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.
Then we can be friends again *hugs*
Ruy. Ruy. Ruy. There…got it now. Pardon…
Well he’s going to be insulted and take his polls and go home if you call him “Rux.”
Oh by the way, according to Judis and Dryer (Marshall’s tech) Ruy will be doing a stint over at Talkingpointsmemo in a few days.
There are enough polls out there to satisfy just about everyone…some to give you relief, some to scare the hell out of you.
The EDM site is usually a good place to visit for a pro-Dem view, and no doubt there have been good reasons to be optimistic with developments over the past couple of months.
Another site I check occasionally is the Electoral Predictor 2004 site — http://www.electoral-vote.com — which breaks out the different states. It has been good for Blue for weeks…until today! Ouch. Suddenly it registers Bush in the Electoral vote lead. All that Kerry needs is a swing in Michigan, which is doable, but I am a bit distressed to see the recent polls show an upswing for Red.
Looks like a lot of the 6/22 data is based on Zogby.
I’d be interested to see if Rux or anyone would like to comment.
I dug into the data in the ABC/WaPo poll, and I immediately noticed something that the Post story ignored: On question after question, Bush is doing fairly well in the South and absolutely HORRIBLY everywhere else. Sometimes the Midwest numbers are closer to those for the East and West, but most of the time the other three regions are very heavily weighted towards Kerry and the Democrats. If this is accurate, and continues until November, it could mean an Electoral College blowout of near-1964 proportions, even if the popular vote is much closer. And if Democrats outside the South can nationalize this election, perhaps it is an opportunity to take seats from Republicans in Congress who vote with Bush again and again, despite their constituents’ opposition to him.
I don’t put much faith in the Harris poll. It’s an interactive poll, not the typical ones we hear about. In fact, I don’t put much faith in polls that count “likely voters” rather than “registered voters.” I mean, it’s so subjective anyway. How do they know who is going to vote or not? This was one of the reasons the polls were so skewed in favor of Bush before the 2000 election. The fact that “likely voters” tend to push up Bush’s numbers by 6% or so is a clear reason to believe that most of these pollsters believe that more Republicans will vote instead of Democrats.
What on Earth makes them believe that? Everything I have seen so far shows a Democratic base which is far more energized than the Republican base.
The other polls showing “Bush ahead” are usually within 1 or 2%. Or the margin of error, and again using the “likely voter”. There have been more than enough polls to show the opposite for any reasonable person to believe that Bush is ahead at this point.
The one thing that strikes me about every poll – regardless of Bush being ahead or behind is the fact that he seems to always poll at 44%.
Notice that, he polls at 44%. So some polls will show him ahead of Kerry: 44% to 41%, while others will show Bush behind 47% to 44%, but the constant is always Bush at 44%.
I believe that 44% is a ceiling for Bush. The undecideds always go to the challenger. THEY ALWAYS DO. That means this election is not as close as “polls” have us believe.
Remember Carter 1980. In 1980, Carter and Reagan were actually “tied” according to polls throughout most of the year. With the exception of the “Republican bounce” after their convention in Detroit. When Reagan took a 12% lead.
But had Democrats looked at the polls more closely they would have seen a situation where Carter was polling at about 40 to 42% consistently. With Reagan polling at about the same and John Anderson polling at about 15%.
The Anderson vote collapsed in the end to 8% – which was still a good showing for a third party candidate. Carter’s vote stuck at about 41% and Reagan’s vote “surged” to 51%.
The mistake that Carter made. The same mistake Bush/Rove make now and (if you are following it) the same mistake that Paul Martin is making in Canada right now. Is that these incumbants believe that the election is about the challenger, when in fact an election IS ALWAYS about the incumbant.
Carter went around telling people how crazy Reagan was. This supressed Reagan’s potential vote for a time, as people decided to wait to hear more from him. The two times they got to see and gauge Reagan for themselves: The Republican convention and after the debates – Reagan’s lead jumped to 10% or so. Which is what he finished with.
