The Quest for a 'New Day for America'

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"[M]ay we ... just quietly and silently — each in our own way — pray for our country? And may we just share for a moment a few of those immortal words of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi — words which I think may help heal the wounds and lift our hearts? Listen to this immortal saint: 'Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light.' Those are the words of a saint. And may those of us of less purity listen to them well. And may America tonight resolve that never, never again shall we see what we have seen."

Vice President Hubert Humphrey
Chicago, Aug. 29, 1968

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Hubert Humphrey faced a difficult task 45 years ago tonight. In hindsight, it was probably an impossible one.

By nature a man of peace, the vice president had to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination against the backdrop of chaos in the streets of the host city, Chicago, and the broader backdrops of a war in Vietnam that was growing increasingly unpopular and a crime–plagued nation.

"After its days of turbulence and excitement," wrote historian Theodore H. White, "no speech could have pulled the Democratic convention together except a masterpiece ..."

Humphrey, White observed, tried to do the impossible — rewrite his speech (which had been crafted in the weeks and months leading up to the convention) in the days and hours before he was scheduled to deliver it. The "Happy Warrior" wanted to offer a message of healing and unity, not merely rehashes of old talking points.

But even before the turbulence of Chicago, that was something that was easier said than done, given the fact that, as the vice president, Humphrey was expected to be supportive of the administration — even though he disagreed with the administration on several aspects of the conduct of the war. So, too, did many of the delegates — and millions of Americans watching on TV.

After the clashes between demonstrators and the Chicago police earlier that week, the task became even more daunting, but Humphrey knew that both the delegates in the convention hall and Americans watching on TV would expect to hear him speak about peace in a context that encompassed not only the war but deteriorating relations between and respect for fellow Americans.

"A man of more native eloquence than any of his advisers," White wrote, "Humphrey might, had he had time, have created the required masterpiece. But he had no time."

Ah, yes, time. It was running out on the Democrats. And Humphrey did not produce the necessary masterpiece.

In August 1968, Gallup reported for the first — but not the last — time that the share of Americans who responded "no" when asked if the United States had made a mistake sending troops to Vietnam was less than 40%.

Three years earlier, the share of Americans who said "no" to that question was 61%. The pro–war administration of which Humphrey had been a part for more than 3½ years was losing ground on war and peace — and that issue, more than anything else, would decide who won the election.

It was the growing opposition to the war that had sparked the riots in the first place. One can only wonder how much worse they would have been if Lyndon Johnson had been in town to accept the nomination. But he had withdrawn from the campaign in March, making it necessary to nominate someone else, and the logical someone else was Johnson's second in command.

But Humphrey's convention was being tarnished by violence in the streets. Was there anything he could say to erase that image from the voters' memories?

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Humphrey had chosen as his second in command Ed Muskie, senator from Maine, and Muskie did his best to energize the delegates.

But Humphrey, who called for a "new day for America" in his speech, awoke the next day to more of the same.

"Whatever hope there was ... rested on the belief that words can soothe, that words can heal, that words carry a message," White wrote.

Actions speak louder than words, my mother told me when I was small, and the actions in Chicago spoke louder than any words Humphrey could speak.

At some point in the predawn hours of the final night of the convention, something apparently was thrown from one of the floors of the hotel where Eugene McCarthy's campaign operation was based — which led to an inevitable clash between the students who made up most of McCarthy's staff and the Chicago police, who were understandably weary from a week of confrontations and, apparently, acted independently of any chain of command.

What America saw on its TV screens was more of the same — young people being beaten by police — and America's voters would decide that they wanted a change.

"[W]hen Humphrey's campaign began with a sickening lurch," wrote historian William Manchester, "his admirers despaired."

Perhaps they knew what was coming.

When the Wheels Came Off for Ed Muskie

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"It changed people's minds about me, of what kind of a guy I was. They were looking for a strong, steady man and here I was weak. I doubt whether I'm a candidate who could ever have won in this country this year. I'm a man for a country looking for a healer, not a country in protest."

Ed Muskie
As quoted by Theodore H. White in "The Making of the President 1972"

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Accounts of the Watergate scandal and the Nixon presidency provide ample evidence of how the most prominent candidates for the Democrats' presidential nomination self–destructed, one by one, in 1972.

