“Here is Vice President Humphrey’s acceptance speech from that turbulent and wild convention in August 1968.
He was very much the establishment candidate in ’68, and was the favorite through the race after President Johnson quit. He might not have been the most popular choice in ’68 but he did come close to winning, which might have been the closest anyone could have come that year, but it depends on which history expert you ask. Humphrey does seem like a nice guy however.”
Hubert Humphrey, didn’t lose the 1968 presidential election because he was a bad candidate or ran a bad campaign or wasn’t qualified to be President of the United States. The opposites are true and even though as it turns out 1968 was his best shot at being elected President of the United States, something he had been thinking about at least since 1957 after Dwight Eisenhower was reelected President in a landslide. Vice President Humphrey was caught in a perfect political storm for both the Democratic Party because of how much damaged it did to the party that lasted at least until 1976 and came back again in 1980 the same political divisions that reemerged again in the late 1970s.
But it was also a perfect political storm for the Republican Party because it not only brought them back to power with Richard Nixon, but made them a real competitive conservative national party again. Where the Republican Party represented the center-right in the country. And the Democratic Party now representing the center-left in the country.
1964 and 1968, even though only one of those elections resulted in short-term success and if you count 1966 and that would be two elections for the Republican Party which they won made them a conservative, national, competitive, party, that would fight communism and other authoritarianism. That would promote economic freedom and business and be a fiscally conservative party. These were the positive aspects of the GOP merging with the South.
What these elections did to the Democratic Party, was create chaos for them. Because it meant they could no longer count on the South for votes and to win elections with them. Plus, they had this emerging young more social-democratic, anti-military New-Left, coming into the party. That pushed the Democratic Party to the Far-Left on many national issues through the 1970s and even into the 1980s. Which they didn’t recover from until 1992 when the Democrats nominated Bill Clinton for president and of course he wins that election and Democrats keep control of Congress as well. But what 1968 along with 66 and even 64 did, was realign both the Republican Party and Democratic Party.
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