The same was true of Bob Dole in 1996. He trailed Clinton by double-digits throughout most of that campaign, but in the end after the GOP convention and after the debates he “picked up” to a 6 to 8% deficit. He ended up losing by 8%.
So the best gauge for Kerry will come after the Democratic convention. When the “undecideds” really get a look at him. If his numbers jump and he leads Bush by 10% or more after that, I think it is fair to say the election is over and Kerry will win substantially.
P.S. Some people may wonder about 1992. The same dynamic was true then as well. Clinton came out of the Democratic convention with a 18% lead. But that was without Perot in the race, who had dropped out a few days earlier.
Once Perot was back in the race, Clinton’s numbers were the ones affected. Especially after the debate. The myth that Perot cost Bush the election is just that – a myth. Had Perot not been in the race, Clinton would have won a substantial double-digit landslide.
Right now http://www.intrade.com has Bush a 58% chance of winning re-election based on current wagers/betting.This is true capitalism at its best.I wonder how accurate it will prove? Time will tell
All major polls are tracked at:
http://www.pollingreport.com
For some discussion that may help you put the ABC-WashingtonPost poll in context (and more generally, to help understand poll bias) see:
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/bushjob/bushjob.html#head2head
2.004k.com now shows Kerry with 270 electoral votes, based on current polls:
http://2.004k.com/trend/
Pollkatz url is
http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/index.html
For all polls, try Prof. Pollkatz.
> You guys are hilarious.You don’t bother to mention
> the latest NPR,Harris,or AP polls that show Bush
> starting to develop a small lead.
Is there any website that tracks *all* important polls?
—
I compiled the following chart four years ago:
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/armagddn/bushgore1.gif
MARCU$
You guys are hilarious.You don’t bother to mention the latest NPR,Harris,or AP polls that show Bush starting to develop a small lead.At worst for Bush,it is a dead heat right now.Let’s be a little more honest guys.
These polls are very promising, but before we rush to Kerry’s coronation it is important to recall how small his margins are in most purple states. One or two shifts in events could move these numbers–in either direction. And June 30 could well be a plus for Bush. While the situation there is chaotic and will probably get worse, US casualties are likely to decline since US troops have pulled back in so many tough cities and simply turned control over to warlords, Baathists or fundamentalists like Sadr. I fear that American voters may well be easily duped into reading such a situation as “success.”
And don’t forget Bin Laden. He’s surely in Karl Rove’s basement waiting to be pulled out for the cameras in an October surprise.
T.J.
> Any more bounces like this one and John Kerry
> may not have to bother to campaign at all.
That is priceless. Great to have you back, Ruy.
A couple of points:
1) A June 30 handover of power that goes well will give Bush a bounce, and it may be significant. If the handover occurs and things remain as muddled and dangerous over there, or get worse, as they are now, look for a drop. The Bushies have put so much into the June 30 date that it will be a big deal when it happens. I expect a big buildup over it in the next week if they expect it to go well or it will be sotto voce if they realize it will be a disaster.
2) I’ve always been an independent until this year. I joined the Democratic Party, joined a Democratic Club, and have been working actively for the successofmy local Dem pols and for Kerry. I met a lot of people in the Dem Club who say exactly what I said when I joined, that Bush made me a hardcore Democrat and Bush made me become active after so many years away from active participation in politics (I always voted, but I was only an activist for a little while during and after college). I think Bush has done more to energize his NOT base than to energize his base. Every sop he throws to his base is like he’s yanking meet off the table of the independents as they see where his real priorities lie.
