By Alan Abramowitz
I just received the following message from a colleague at another university who is totally trustworthy:
“I have friend who is a co-chair of the Bush Cheney campaign. Rove believes that Bush needs to have a 4 point lead going into the last weekend to win given the undecideds that will break againt the president.”
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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.
Cranky Observer–
I am starting to wonder the same thing. Rove grossly underestimated the amount of money the
Democrats would raise when he laid out this campaign two years ago. I think we can definitely expect some negative tricks and meanness, but as far as having a pulse on the American people, I think Karen Hughes is more the person we should be watching out for. Has anyone else noticed that Bush has been better since she rejoined the campaign in earnest? She definitely has the emotional pulse of some of Bush’s base. Old stories here in Texas were of the rivalry between Hughes and Rove…wonder if they are true.
The Democrats just need to move quickly as these things arrive, or throw out some things of their own first, so that Bush is more on the defensive…
I think Rove’s recent appearances on talk shows, etc…shows that they are getting a little panicky.
We just need to keep working–fast and furious!
> We can be assured that Rove’s end game
> ground war will be ruthless, unethical, viscious and
> full-bore.
I have a harder and harder time accepting the “Rove as evil genius”, with the emphasis on genius, meme. As Markos has observed, Kerry managed to evaporate $200 million worth of pre-nomination spending in 90 minutes at the first debate. And if Rove has some genius-like October surprise he has exactly 16 days and ticking to pull it off, which isn’t much.
Cranky
Like Teresa, I’m a little concerned. After reading the NYT Bush profile by Suskind, I’m also fearful that this info from Rove could be a strategic sideways leak. There was some scary talk in that article about volumes of new registrations coming from churches, and a figure of 4 million adamantly pro-Bush evangelicals who WERE NOT registered in 2000.
We can be assured that Rove’s end game ground war will be ruthless, unethical, viscious and full-bore.
Let’s not let ourselves be lulled by ANY Kerry numbers’ strength into not giving our fullest GOTV effort — and then some.
I think the 4 point margin to protect against the expected uncommitted/independent break for the challenger makes great sense. It’s just logical given the well established pattern among late deciders.
We must be on the look-out for whatever Rove has in mind to get himself a 4 point margin in the next two weeks. Right now he is either tied or down a couple of points.
It seems clear that Rove needs an actual lead and an average turnout. My only question is, what day will the inevitable terror alert come out—-1, 2, or 3 days before the election? And will it specifically involve Ohio? This seems the most likely October surprise.
The question everybody needs to be asking is where is Bush going to get any NEW voters?? Remember he lost the populat vote in 2000 and there hasn’t been any announcements about any voting block that has changed their minds about him since 2000.. Its just not in the numbers and he know its.. I do believe, millions of republicans will crossover and vote for Kerry..
Sounds like classic Rove disinfo.
My read is the opposite: the Republican campaign on Kerry has sowed enough doubts in swing voters’ minds, that unless Kerry is at least 2 points ahead going into election day then he might well lose.
Also there is the Ralph Nader factor.
It seems to be coming down to Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Of which Kerry seems to be closing the deal with PA, but losing OH and Fla. W. Virginia seems to already be gone.
WI is the other likely defector to the Bush camp: that remark about Lambert v. Lambeau field has cost Kerry big time with Green Bay fans, apparently (Kerry got it wrong).
I hope I am wrong, and I sense real disquiet about Bush amongst the (Republican) parents of my American friends (in London) but the world opinion is so solidly against Bush (except in Israel) that I think it blinds us to the reality.
I wait for Rove’s October Surprise, and expect it will be a doozy.
Does anyone know why http://www.pollingreport.com only reports the “likely voters” poll numbers on their website and not the “registered voters” poll numbers?
Dear Alan,
My first reaction was to this inside scoop that the Bush campaign believes it needs a 4 point lead going in was elation. My second was to suspect that that this was a rumor purposely placed by the Bush campaign. Mr. Rove is famous for this type of tactic. Please don’t let hope distract us from working our tails off for the next three weeks!
Ruy, very interesting comment from Rove.
Check this out…
Oct 17, 2004
John Kerry for President
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html?oref=login&pagewanted=1&hp
Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It’s on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.
Was it not Rove who, way back in 2000, raised eyebrows when he said that Bush would, “win in a walk”? What a difference four years make, eh?
That’s really not clear enough. If Bush has a 4 pt lead in the nat’l head to heads, but less than that in the swing states that give Kerry 270, then Bush won’t win.
Apparently Rove doesn’t want to talk about the “T” word (turnout) either. Consideriing the margins Bush had in 2000 in the last week, what he really needs is fairly consistent margins across polls, and possibly one of 5-8 points.
Question on polls.
The campaigns seem to have sharper, and perhaps different, polling results. I infer this from comments such as that which this post attributes to Karl Rove. It must mean that Rove/BC04 have a different idea of who the “likely voters” are than that of the nationally published pollsters.
Why is that so?