A funny thing happened to LBJ on the way to renomination.

[Smarmie Doofus]

>>>>The Dump Johnson movement was a movement within the United States Democratic Party to oppose the candidacy of President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson to become the party's nominee in the 1968 presidential election. Their opposition to Johnson stemmed mainly from their opposition to the Vietnam War, while the movement can be seen as part of an internal battle within the Democratic Party between antiwar liberals, unreconstructed Cold Warriors and moderates.<1>
Within the left wing of the Democratic party there had been rumbles all during 1967 of challenging Lyndon B. Johnson's candidacy. The leading proponents of the Dump Johnson Movement were two opponents of the war, Allard K. Lowenstein and Curtis Gans.<2> Their first choice to be a candidate was Robert F. Kennedy, but the New York Senator declined after a series of meetings in September and October 1967.<3> When he declined, they next turned to California Congressman Don Edwards, Idaho Senator Frank Church, Canadian-born economist John Kenneth Galbraith, General James M. Gavin, and South Dakota Senator George S. McGovern, all of whom similarly declined. Finally in mid-October 1967 Lowenstien approached Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy and found to his surprise that the Senator was willing. 'Somebody has to raise the flag,' <4> McCarthy remarked. Six days later, in a meeting with Lowenstein and another liberal leader McCarthy made his decision definite. "You guys have been talking about three or four names. I think you can cut the list down to one now." <5>
Johnson's thoughts of running received a fresh blow on March 12 when McCarthy shocked the country by winning 42 percent of the New Hampshire primary,<6> at which point Kennedy belatedly entered the race, splitting the anti-war opposition between two candidates. On Sunday evening, March 31, at the close of his speech on Vietnam, Johnson declared that, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President".<7> Johnson had withdrawn from the 1968 Democratic candidate race.
McCarthy and Kennedy received more than 5.3 million votes<8> in the Democratic primaries, far more than any other candidates. Kennedy's candidacy ended with his assassination after the California primary. Lowenstein and many other antiwar activists remained committed to McCarthy, seeing Kennedy's late entry as opportunistic and divisive.
>>>>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dump_Johnson_movement

Basically, a whole bunch of DEMs decided that the incumbent was undeserving of renomination. Note the lightening-like progression from " no, never, not in a million years" to absolute inevitability.

DUers can decide for themselves if the present incumbent is as flawed a candidate as LBJ. ( I, for one, don't think it's a particularly tough question.)

Off topic but not really: Lowenstein was a friggin' genius. Yung'uns especially should look him up. Lots to be learned from his short but spectacular time among us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allard_Lowenstein

[Arkana]

1. And how'd that work out for the left, I wonder?

Oh, right. It gave us Richard Milhous Nixon.

[apocalypsehow]

3. Plus four more years of the Vietnam war and Watergate as a bonus!!! Yippeee!

:woohoo:

Spot-on reply. :thumbsup:

[Tesha]

6. Obama's defeat is inevitable.

Run him and we absolutely positively lose.

Run another Democrat and there's a very slight chance
we could win.

Tesha

[apocalypsehow]

7. Bookmarking for future reference. n/t.

[Tesha]

10. Gosh, I'm just quaking in my boots! (NT)

[apocalypsehow]

13. Why would you be doing that?

:shrug:

A very curious reply, indeed.

[Tesha]

16. Check the dictionary under "sarcasm". (NT)

[apocalypsehow]

18. Check the dictionary under "non sequitur." n/t.

[Tesha]

22. I found your picture. (NT)

[apocalypsehow]

26. Handsome fellow, ain't I? n/t.

[rug]

36. Lol! The b - o - o - o - o - k - m - a - r - k !

:scared:

[OregonBlue]

12. Maybe in your dreams but that's not the way it works in practice.

[Tesha]

17. That's not the way WHAT works in practice?

That a politician who pisses off a significant cross-section
of the people who voted him into power, while gaining no
new voters, loses the next election?

Tesha

[OregonBlue]

20. I was responding to this:

Obama's defeat is inevitable.

Run him and we absolutely positively lose.

Run another Democrat and there's a very slight chance
we could win.

If we primary Obama, there ain't no way in hell we win. We'll just have Romney or Thune or Palin for at least 4 years.

[Historic NY]

37. Exactly, all the skull cracking @ Chicago didn't learn anyone anything .

Never has a sitting POTUS who has been primaried won the general election......never

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. 19th century

so don't say never.

[avaistheone1]

45. There is a first time for everything.

And people are pissed and the economy is bad and will be bad in 2012.

Obama does not deserve a second term. He has undermined the lives of ordinary Americans and the future of the Democratic party.

[Arkana]

27. I'm bookmarking this for when he rolls to victory in 2012.

[iamjoy]

8. Yes, When In The Past 150 Years

Has a party ditched a sitting president as a nominee and kept the White House?

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Once

now that you asked, and it wasn't 1968 either...

I will ask another question on impossible events, when was the last time a Write In campaign worked in the Senate?

This year. how common is that?

It is building... I am not saying this is going to happen, but it is building.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

34. When in the last 150 years

has a Democratic president continued the reactionary foreign policy of his predecessor?

[iamjoy]

42. Bill Clinton - 1992

or, as Michael Moore said in 2000 "We're now in the 20th year of the Reagan administration..."

[Admiral Loinpresser]

46. Arguably.

But at least Clinton had some redeeming major policies, unlike the current occupant.

[Smarmie Doofus]

15. Yup. Picture a Johnson-Nixon '68 matchup:

Four more years of pointless genocidal warfare, on the one hand........ vs. four more years of pointless genocidal warfare on the other.

And they call it democracy.