Well, I am pleasantly surprised that the “Reagan bump” so far has turned out to be (at best-) extremy small. In fact, it isn’t even visible in most polls! I guess this proves that the several months’ long backlog of negative news for “Shrub” won’t be erased from the minds of voters overnight. Hopefully, this also means it will take a long time before voters start thinking positively about the economy…
BTW, there seems to be some speculation about whether Clinton’s memoirs (and his re-emergence on the national stage) will help or hurt Kerry. I still hope and believe the former is more likely, although TNR’s Jonathan Chait worries that it will allow Republicans to draw attention to Monicagate etc. contrasting the squeaky-clean moral certitude of “Shrub”. Yeah, right. The only people who prefer the peace and prosperity of the 1990s to today’s “moral clarity” are Republicans. I think independent voters increasingly will appreciate Clinton’s legacy as the memory of Ken Starr, Lewinsky & co. starts to fade. Unlike in 2000, “Slick Bill” will probably be campaigning hard for the Democratic candidate and it won’t be as controversial as it was four years ago. Another reason to feel optimistic about Kerry’s chances e.g. in Arkansas.
MARCU$
Is it possible to think that we could be witnessing the collapse of the (R)s? Despite absolutely horrible performance governing, they have held together support due to nationalistic tendencies brought on by 9-11, and exploited in the war on terorrism. Despite this, the electorate seemed relatively even. Now, as the fog of war lifts and the raising-alert-level-to-orange trick loses its effectiveness, the electorate is beginning to digest the governing record. The coming demographics are, as Ruy has ably shown, a disaster for (R)s (especially the kind running things now). If it looks like the USS Bush the Smaler is sinking, and sinking fast, what is going to happen to the moderate (R)s in Blue or Purple states?
If the Texas Republicans lose their Mojo what are they going to run on?
Moderate (R)s have been overridden by the more extreme members of their caucus.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll is another prime example of Independents and their role in moving this election decidedly in Kerry’s direction. The Washington Post website has a tool where you can observe every question/response through various demographics, including party ID. It’s breathtaking to see just how much Independent voters dislike Bush. It’s also quite evident that while Republicans are almost completely in Bush’s corner (and the source of almost all of his support in the poll), Kerry still has room to grow among Democrats. I am confident that Kerry’s Democratic support will grow once their convention has celebrated him for four full days (as always happens to the party nominee). Things are looking promising indeed…
By the way, according to the poll, public interest in the election right now is equal to the public’s interest three WEEKS before the 2000 election. Don’t be surprised to see high ratings for the Democratic Convention next month.
Well I don’t get it. I read this blog and always it seems like good news, but any poll from any mainstream media shows Bush/Kerry even or Bush slightly ahead.
Like this: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/election-test-fl,1,4869427.flash?coll=la-util-elect2004
What gives?
Jon Stewart was on fire tonight guys. If you guys want talking point watch tonights episode of Comdey Central the Interview of Stephen Hayes 6/21/04
Chalk another one up for Jon Stewart
I saw it. Stephen (never heard of the guy before) Hayes was speechless and not becasue he didn’t get a chance to speak, but because his arguement was soooo weak. As weird as it may sound but I actually felt pitty for him. Within his circles (neocons) his arguement probably made all the sense in the world, but when put to the test … and believe me if the Daily Show could debunk Hayes and the neocons arguements (with so little effort) just imagine how weak the neocons positions are. In that interview Hayes himself looked like he might have changed his mind (but then again neocons never do even when their wrong)
Chalk another one up for Jon Stewart. Something that’s beyond the capability of the media and journalists. Why is this???
Stewart also pointed out two of Cheney’s and Bushes biggest lies that they denied sayingbut as always Jon has the incriminating video.
Go to Comedy Central to see the two lies this episode will be up soon. It’ll probably be posted on 6/20. Go here http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/videos.jhtml
Jon Stewart said something to this effect
Jon Stewart:
“Here’s the problem with preemption, here’s 4 justifications for it.
1] Weapon’s of mass destruction
2] Inflammatory rhetoric against the US
3] Harbors terrorists
4] oppresses its own people
Given these four things, you can’t tell me which countries actually engage in them.”
Stephen Hayes: “UHHH, Good Point”.
“It would seem that the public’s increased misgivings about Bush’s performance are making the Clinton era, despite Clinton’s personal foibles, look pretty good by comparison.”
Like The Onion said when Shrub took office: At last our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.