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| Source:U.S. Senate- "Hubert Humphrey returned to the Senate following gis service as Vice President of the United States from 1965 to 1969." Also from the U.S. Senate. |
"As vice president during 1968—arguably the United States' most politically turbulent post-World War II year—Hubert Humphrey faced an excruciating test of statesmanship. During a time of war in Southeast Asia when the stakes for this nation were great, Humphrey confronted an agonizing choice: whether to remain loyal to his president or to the dictates of his conscience. His failure to reconcile these powerful claims cost him the presidency. Yet few men, placed in his position, could have walked so agonizing a tightrope over so polarized a nation.
Near the end of his long career, an Associated Press poll of one thousand congressional administrative assistants cited Hubert Humphrey as the most effective senator of the preceding fifty years. A biographer pronounced him "the premier lawmaker of his generation." Widely recognized during his career as the leading progressive in American public life, the Minnesota senator was often ahead of public opinion—which eventually caught up with him. When it did, he was able to become one of Congress' most constructive legislators and a "trail blazer for civil rights and social justice." His story is one of rich accomplishment and shattering frustration.
Hubert Humphrey's oratorical talents, foremost among his abundant personal and political qualities, powered his rapid ascent to national prominence. Lyndon Johnson remarked that "Hubert has the greatest coordination of mind and tongue of anybody I know," although Harry Truman was one among many who recognized that this "Rembrandt with words" frequently talked too much. Dubbed "Minnesota Chats," by Johnny Carson, Humphrey often left himself open to the charge that he was "a gabby extremist of the Left," a label that stuck with him despite his moves towards moderation. Any lapses of caution may have been the result of Humphrey the orator being an "incandescent improviser," with overstatement being the price he paid for his dazzling eloquence."
From the U.S. Senate
I have a page about Hubert Humphrey because he represented a time when Progressive Democrats were actually Progressives. And not people who seem to hate America and trying to completely transform the United States into some type of different country that was less individualistic and more collective. Where freedom was no longer the goal for every American, but their personal welfare instead, even if that meant less freedom.
Hubert comes from the Progressive School of the Democratic Party that Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman almost put together all by themselves that wanted to create an America where every American was free and not just the wealthy. But along with Lyndon Johnson Hubert wanted every American regardless of their race or ethnicity to be able to live in freedom, which is why civil rights and the successes that they have with the civil rights laws of the 1960s are such huge parts of their legacies.
As Vice President Hubert Humphrey, he runs for President in 1968 and as he's running the New-Left (Socialists and Communists) take over the Democratic Party and his progressivism was no longer good enough for the Far-Left of the Democratic Party. Which is how George McGovern become the Democratic nominee for President in 1972.
Hubert's career was always about progress and moving the ball forward, which is why he was such a great Progressive Democrat and one of the best legislatures to ever serve in Congress, as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
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