[Gold Metal Flake]

21. No, Kennedy's murder gave us Richard Milhous Nixon.

[Tesha]

25. Exactly. (NT)

[apocalypsehow]

29. And you know this....how? Mass seance with all the likely voters in the 1968 election?

:shrug:

In point of fact, RFK was unlikely to get the nomination in Chicago in any event: primaries did not mean near as much then as they do now, and most historians believe LBJ would have simply blocked the nomination in favor of Humphrey at the actual convention.

But even if he did, it's forty plus years of hagiography that imagines Bobby Kennedy would have defeated Nixon in the general election. RFK was a very controversial liberal figure in what turned out to be a very conservative year: the combined Nixon/Wallace tickets carried 57% of the national vote.

How many Nixon or Wallace voters do you think would've gone for Bobby Kennedy? :shrug:

Alas, like all "what coulda been" scenarios, we'll simply never know. But the balance of the historical record suggest otherwise.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

43. LBJ's war to p;rove he was tough gave us Nixon.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. It was the Tet Offensive in early '68 that made Johnson not seek renomination.

Party-political machinations may have contributed, yes, but without Tet he probably would have sought a second elected term.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Beat me to it

It really was more due to the war and the Tet Offensive than dissent in the party.

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. The prospect of getting clobbered by McCarthy in the Wisconsin primary....

wiki;
>>>>>Entering the 1968 election campaign, initially, no prominent Democratic candidate was prepared to run against a sitting president of the Democratic party. Only Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota challenged Johnson as an anti-war candidate in the New Hampshire primary, hoping to pressure the Democrats to oppose the war. On March 12, McCarthy won 42% of the primary vote to Johnson's 49%, an amazingly strong showing for such a challenger. Four days later, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York entered the race. Internal polling by Johnson's campaign in Wisconsin, the next state to hold a primary election, showed the President trailing badly. Johnson did not leave the White House to campaign.>>>>>>

drove him out. Had it been simply... or even primarily... TET, he'd have dropped out prior to NH, no?

[jwirr]

38. That is how I remember it also. He realized how much he was hated

by the protesters who usually voted Democratic and were NOT going to if he ran. I remember because I would not have voted for him. I had to hold my nose and vote for Humphrey. We were really pissed at their warmongering.

[UTUSN]

4. I don't get it, but I'm sure I will be enlightened. Soon. n/t

[Skink]

5. It was possible to win at the convention then.

[dflprincess]

11. Hubert Humphrey's refusal to break with Johnson's Vietnam policy

until the last minute didn't help a whole lot.

[bluestateguy]

14. And President Humphrey lived happiliy ever after

:eyes:

[struggle4progress]

23. And the Nixon-Ford years jumpstarted folk like Cheney and Rumsfeld

What a great era, eh?

[Admiral Loinpresser]

31. The Nixon-Ford years were much more progressive

than the first two years under Obama. Straight up.

[struggle4progress]

40. Do you even remember the Nixon era? The Administration redirected some agency

phone calls to lobbyists, kept an enemies list, used the IRS to persecute its "enemies," used the FBI to disrupt the political opposition, constantly advanced totalitarian notions such as "preventative detention" ...

[Admiral Loinpresser]

44. It would be silly to defend the ethics of Nixon.

But he gave us the EPA, affirmative action, 55 mph, etc. He was much more concerned with accomodating the left on domestic policy than Obama. His domestic policies were much more progressive.

[struggle4progress]

48. Nixon did not give us these things: there were well-organized groups

pushing for progressive aims, we had a much more favorable judicial environment, and the Congress had a rather different flavor then

[Admiral Loinpresser]

49. I agree progressive energy made it happen.

He was certainly no tree hugger. But he implemented those policies effectively, as far as I know. E.g. the EPA was for real until Reagan.

[Better Believe It]

24. Eugene McCarthy did pretty much get the anti-war movement off the streets and into his campaign.

The anti-war movement picked up steam again after the convention.

[elleng]

30. And THEN what happened? Anyone remember?

'Nixon's victory is often considered a realigning election in American politics. From 1932 to 1968, the Democratic Party was obviously the majority party. During that time period, the Democrats won seven out of nine presidential elections. The election of 1968 reversed the situation completely. From 1968 to 2008, the Republican Party was undoubtedly the majority party. During that time period, the Republicans won seven out of ten presidential elections.

Many historians believe the reason for the Democratic Party's decline in strength was the bitter split within the party created by debates about civil rights, the Vietnam War and other "culture wars" of the 1960s.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1968

[Admiral Loinpresser]

32. Among others, we ended the war.

Trends were still relatively good until Reagan got elected. Eugene McCarthy and RFK were not the problem. The problem was Reagan and RW "Christians."

[jwirr]

39. Which is the lesson we should have long ago learned from that election.

Instead some of us think we can somehow win by staying home or voting for a third party that is not strong enough to win. I wish to heavens that we had a third party that could actually take the WH, and congress but I don't see that happening any time soon.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

33. Thanks for the reminder of what a courageous hero Eugene McCarthy was.

[Capn Sunshine]

35. "DUers can decide for themselves if the present incumbent is as flawed a candidate as LBJ"

Yes, and it will have about as much effect in the real world as it has thus far.

[Major Hogwash]

47. Obama wasn't even born until 1961.

Another one, stuck in the 60s!!

You old guys need to move on, buy an I-pod or something.
Really, they have 3-D tvs on sale these days.

LBJ has been dead for how many years now?

[Smarmie Doofus]

50. One can easily tell. nt

[xchrom]

51. recommend for the interesting conversation.

and yes, we protesters really hated the pro-war johnson. hated and we were mad at the democratic party as well.

[merbex]

52. I met and had a conversation with Lowenstein a few weeks before he was killed

I had volunteered to canvas for Ted Kennedy in NH and Lowenstein gave us a speech before heading out.

I went up and spoke to him.

One of my treasured memories.