Willing to Become President
"I never said I wanted to be President. I said I was willing to become President."
Senator Eugene McCarthy, May, 1968
Eugene McCarthy, who died December 10, will be remembered as the man who ended Lyndon Johnson's hopes for a second full term here in Wisconsin in April, 1968. Unlike most serious contenders for the Presidency, he was not driven by a lust for power. Rather, he considered the office as a burden he was willing to bear to achieve his goal of ending the War in Vietnam.
By the Fall of 1967, anti-war sentiment had spread from the college campuses to the heart of the American Establishment: the United States Senate.
Eugene McCarthy was one of many senators who had spoken out against the War (1). Elected to the Senate in 1958 from Minnesota after ten years in the House of Representatives, his career was not distinguished: he had attained no positions of leadership and no legislation bore his name. McCarthy became the darling of the liberal elite in 1960 when he gave the nominating speech for Adlai Stevenson. He waited throughout the summer and early autumn of 1967 for a prominent Democrat (such as Senator Robert F Kennedy of New York) to challenge President Johnson for the 1968 nomination over Vietnam. When none did, Eugene McCarthy announced his candidacy on November 30.
Eugene McCarthy, a former college sociology instructor, was known as a "Type-B" personality: laid-back, reflective, and intellectual. He was a devout Catholic, and had seriously considered joining a monastery before he married. Unlike most presidential candidates, he often seemed cold and aloof. Besides politics, his interests included history, philosophy, and poetry.
McCarthy undestood that the massive demonstrations at the major universities were merely the visible tip of the anti-war iceberg----millions of Americans, mostly Democrats, would never participate in any kind of demonstration, but would vote for a peace-candidate. He directed his attention to the first two Democratic primaries : New Hampshire in March and Wisconsin in April.
The New Hampshire primary has two parts: one in which voters pick the candidate of their choice and the other for convention delegates. Only candidates listed on the ballot can have pledged delegate slates. In a colossal blunder, pro-Johnson leaders in the state decided not to file the President's name for the primary, but to sponsor a write-in campaign for him. People seeking to become Johnson delegates could file as "favorable" (but not pledged) to the renomination of the President.
While Johnson ignored the primary, McCarthy plunged into New Hampshire in January and February, meeting thousands of voters in their homes and small meetings. College students from all over the country poured into the tiny state to help McCarthy by campaigning door-to-door. Some young men even shaved off their beards to go "Clean for Gene" in hopes of appealing to culturally conservative voters.
In late January the Communist Vietcong launched a major offensive at the time of the Buddhist New Year, called "Tet" in Vietnamese. Although the Cong troops were beaten badly, they had attacked everywhere----including the US Embassy in Saigon. It became obvious that American claims that we were winning the war were not true. CBS new anchor Walter Cronkite said as much after returning from the war-torn country in early February.
Media pundits had given McCarthy very little chance in New Hampshire----estimates of his popular vote share were well below 20%. When the votes were counted on March 7, McCarthy had 42% to Johnson's 49% (all write-ins), and McCarthy had swept the delegate race. Eugene McCarthy, and the anti-war movement he represented, had become major players in the Democratic Party.
On March 15 Robert Kennedy joined the race for the Democratic nomination. Despite substantial pressures for over a year, Kennedy had leaned against challenging Johnson; the New Hampshire results convinced him that the President could be defeated. It was then too late to file for the Wisconsin Primary, but RFK entered contests in Indiana, Oregon, and California.
Meanwhile, McCarthy headed for Wisconsin, where he and Johnson would square-off April 2. Wisconsin, where violent anti-war demonstrations had broken out in Madison in October, was the most anti-war state in the nation. Representative Henry Reuss of Milwaukee endorsed McCarthy, while Senator Gaylord Nelson, a notorious "dove", stayed neutral. Again, college students were the foot-soldiers of the McCarthy campaign. As the primary day approached a big win for the Minnesota senator seemed inevitable.
