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.
I think it is encouraging to see more emphasis placed on Dems’ religious perspectives and how they impact our policy commitments. I noted, for instance, teh Fox News article, “Democrats Are People of Faith, Too.” Do other sthink this is a good sign?
Zogby’s poll today has a very small bounce… Kerry actualyl gained zero and Bush lost three points. The results are all broken down at Polling Report (http://www.pollingreport.com).
Overall, Kerry-Edwards leads Bush-Cheney 48-43. But geographically, K-E holds a 2 point lead in the South, a 7 point lead in the West, and a 22 point lead in the East. Only in the Midwest does B-C have the edge, and only by 5 points. Either Zogby polled a lot of Midwesterners, the Zogby definition of the Midwest is geographically enormous, or some combination of the two. I’d think that the first possiblity is good for Kerry and the second possibility is good for Bush.
Do any of you know how Zogby defines the “Midwest”?
Place the blame for where it belongs: On the networks for allocating so little time to the convention. At least give it 2 hours, like a made-for-TV movie.
After listening to Kerry’s speech, I think he will equal the average of a 6-7 point bounce, which is huge considering how dug in people’s opinions are. The only criticism I have of the speech is that it was so long, the beginning of Cleland’s introduction did not make prime time network coverage (Kerry had to start at 10:05 so he could finish by 11:00). I think if the networks would have covered Cleland’s moving intro, plus maybe a little of Kerry’s shipmates, then the bounce would be even higher.
Nate–
I saw that headline for the AP story the other day about how Kerry is trailing in the electoral college votes, and I was suspicious when I first saw it. Sure enough, after the headline and first couple paragraphs, the evidence wasn’t nearly as “cut and dry” as they made it out to be.
They claim a vote count of 193 for Kerry to 217 for Bush, but I immediately noticed those are both well shy of the 270 needed. What have they done with the rest of the votes that are still up in the air? Simply ignored them, it appears. Toward the end of the article, they admit that 21 states are still “in play”, but they don’t offer any comparisons between the Kerry and Bush vote counts when you consider the way those states are leaning.
Nick already mentioned electoral-vote.com, which breaks down data by strong Kerry, weak Kerry, barely Kerry, tied, barely Bush, weak Bush, and strong Bush. Including the leaning states, Kerry is currently up 289 to 232. The last time the website had him trailing was for a few days at the end of June. The long-term look has been fairly favorable, with Kerry leading in electoral votes most of the time over the past few months.
The concern is, we’ve still got a lot of “barely Kerry” states. It’d be nice to see the convention solidfy several of the weak Kerry states into solid territory, and even slide some of the barely Kerry states into the “weak state” category.
*BKW
http://www.geocities.com/numbers_04/
I also use that site for electoral predictions. His methodology is at the bottom of the page.
> Pat Buchanan: This was an amazing speech. I
> think he took the populist right. If all I saw was
> this speech, I would vote for him. Kerry did far
> far more than I ever thought he could.
> David Brooks: Kerry has framed the race,. The
> Republicans will look foolish attacking him
You can add THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s Jonathan V. Last & Mike Murphy and some NY Post guy (whose name I forgot) to the list of worried conservatives reluctantly impressed by the Demo convention in general and Kerry’s speech in particular.
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I do think Karl Rove has some work to do. First of all because Kerry & co. have more “maneuvering room” with their base (which loathes “Shrub” more than anything), so they can afford to pursue centrist themes. OK, there is Nader, but you know what I mean. The other problem is the Democrats actually managed to put on a reasonably positive, optimistic show in Boston. So how will the incumbent respond to that? By firing away more negative attack ads against Kerry/Edwards? That would further alienate swing voters. Seems like the only option is to run on past accomplishments, except the economy, budget deficits, Iraq etc. really don’t produce that much to brag about…
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Unless the economy improves drastically & unquestionably across the whole spectrum and there is a real series of breakthroughs in the Middle East (Bin Laden captured + solid WMD evidence emerges at last), I think Kerry might win merely by doing “OK” in the debates and on the campaign trail. In that respect, it was probably smart of JFK to avoid being specific about Iraq. He will get a chance to debate the issue with “Shrub” himself on national TV barely a month before the election. I think the pressure will be on the latter rather than the former.
