Bush leads Kerry 45-42 and 48-40 in two polls of nation-wide RV’s conducted 9/17-21 and 9/22-26 respectively by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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April 19: Will Chaos of Chicago ’68 Return This Year?
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.
Gaza isn’t Vietnam.
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.
Political conventions are different today.
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.
Brandon Johnson isn’t Richard Daley.
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 whole world (probably) won’t be watching.
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.
ok, eventhough i believe Nader will be no factor, few if any kerry or bush supporters are going to go to Nader, its going to be hippies and kids that wouldn’t vote otherwise. Also problem is that Nader is in only 32 states and may be in less than those. Polls are nationwide. Regardless looking at 3 way polls Bush is ahead by 5%. Averaing out both since many polls do both 2 and 3 way its at best a 4% race, hardly anything to be concerned about. there were several times in Sept and Oct 2000 where both Bush and Gore were 4% ahead or behind. The WP/ABC has equal number of D/R and the AP is heaily toward R.
Regardless a 3-5% gap in late Sept against a sitting president in a time of war is not that bad at all. if bush were not 5% behind Kerry would you say he might as well resign since the election is lost?
Nice try rambdan, but I have 2 points:
You cannot just look at the 2 way; Nader is in 32 states including some of the key states (ie PA & FLA) where the race is close. To just leave Nader off completely misrepresents a key dynamic in this race…Secondly, you left out 2 polls, WP/ABC & AP/IPSOS, which show GWB with a 8-9 point lead.
Kerry’s statements on Allawi were correct and needed to be said. Kerry cant be faulted if there are not enough intelligent people in the market capable of handing and digesting solid truth.
If the American people prefer to swallow chocolate coated crap, then Kerry cant be expected to take the wrap for that.
Bush has been proven over and over to be grossly incompetent, some have labelled him a blatant liar, he himself has questioned his own intelligence. If the people of America prefer this kinda person in the white house, then please dont blame Kerry for people’s lack of intelligence. People usually get the government they deserve.
Personally, I am in that crowd who says that Kerry is doing fine. He is doing, mostly, the right things and has said, for the most part, the right things.
I think Kerry has had a pretty good 14 days and I think this will be reflected in the poll stats from the coming 10 – 14 days.
Look, its the people’s choice. They decide if they want intelligence, integrity, level headed decision making, expert foreign policy decisions, rock solid domestic policies, a strong army, a quelling of terrorism as would be given by Kerry, or if they want to continue to live in fear of another 9/11, have a deficit that cant be counted on a regular scale, have insurance for a select few, continued mass murders on Iraq and plenty shadowy forms of truth, as would be continued by Bush and his cohorts.
Kerry has done enough and is doing a fine job and as such I cant think of any reason why he should beg the electorate to exercise intelligent judgment if its not there. There is really nothing that Kerry can do to make people intelligent and smart. Nothing.
I see a strong consistent figure in Bush all right — a man who said clearly that the war on terror can be won, then changed his mind, then changed it again, saying it could be won.
And what about that trip to Mars anyway ?
One word: outlier. Majority of polls all show the race is a dead heat. If Pew’s numbers are consistently all over the place, and they are known to eschew weiting by party ID, well, I think it’s pretty obvious what’s happening with their data.
I was going to point out to LL Smooth J that a busy candidate in the midst of a heated campaign can indeed by VERY tired at noon on any given day. I was going to do this until I realized that the whole point of Smooth Jazz, et al., posting here is to bog down yet another progressive site in the mud of distortion and non sequitur — an accurate description of not only George W. Bush’s campaign, but his entire presidency as well.
Hey, I have no doubt that Bush will win, even though the Gallup numbers are clearly dreck. Best of luck to all of you, even Smooth J and company, over the next miserable four years. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Four more years!
“Kerry was caught in another Whopper today: When interviewed by Dianne Sawyer, he said the “I voted for it before I voted against it” quote resulted because it was late at night and he was tired.
It turns out when he gave that speech in Huntington, WV, it was 12:00NOON.”
That’s not a whopper; if you want to see a whopper, revisit George Dubya Custer on WMD’s in Iraq (by way of Salon Magazine’s article on Bradley’s 60 Minute expose that wasn’t).
WMD’s in Iraq, now that’s a whopper!
> Kerry made a fool of himself dissing the Iraqi PM
> who came here to, among other things, thank us
> for our sacrifice.
Some Americans don’t appreciate sacrificing our own country’s national security in an attempt to liberate others.
Seems like a conservative stance to me.
I find the Pew results somewhat disappointing, but can’t dismiss them out of hand. I do wonder why they’ve been bouncing around so much, though. Three weeks ago they had Bush up by 16 (?!) then a tie and then by three and then by eight at a time when most other surveys show Kerry either gaining or the race remaining essentially static. I don’t think that the Allawi comments had much of an effect, at least a lasting one, and their young voter results noted by a previous poster are at variance with Newsweek’s extensive poll of that age group. (But such voters are volatile and unpredictable, so maybe Pew’s right.) But maybe Pew’s onto something; the race might be more fluid and changing more frequently then most analysts think. Maybe. I don’t know.
But since I don’t know Pew’s methodology, I won’t write them off as wrong, though I don’t think they’re uniquely right, either. They’re just one more ingredient to be tossed into the stew pot of polls and analysis.
‘Kerry made a fool of himself dissing the Iraqi PM who came here to, among other things, thank us for our sacrifice’
I think you miswrote — a man who cannot control his own country, his own capital city or even his own compound,. whose every moment is guarded by American troops, whose tenure is temporary till January came to America posing as an indepdent leader.
