing we knew, we were stuck with him and his dissasterous policies for another 4 years and one could argue 16 years. So I wouldn’t count on high oil prices to be much help.
One more point.
As some have noted, Reagan, despite his image, was, as President, far more flexible and pragmatic and far less ideological than Bush has been.
The irony is that Bush has become in fact the recklessly ideological President that many feared Reagan would be before he was elected President.
Can Ruy or someone else explain to me how the Gallup breakdown is mathematically possible? Up 5 among all voters, up 5 among purple, up 20 among blue, and down 4 among red. Doesn’t that imply something like 3 times as many red state voters as blue? That can’t be right. And do you really believe Kerry’s only down 4 in the red states? How much did Bush win them by in 2000? My guess is it had to be more than 10. Is it possible Texas is in play now?
The Reagan death bounce seems particularly unlikely to work on the most important group of voters: the independents.
Independents are not going to be much impressed by Reagan’s ideology. Insofar as they admire Reagan, it will be because of his leadership abilities. Yet every nostalgic clip of a Reagan speech puts under klieglights what Reagan had, and Bush lacks. God knows I’m no fan of Reagan, but even I get depressed when I see footage of the two Presidents side by side. With Reagan at least, there was a there there.
Beyond this, the obvious points are: has Bush made us feel prouder to be Americans? Has Bush made us feel better off than we were four years ago? These are questions of considerable importance to independents, and the identical questions for Reagan worked wonders for him and his image. But the answers to them for Bush are diametrically opposite.
Does anyone have a link or know if the Daily Show segment is available anywhere, or if the tapes are available on the web anywhere?
Sara,
Did you see the Daily Show segment on the Enron tapes (Monday night)? They should just run that. Killer.
Fortunately (…), it seems the bad news pipeline will remain full for the next few months at least. We have the following things:
* A highly critical new report on the CIA will be published in late July. Some of the dirt will probably hit the White House too.
* The Valerie Plame investigations continue and have reached the point where “Shrub” reportedly decided to consult a personal lawyer.
*Abu Ghraib will not complete fade from the picture, e.g. we recently learned (thanks to WSJ[damn liberal media!]) that there appears to be a secret White House memo essentially legalizing torture. It will most likely become very hard for the apologists to argue that the whole mess is merely the work of a handful of prison guards acting on their own. This could be bad news for Rummy in particular, who even might have committed perjury if this turns out to be true.
*Cheney’s dealings with Halliburton in Iraq are back in the news again. slate.msn.com regards the latest reports as potentially more serious than anything we’ve seen so far.
*The Administration’s recent strategy in Iraq has been to deflect blame from themselves by giving the Iraqi interim government more control over nonmilitary matters. However, I don’t think this will solve the basic problem, which is Iraqis are angry because there is no security and the reconstruction effort is sagging because private contractors and foreign aid workers cannot do their job as a direct result of it. The insurgents won’t cease and desist as long as there are American troops in Iraq, and I don’t think the relatively weak Iraqi government + police forces will be capable of pacifying the country. Hence, the violence (& U.S. casualties…) will most likely continue.
*The economy is improving, but it seems oil prices and key employment figures in some swing states such as Ohio won’t change significantly before the November elections.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
I am still nervous there is going to be some big positive news for “Shrub”, but (apart from the economy improving) it seems increasingly less likely.
MARCUS
I am trying to figure whether the “Torture” story does any lasting damage to Bush. The seeming claim that “Commander in Chief” includes a constitutional authority to authorize torture strikes me as an issue I’d like to see presented to the electorate in some fashion. There is something about these stories passing by so quickly, all smothered in this false sentiment about Reagan.
Similarly, I suspect the CBS featured “Enron Tapes” will or at least could have a profound impact on swing voters. If an organization such as Move On could get hold of those tapes, and mix them properly for good radio ads and run them over enough times — I suspect this could move even some Bush supporters. If I were doing the ads, I’d do some sort of a contrast of the Enron Tapes words and the concept of Moral Clarity — and ask why GWB didn’t apply that to gross consumer exploitation.
If Reagan were a choice he’d be outpolling ’em all this week. The Republicans are gonna need a miracle, based on these numbers, but the third day has come and gone and I don’t think Reagan is returning from the dead.
Isn’t the whole notion of a “dead reagan bounce” a bit pathetic? Do they really expect to coast to victory on the back of 80’s nostalgia. Reagan drew the so called Reagan democrats. What democrat is going to reverse their vote to Bush cause Reagan died?
Kerry would do better to have a better economic plan than Bush. Right now his plan is worse.
He should also stop running ads against Nader. Look at these polls from dailykos.com
Michigan poll
by Paleo
Tue Jun 8th, 2004 at 14:06:58 EDT
Kerry 47%
Bush 45%
Kerry 45%
Bush 43%
Nader 3%
EPIC/MRA poll. 600 likely voters. MOE 4%.
Nader is not pulling from either. He is attracting voters who would simply not vote if Nader is not in the race. It is a waste of money and worse, a mistake in direction to attack Nader.