Harold Meyerson was a staffer of Eugene McCarthy 40 years ago and offers his perspective on another bruising campaign season in which Democrats were split between two candidates. It sounds eerily familiar:
On matters of policy, there were really no significant differences between [Robert] Kennedy and McCarthy. Both sought to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam; both were solid liberals on domestic and economic issues. But each campaign had about it the shock of the new. Each activated constituencies that had never before been so important within Democratic ranks: upscale professionals and students for McCarthy, blacks and Latinos for Kennedy. Both candidates inspired intense commitment from their supporters, and in each campaign there was a palpable feeling of making history, of upending the party’s traditional order in a year when traditional orders were crumbling everywhere you looked.
The assassination of Kennedy brought that campaign to a sad and shocking end. But instead of coming together to rally behind the candidate who’s views so closely matched their own, the feud continued and another candidate – George McGovern – was brought in to “show the flag” for the Kennedy campaign at the convention.
We all know just how well that worked. By the time the two camps came together, Richard Nixon had been in office for four years.
To say that there is a lesson in here would be an understatement.
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