President Lyndon Johnson publicly joked about people speculating in primaries, and considering forty percent "a mandate". No one knew that Johnson had secretly promised his wife in 1964 that he would not seek more than one full term. After Tet LBJ replaced Defense Secretary Robert McNamara with Washington Attorney Clark Clifford, who told him that the war in Vietnam could not be won. Facing a humiliating defeat in Wisconsin, followed by a long and gruelling campaign against both McCarthy and Kennedy, President Johnson announced on March 31 that " I shall not seek, nor would I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
On April 2, the voters of Wisconsin delivered a huge victory to Eugene McCarthy, who won eight (out of ten) congressional districts. Although Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the race shortly after Johnson pulled out, it was too late to get on the remaining primary ballots. McCarthy and Kennedy slugged it out throughout April and May, with Kennedy winning Indiana and McCarthy victorious in Oregon (2). Everything now depended on the big winner-take-all California primary June 4.
After an exhausting campaign, Kennedy won the state. Minutes after claiming victory, he was shot to death by a Palestinian immigrant. Senator George McGovern tried to pick up the RFK delegates, but by then Hubert Humphrey had clinched the nomination. (3)
After a disastrous bitter convention in Chicago, during which some of McCarthy's staff were beaten by Chicago Police (4), the Senator returned to Washington and sat-out the campaign against Richard Nixon. After Nixon won, he offered McCarthy the position of Ambassador to the United Nations, but the Minnesotan declined it.
Eugene McCarthy also declined to seek re-election in 1970. Although he had denied wanting to be President, he made four more runs for the Oval Office after leaving the Senate, getting nowhere. He spent the rest of his life between fruitless presidential campaigns teaching and writing.
Although he never secured the Democratic nomination for President, Eugene McCarthy will be remembered as a true man of ideas, who put intellectual honesty and devotion to principle above all other considerations.
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(1) Including J Wm Fullbright, Frank Church, Gaylord Nelson, Robert Kennedy, Wayne Morse, Earnest Gruening, and Mark Hatfield.
(2) The only election Robert Kennedy ever lost. McCarthy is the only person to have beaten both RFK and LBJ, two major powers in the Democratic Party of the 1960's.
(3) Although between them McCarthy and Kennedy won nearly all the delegates selected in primaries, most delegates were chosen in state conventions or by party officials----almost all of whom backed Humphrey.
(4) After refuse was thrown on police from windows of the Conrad Hilton Hotel the last night of the Convention, police stormed a room full of McCarthy backers and beat them with clubs. Before they could be taken to jail, McCarthy, with his Secret Service entourage, made the cops release them. He delayed his departure for Washington until all of his staff were out of Chicago.
Senator Eugene McCarthy, May, 1968
Eugene McCarthy, who died December 10, will be remembered as the man who ended Lyndon Johnson's hopes for a second full term here in Wisconsin in April, 1968. Unlike most serious contenders for the Presidency, he was not driven by a lust for power. Rather, he considered the office as a burden he was willing to bear to achieve his goal of ending the War in Vietnam.
By the Fall of 1967, anti-war sentiment had spread from the college campuses to the heart of the American Establishment: the United States Senate.
Eugene McCarthy was one of many senators who had spoken out against the War (1). Elected to the Senate in 1958 from Minnesota after ten years in the House of Representatives, his career was not distinguished: he had attained no positions of leadership and no legislation bore his name. McCarthy became the darling of the liberal elite in 1960 when he gave the nominating speech for Adlai Stevenson. He waited throughout the summer and early autumn of 1967 for a prominent Democrat (such as Senator Robert F Kennedy of New York) to challenge President Johnson for the 1968 nomination over Vietnam. When none did, Eugene McCarthy announced his candidacy on November 30.
Eugene McCarthy, a former college sociology instructor, was known as a "Type-B" personality: laid-back, reflective, and intellectual. He was a devout Catholic, and had seriously considered joining a monastery before he married. Unlike most presidential candidates, he often seemed cold and aloof. Besides politics, his interests included history, philosophy, and poetry.
McCarthy undestood that the massive demonstrations at the major universities were merely the visible tip of the anti-war iceberg----millions of Americans, mostly Democrats, would never participate in any kind of demonstration, but would vote for a peace-candidate. He directed his attention to the first two Democratic primaries : New Hampshire in March and Wisconsin in April.
The New Hampshire primary has two parts: one in which voters pick the candidate of their choice and the other for convention delegates. Only candidates listed on the ballot can have pledged delegate slates. In a colossal blunder, pro-Johnson leaders in the state decided not to file the President's name for the primary, but to sponsor a write-in campaign for him. People seeking to become Johnson delegates could file as "favorable" (but not pledged) to the renomination of the President.