Or, at least, that is how it seemed at the time.

As we learned later, those apparent implosions were helped along considerably by Nixon's "dirty tricks" gang, the ones who saw to it that Nixon would run against the weakest possible foe that fall, George McGovern.

In hindsight, their pattern of complicity was all too obvious — as soon as one Democrat would emerge as the new front–runner, something would happen and his campaign would be, essentially, over — but it wasn't nearly as clear to see then as it seems to be today.

I suppose that is testimony to the initial effectiveness of the Committee to Re–Elect the President (or CREEP, as it was unofficially known) in its attempts to deflect investigations that never got off track for too long.

Even today, though, some people won't acknowledge what even the blind should be able to see — that, with perhaps one exception, the big names who stumbled on the '72 campaign trail probably would not have stumbled and paid such heavy prices without the Republicans' behind–the–scenes assistance.

Anyway, I guess the first real casualty in the political war of 1972 was mortally wounded on this day.

His name was Ed Muskie, and he was a senator from Maine. In recent years, Democrats have carried Maine in presidential elections, they have won gubernatorial elections and they hold both House seats, but, in Muskie's day, the state was true to its Republican roots.

Muskie was the first Democrat Maine sent to the U.S. Senate in nearly half a century, and, in the cauldron of 1968, he was seen as a principled man, an almost Lincolnesque figure, who always sought to do the right thing. He was chosen to be Hubert Humphrey's running mate, and he was a breath of fresh air for a party that had grown increasingly stale.

The Humphrey–Muskie ticket lost a squeaker to the Nixon–Agnew ticket, but Muskie's stock was rapidly rising in Democratic circles and, by 1972, he was the front–runner for the party's presidential nomination.

I suppose there are numerous comparisons to be made between the Muskie campaign of 1972 and the other big–name presidential hopefuls who crashed and burned during the primary season. Did his own actions contribute to his fall from grace?

I can't say that I definitively know the answer to that today. I certainly didn't know the answer at the time. But one thing I did know then was that Muskie had help — courtesy of the conservative Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader.

On Feb. 24, 1972, the Union Leader published a letter to the editor that alleged that Muskie, in a conversation with staffers in Florida, laughed when one referred to French–Canadians as "Canucks" — a derogatory term that was widely used in Muskie's home state.

Since a portion of New Hampshire's population was of French–Canadian descent, the impression was that such a revelation could hurt Muskie in the March 7 primary.

(That letter was later revealed to be a fake, authored by someone in Nixon's campaign.)

A few days later, the Union Leader published an article alleging that Muskie's wife had been drinking and using similar offensive terms during Muskie's presidential campaign. It reinforced a growing perception that Muskie was prejudiced.

On Saturday, March 4, three days before the New Hampshire primary, Muskie appeared in front of the Union Leader's offices and publicly called the newspaper's publisher a liar.

"By attacking me, by attacking my wife, he has proved himself to be a gutless coward," Muskie said, acknowledging that "it's fortunate for him he's not on this platform beside me."

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Sixteen years later, such a spirited defense of one's spouse probably would have served Michael Dukakis well when he was asked in a debate with George H.W. Bush what his response would be if his wife was raped and murdered.

But, in 1972, it was seen as a moment of weakness because Muskie was reported to have cried while speaking.

There was always considerable doubt about what really happened. Snow was falling while Muskie was speaking and what was taken for tears by some observers was said by others to be snow flakes glistening on Muskie's cheeks as they melted in the fading light of the day.

But the general impression was that Muskie had been crying, that he had shown weakness at a time when voters were looking for strength in their leaders, and it doomed his candidacy.

(As far as Muskie was concerned, my memory is that he vehemently denied the allegation that he cried, but his comment to Theodore White, which is cited at the start of this post, implied otherwise.)

It is mostly forgotten now that Muskie won the New Hampshire primary, receiving 46% of the vote. McGovern finished second with 37%.

But that was below expectations, and, like Lyndon Johnson four years earlier, his performance was judged against those expectations, not by the outcome.

In 1972, the momentum was with McGovern after the New Hampshire primary, as it had been with Gene McCarthy in 1968, and Muskie's campaign collapsed.