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Finally, isn’t it funny how “Shrub” really is starting snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here?? I mean, without the misguided Iraq fiasco, he would still have his halo intact as “great resolute war leader”. I have always thought his bark was worse than his bite…”all hat and no cattle” as they say in his native Texas. He could have safely basked in the glory of Afghanistan, kept blathering about “axes of evil” while pursuing sabre-rattling neocon policies in his American Enterprise Institute speeches without actually risking anything. The economy and record deficits would still be giving him problems, true, but neither would be as bad because 200 billion dollar’s worth of Iraq-related expenses and insecurities would not be dragging things down. And John F. Kerry would now be doing as badly as Dukakis in 1988. There is no way a stiff, aloof, elitist, liberal Massachusetts senator would win under normal circumstances! But this isn’t business as usual. And for that, we can thank the amazing incompetence of the current incumbent.
MARCU$
I have tried to judge this speach in light of Ruy’s oft-repeated statement that the challenger has to present himself as a minimally acceptable alternative to the incumbent. Then, people who have decided to “fire” the incumbent can safely decide to vote for the challenger. In this light, Kerry had to satisfy people that he could handle the one issue where they fear for their personal safety, the war against terror. That is why he quite rightly focused on that issue, rather than emphasising the economy. A sufficient number of people have already decided to fire Bush with regard to the economy. Now they have been convinced that they will live to see the better economic times.
In my view, Kerry hit a home run.
Paul C
Nate —
How the Electoral College vote is leaning at this point depends on how you weight the various polls. Here’s a couple of second opinions to the story you cited:
Kerry 291 Bush 237
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Kerry 171 Bush 138
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/election-test-fl,1,2794139.flash?coll=la-home-multimedia
I just wish he would have explained more fully his position on Iraq. All in all a good speech
This is more of a question than a comment, and I’m sorry that it doesn’t pertain to this particular blog entry but rather an appeal to Ruy Teixeira to explain something that has been puzzing me for some time.
I greatly appreciate Mr. Teixeira’s way of dissecting the polls. There’s nothing else like it. But it seems that all too often he focuses on overall (national-level) data, when what will decide the next presidential race is electoral college votes.
I have been bouyed along by Mr. Teixeira’s interpretations, and had been feeling quite encouraged. . . until I saw this: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040725/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_road_to270&cid=694&ncid=716
which purports to show that whatever the situation with the popular vote, Bush seems to be still leading in projections for the electoral college.
Why does Mr. Teixeira tend to neglect this area of concern? Is it because most available polling data does not allow for analysis of electoral college votes?
In any case, it would be wonderful if he could write something soon that would explain and comment upon this seemingly important angle.
[If this (or the recent AP poll) has already been covered in a previous post which I somehow missed, please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.]
-Nate Roberts
Hmmm, Allan, I remember him saying something about lowering taxes on the middle class and raising taxes on those who make more than $200,000.
If I made more than $200,000, I guess I’d think twice about voting for Kerry. But I don’t …
He also said something about taking care of Americans before giving away big tax breaks to companies like Enron.
The guy’s a populist! I think Bush is in big trouble …
Settle down Joe. Can we both agree that Pat Buchanon doesn’t exactly have much credibility? He is the GOP’s Al Sharpton. I myself am more libertarian than conservative. I’m one of the people that thinks Bush is almost as bad as Democrats on spending,oh hell, he is as bad. I guess with the dems,most people come to expect higher taxes and more spending. At least they’re more honest about it. I am glad that Kerry said he would raise taxes though. That should make for a nice contrast. I’m sure that line will go over well with swing voters and people trying to make ends meet. Why do the politicians think we are under taxed in this country? It just boggles my mind. I’m sure the dems will catch a bounce from this convention. Will it last? I doubt it. Enjoy it while you can I guess.
Allan–
Pat Buchanan liked it. The MSNBC swing-voters focus group liked it. Obviously us partisans liked it.
You go right ahead and nitpick away. “Oh, he’s sweaty!” “Oh, he loves the French!” “Rove’ll get him!” (You missed the one about how ABC ran a couple of minutes of the Al-Jazeera feed over the speech to “create the association” between Kerry and Arabs: “He’s Bin Laden’s candidate!”–maybe you can include it later on LGF.)
We don’t mind. This was a *very* strong opening move, and it gave no ground to the despicable torrent of sewage headed his way over the next three months. He did a great job. You, though, are grasping at straws.
I do agree with you on the “west wing” comment, though. I think it would have been a stronger joke if he’d said “left wing”, too. Better self-deprecation, and more of a contrast to the utter lack of humility, rhetorical or otherwise, in his opponent.
It was a great speech. Very impressive.
I think it’s Kerry’s election to win or lose, and after tonight I’m betting on the former.
