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.
George Phillies wrote:
Perhaps the most important number, both nationally and in many states that Bush seems to be carrying, is that the first digit of his numbers is a “4”.
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Ah, through all the buzz, a statement of clarity.
Bush is losing and has been losing a long time. If polls are viewed generally for the past several months, there are only limited moments in which Bush has pierced the “50”, and that only if you actually believe those polls.
Sabato said two months ago it would take a miracle for Bush to win, and he was right.
Bush has lost the election. I’m sure their major game plan is still to steal it. Florida and Ohio are where they plan to try to steal it.
The undecideds cannot possibly break for the President. If they were going to support Bush they’d be in his column before now. He’s the known quantity. He’s been consistent for the last 4 years and also during the debates. Anyone who is really undecided at this point has already resisted being swayed by Bush for 4 years and the entire campaign. That’s why there are so few real undecideds. What Kerry had to do and did during the debates is show he’s capable of governing.
Late rapid drifts in the polls can be substantial.
This year, there is an additional complication relative to 2000 that may tend to bias the polls toward Bush relative to the election. In 2000, Bush, Gore and Nader were on the ballot in every (for Nader, almost every) state, Buchanan’s campaign did not catch fire in that conservatives largely were happy with Bush, and Browne’s campaign was ineffective for reasons I outlined in my book Funding Liberty (Third Millennium Press http://3mpub.com/~phillies if anyone is interested.)
This time, Nader is not even on the ballot in many states, so a poll that includes CA or TX voters and asks them if they will vote for Nader is just plain wrong. (and those wrong votes came in fair part from Kerry). This time, the Libertarian campaign (Michael Badnarik) is on and off polling around even with Kerry, is on the ballot in every state except NH and OK, and has a largely unified party and a campaign staff that is campaigning actively. (If that last bit sounds odd as something to mention, see my book.) The Peroutka campaign, with positions many Democrats will find a bit odd, is also firing on at least some cylinders. However, Peroutka and Nader are almost never polled except by Rasmussen. The Nader Peroutka Badnarik flaws may cost Kerry in the polls a percent of the vote, and may give Bush one percent that he will not have in reality.
However, if you are going to drop polls as outliers, you should keep a list of the outlier polls, lest you analyse yourself into rejecting all the good polls and keeping only the bad ones.
Perhaps the most important number, both nationally and in many states that Bush seems to be carrying, is that the first digit of his numbers is a “4”. That’s a losing number. Democrats should not lose heart, should heed the wise advice of the article on which we are commenting, and could consider reminding their conservative and small government friends about Mr Badnarik.
cl8y-
Typically undecideds break for the challenger. I’ve seen polls suggesting that the undecideds, by a large majority, favor a change and have views closer to Kerry’s.
Anything’s possible, of course, but I’m optimistic about them at this point. The Rove quote from Abramowitz, above, fits with this point of view.
What are the chances of Bush occupying the Gore role from 2000? All the poles are close, and many not to be trusted, so how do we know they won’t break for the President instead of for Kerry? Is there something from the internals that would indicate this?
And then there’s the reminder also to be mindful of LV/RV distinctions. I see that the new Newsweek poll is out. By LV’s, Kerry is down 6%. By RV, just 2%, and just 1% in head to head RV.
I’d be willing to bet it’s the 6% that hits the media…
Ruy does well to point out turbulence. Stay calm and focused all.
One question is: these are all examples of the polls UNDERestimating the Democrats’ strength. What about OVERestimations too? Like in 2002 and surely SOME states in 2000, n’est-ce pas?
I think all the polls this year are way off due to the under polling of the 18-30 year olds.
Considering the newly registered voters must be largely from this demographic and their reliance of cellular phones for (nearly) all their telecommunications, these voters will hold a huge surprise impact on this election.
I have two daughters, one 29 and one 25 and I can tell you there is a tremendous difference in their participatory interest.
The older one, going through high school while Reagan and Bush were in office, is pretty much ambivalent about politics.
The younger one, going through high school while Clinton was president, is very much involved and in tune with political activism.
The older one will not vote whereas the younger one is definitely voting for Kerry.
The youth vote will go strong and early for Kerry and this element is what all the major polls will miss.
This effect will become known as the “Cell-Phone Effect” but is really the “Clinton Youth Effect”.
I think la is correct in that the best idea at this juncture is to do the unthinkable- ignore the polls b/c they aren’t going to help one bit. Over on Daily Kos you have people fretting over every little shift inthe polls- ie, Kerry was up by 2 last week, and down by 1 this week, and vice versa, and they look at the negative one as gospel. I think as I have said in other places on here this all feels like a Rorshach’s test to me- people are seeing what they want to see. Right now I spy a tie of around 47 to 48 percent so what does that mean? The same as always and I will say it like a broken record convince everyone, their mama and grandmama to volunteer, to phonebank and drive up the GOTV.
How much did the late DUI revelation factor into the Gore last minute surge and variance from the polls? Rove estimated 1 million votes.
To what extent was Gore’s improvement over the last polls due to DUI and to what extent was it turnout or polling erro?
I read the description of the methodology on the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll (the one that now shows Kerry only 2 points ahead in New Jersey). There was no mention of any weighting procedure. If they don’t weight, it means that Kerry is almost certainly much stronger than the numbers indicate.
I agree that Zogby’s state polls are pretty suspect.(as other pollsters).
His national polls for the presidential race were dead on in 2000 and 1996. I think tthats why we all give his polls so much weight. I’m not all that concerned about the fact kerry is down 4 in the zogby poll now, these jumps happen, i fully suspect that in a few days the polls may show kerry up by 3 or 4.
That was a nice run-down of the wacko poll results from 2000 — I wasn’t aware of those (or I forgot in the horror of what subsequently happened). I am left wondering, however, if there were also poll results that showed Gore with healthy leads in states that he actually lost. Can you give us examples?
The reason I ask is that one conclusion that can be drawn from your interesting post (aside from: don’t believe every poll result) is that the 2000 polling results were uniformily skewed against Gore. Was that the case?
An excellent cautionary message. I am still a little fixated on these recent Zogby numbers, and I certainly accept your explanation for them. But my recollection is that he has pretty consistently shown the race a lot closer than many of the other polls have–for instance, the ABC/Post Poll (and certainly the Newsweek and Time polls right after the GOP convention). So I am puzzled that now, after the debates, when intuitively you would think Kerry had strengthened his position vis a vis, that suddenly Bush seems to have pulled into a fairly good lead. And on top of that, we have ABC/Post now showing the race just about dead even. So I guess my question would be: why has Zogby suddenly seem to have veered off the road?
Ruy raises a good point, which is that everyone is saying Zogby’s the best because of the way he called the last election. In fact there is plenty of evidence to indicate that Zogby polls are highly fallible. I think one of his recent polls had undecides at 25%, which is way over what every other poll is telling us. He also has Bush and Kerry essentially tied among young singles, undecides, you get the idea. I just think the best approach is to go with the average of all the polls, excluding outliers, and then add 1-2 points for the suspected Kerry undercount.
maybe we should get rid of polling on elections. they seem to be being used to try to exercise undue influence on the system.