While Johnson ignored the primary, McCarthy plunged into New Hampshire in January and February, meeting thousands of voters in their homes and small meetings. College students from all over the country poured into the tiny state to help McCarthy by campaigning door-to-door. Some young men even shaved off their beards to go "Clean for Gene" in hopes of appealing to culturally conservative voters.
In late January the Communist Vietcong launched a major offensive at the time of the Buddhist New Year, called "Tet" in Vietnamese. Although the Cong troops were beaten badly, they had attacked everywhere----including the US Embassy in Saigon. It became obvious that American claims that we were winning the war were not true. CBS new anchor Walter Cronkite said as much after returning from the war-torn country in early February.
Media pundits had given McCarthy very little chance in New Hampshire----estimates of his popular vote share were well below 20%. When the votes were counted on March 7, McCarthy had 42% to Johnson's 49% (all write-ins), and McCarthy had swept the delegate race. Eugene McCarthy, and the anti-war movement he represented, had become major players in the Democratic Party.
On March 15 Robert Kennedy joined the race for the Democratic nomination. Despite substantial pressures for over a year, Kennedy had leaned against challenging Johnson; the New Hampshire results convinced him that the President could be defeated. It was then too late to file for the Wisconsin Primary, but RFK entered contests in Indiana, Oregon, and California.
Meanwhile, McCarthy headed for Wisconsin, where he and Johnson would square-off April 2. Wisconsin, where violent anti-war demonstrations had broken out in Madison in October, was the most anti-war state in the nation. Representative Henry Reuss of Milwaukee endorsed McCarthy, while Senator Gaylord Nelson, a notorious "dove", stayed neutral. Again, college students were the foot-soldiers of the McCarthy campaign. As the primary day approached a big win for the Minnesota senator seemed inevitable.
President Lyndon Johnson publicly joked about people speculating in primaries, and considering forty percent "a mandate". No one knew that Johnson had secretly promised his wife in 1964 that he would not seek more than one full term. After Tet LBJ replaced Defense Secretary Robert McNamara with Washington Attorney Clark Clifford, who told him that the war in Vietnam could not be won. Facing a humiliating defeat in Wisconsin, followed by a long and gruelling campaign against both McCarthy and Kennedy, President Johnson announced on March 31 that " I shall not seek, nor would I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
On April 2, the voters of Wisconsin delivered a huge victory to Eugene McCarthy, who won eight (out of ten) congressional districts. Although Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the race shortly after Johnson pulled out, it was too late to get on the remaining primary ballots. McCarthy and Kennedy slugged it out throughout April and May, with Kennedy winning Indiana and McCarthy victorious in Oregon (2). Everything now depended on the big winner-take-all California primary June 4.
After an exhausting campaign, Kennedy won the state. Minutes after claiming victory, he was shot to death by a Palestinian immigrant. Senator George McGovern tried to pick up the RFK delegates, but by then Hubert Humphrey had clinched the nomination. (3)
After a disastrous bitter convention in Chicago, during which some of McCarthy's staff were beaten by Chicago Police (4), the Senator returned to Washington and sat-out the campaign against Richard Nixon. After Nixon won, he offered McCarthy the position of Ambassador to the United Nations, but the Minnesotan declined it.
Eugene McCarthy also declined to seek re-election in 1970. Although he had denied wanting to be President, he made four more runs for the Oval Office after leaving the Senate, getting nowhere. He spent the rest of his life between fruitless presidential campaigns teaching and writing.
Although he never secured the Democratic nomination for President, Eugene McCarthy will be remembered as a true man of ideas, who put intellectual honesty and devotion to principle above all other considerations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Including J Wm Fullbright, Frank Church, Gaylord Nelson, Robert Kennedy, Wayne Morse, Earnest Gruening, and Mark Hatfield.
(2) The only election Robert Kennedy ever lost. McCarthy is the only person to have beaten both RFK and LBJ, two major powers in the Democratic Party of the 1960's.
(3) Although between them McCarthy and Kennedy won nearly all the delegates selected in primaries, most delegates were chosen in state conventions or by party officials----almost all of whom backed Humphrey.
(4) After refuse was thrown on police from windows of the Conrad Hilton Hotel the last night of the Convention, police stormed a room full of McCarthy backers and beat them with clubs. Before they could be taken to jail, McCarthy, with his Secret Service entourage, made the cops release them. He delayed his departure for Washington until all of his staff were out of Chicago.
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 9:55 AM
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