I didn’t hear how he would manage the war in Iraq differently than the way it is being run now. Also it’s funny when all you democrats talk about bringing our allies etc. back into the fold. That’s code for France and Germany. We don’t need those ungracious bastards.
I am the only one that noticed that Kerry was sweating like a pig up there on stage? I thought it was hilarious. They needed to crank up the AC in the arena. I also heard the stage manager curse at the guys in the rafters while watching CNN. He was heard saying “what the fuck are you guys doing up there,drop all the balloons and confetti now!” As for the speech itself, it was Kerry trying to pretend that he was a Republican. He hammered away that he would be a better command-in-chief than Bush. He didn’t really talk about his record in the Senate for the last twenty years, but that’s okay because I’m sure Karl Rove et al will make sure that Kerry’s voting record gets exposed for what it is and that is extremely liberal. I can’t wait for the RNC now. Oh yeah I almost forgot, Kerry says he was born in the “west wing” of the hospital in Colorado. I beg to differ. He was born in the left wing of the hospital :^)
Yessssss!!! That was one kickass speech.
We co-hosted a Convention party tonight in northern Virginia, and *everyone* there was pumped. The marching orders for hosts were as top priority to get at least one or two people to agree to host parties and we surpassed that long before he gave his speech. One of the more skeptical/worried guests, a guy who’s seen lots of conventions over the years, said to me after, big smile on his face, “He’s aliiiiiiive!!” There’s a long way to go–the debates will be huge, events can take wild turns, etc. But right now I’m feeling good. I did not think he could give a speech that good. He went a long way towards helping himself preempt the toughest challenges he faces. And he so obviously seemed to enjoy himself. Yes, I’m feeling good tonight.
Pat Buchanan: This was an amazing speech. I think he took the populist right. If all I saw was this speech, I would vote for him. Kerry did far far more than I ever thought he could.
David Brooks: Kerry has framed the race,. The Republicans will look foolish attacking him
How high the bounce?
7-8 points…
The deal is sealed wiith the swing voters AND the entire Democratic Party – Zell Miller is fired up too.
It is back to Crawford time….
Charlie Cook will no longer tremble at the L word…
I suspect that the biggest group of votes still up fpr grabs are voters who are still reasonably well disposed to Bush. For the most part those are not independents, who will probably break strongly to Kerry.
These voters do care a lot about foreign policy and terrorism, and they gove Bush high marks in those areas. That is why Kerry has to make it clear he is just as mean and nasty as any Republican.
The voters I’m talking about are Perot voters; quite conservative, but not in Bush’s pocket. They are sufficiently alienated so they do not have pro-Republican mojo.
yes, the economy may be the biggest *current* issue in the swing states. But I think Kerry’s “strongman” approach is the best possible way to inoculate himself against the possibility of a terrorist attack before November.
The knee-jerk reaction if there’s another horror will be to rally ’round the flag…and Kerry can only stay in the conversation at that point if he has tough-guy credentials with the voters. If, instead, he’s spent the entire election talking about health care or jobs programs — then they’ll immediately tune him out when the s*** hits the fan.
I think Frenchfries is 100% right.
Ruy, do you have thoughts on what specifically you would want Kerry to offer as his plan for Iraq, prior to his speech tonight? Would it be the proposal offered by O’Hanlon in an article you linked to awhile back?
Deep in my bones I believe Kerry has been sandbaggin this Iraq issue and this strength/terrorism thing…
Consider ..this is the most tightly scripted Demo convention ever and all signs are pointing to it…a more plan for Iraq and one helluva speech…
The bars have been lowered, even Charlie Cook says “he just has to be acceptable” and the Republican attack dogs assigned to DNC duty have been snarling about IraQ all week..
They should be careful what they ask for ….I think they’ll probably get it
The man himself will let us know tonite what tack he will take! I look forward to reacting to it with you-all to-morrow…
I’m worried as well about Kerry’s credibility gap on the Iraq issue. But I’m still very anxious about him formulating a specific “plan” for handling the situation. Bush doesn’t formulate one either. He just has the benefit of being there “first”, so to say. He did something, he toppled Saddam. He just messed up afterwards.
But I really think that every specific proposal coming from Kerry will immediately be exploited by the other side. You can imagine the slogans yourselves.
Maybe I’m just naive on this, or overly pessimistic. But I think Kerry’s emphasis on “respect” and “alliances” is about as for as you can go proposing actual talks or an Iraq conference, for instance.