‘But ask yourself how many swing voters appeciated the assault against a foreign leader expressing his gratitude to us. And could this have helped to swing Pew and almost all the other most recent polls against Kerry.’
I don’t think Kerry’s comments on Allawi had any impact at all except among people who believe Allawi is Thomas Jefferson, reborn. Most people recognize he’s not a true leader and most of us also recognize brown-nosing when we see it.
And other polls haven’t shown a move away from Kerry this week either.
If I had to guess, I would put the real difference midway between these 2 numbers, which amoungs to a difference of 5 or so points. Still a lead for Bush, but not an insurmountable lead.
Btw,
Kerry was caught in another Whopper today: When interviewed by Dianne Sawyer, he said the “I voted for it before I voted against it” quote resulted because it was late at night and he was tired.
It turns out when he gave that speech in Huntington, WV, it was 12:00NOON. Some may consider this trivial, like his Christmas in Cambodia lie; But when fair minded undecided consider the ALL of Kerry’s misquotes and prevarications, they don’t see a consistent, strong, honest figure.
I can’t see how he can get any traction in polls with these kinds of misstatements.
Until we see what percent of the Pew sample was R’s, D’s, and I’s, we should reserve judgment. Andrew Kohut, a leading figure with the Pew organization, is an outspoken opponent of sample weighting on Party ID. This could just be Gallup all over again. In fact, we now know that Pew’s poll was done by Princeton Survey Research Associates, the same firm that does Newsweek’s polls (which have included disproportionate numbers of Republicans relative to turnout in the ’92, ’96, and 2000 elections).
Indeed, another poll released yesterday, by Investor’s Business Daily and the Christian Science Monitor (polling agency TIPP) showed Kerry leading 46-45 among likely voters.
http://pollingreport.com/wh04gen.htm
Man, the trolls are out today. Must be a special, “build up to the debates” campaign going on. I’m fairly happy where JK is right now. About 5 points down or so, with the debates coming. All that’s happened in the past month is Republicans and Republican leaners have “come home” before Democrats. Happens every four years. If you recall, Bush was much more than this far ahead four years ago, but then, predictably, those last 5-6% worth of marginal Democratic voters came home, and it ended up a tie. Kerry is in better position now than Gore was about three weeks out, after the 2000 debates. He’s fine.
Kerry does have some work to do. The cumulative impact of these polls, for all their biases, should tell us that people need to feel more secure about the idea of President Kerry. He still has this opportunity and ability to do so, but it’s not getting any earlier in the race. Depending upon any number of issues (real news, debate gaffes or strokes of genius, which pile of hay the debate pundits choose to eat from), things could go in any number of directions.
As for hanging the poll swings on the Allawi-Kerry news thread, I can’t agree or disagree. I just haven’t seen it come up in the places I usually visit for news. True, Dick Cheney made the claim, but I have yet to count his as an Everyman sort of figure.
Coming back to Smooth’s much-less-than-smooth characterization of Kerry, this race in some ways does boil down to the idea of putting lipstick on a pig. Bush has done a deft job of convincing the public that Kerry needs the makeup. To the extent that no candidate is perfect, Kerry has some reframing to do.
The amazing part to me, however, is that people are seriously considering voting for Bush on the rationale that although makeup could never conceal his own piglike qualities (Smooth chose the metaphor…I can only work with it), at least he’s consistently a pig. It’s not rational, but it’s the game.
On a humorous note, this all calls to mind the old Adlai Stevenson line where he was told that he could count on the vote of every thinking person in America. Stevenson replied (paraphrasing from memory) “That is good to hear, but I need a majority to win.”
put a fork in kerry, he is done.people just do not like him and unless bush makes a major flub in the debates kerry is toast. the media is working real hard to re-elect bush so the debate spin will be all pro bush unless he messes up so badly they can`t spin it.it will tighten at the end ,but the reality is this election is not tied and that bush has a solid lead.
Plenty of talk about party I.D. But in this poll, 15% of the democrats support President Bush, while only 7% of the republicans support Senator Kerry? Independents back the president by 8 points. All in all, it’s hard to rationalize these results based on faulty weighting.
The president leads among women by 3, while Vice-President Gore won their support by 11 points in 2000. Young people back the president 48-42 (Rock the Vote indeed). Clearly, Senator Kerry is having trouble holding the support of people that have traditionally backed democrats.
Wrong candidate, or wrong campaign. Either way, when you have to “reintroduce” (McCurry’s term) your candidate on September 30th, you’ve got serious problems.
Can you explain the internals of the new Pew Poll, especially their samplin of republicans and democrats. The result is worrisome, unless it has the same flawed sampling techniques exhibited by Gallup.
When I went to the Pew site, I saw no information on the realative Republican Democratic sample size.
Wow,
You guys do a good job in pasting lipstick on a pig, but only the typical cocooners will buy your spin IMO: That the 3 point GWB lead last week is comparable to an 8 point lead in the same poll TODAY. You post the 2 polls side by side, matter of factly, and without perspective, as if nothing happened between the 1 week period between survey coverage.
I have news for you, if you’re willing to listen. Kerry made a fool of himself dissing the Iraqi PM who came here to, among other things, thank us for our sacrifice. Even Kerry flack, Joe Biden, cringed on TV while acknowledging he sought to assure PM Allawi after Kerry stepped in it.
To be sure, I know that the typical Michael “FahrenHype 911″ Moore and Whoopi ” Kiss My ___” Bush-Hating types, including many on this forum, loved Kerry’s offensive against Allawi; But ask yourself how many swing voters appeciated the assault against a foreign leader expressing his gratitude to us. And could this have helped to swing Pew and almost all the other most recent polls against Kerry.