Reflection
August 10, 2009
March 10, 2008
It was 40 years ago today . . .
. . . or two days ago or sometime next week. I no longer remember the exact date, but sometime in early March, 1968, I embarked on my life of crime -- that's when I first got involved in grassroots activism.
I was walking home from high school -- I was 16 at the time -- on one of my secondary standard routes home. It was a fairly pleasant early spring day and so I opted for the alternative route that took me by Carvel's Ice Cream. I'm sure I ordered a chocolate malt. That was the usual.
But something highly unusual was just across the street. What had been a pet store had suddenly transformed itself into a Eugene McCarthy for President campaign office. Right there in my suburban New Jersey hometown!
I was astonished. And excited. I had been one of those so-called news junkies for a long time, from a young age. I had been following closely the presidential election of 1968 (as I had the 1964 and 1960 elections). And I had also been devouring news coverage of the Vietnam war. I knew I was against the war, but I wasn't able to articulate my reasons, even to myself. When I tried to talk to my dad about it, I had no rebuttal for his reason why the US was in Vietnam: "Because they're communists."
McCarthy's presidential bid brought both story lines into high relief. Viewed as a kind of philosopher-poet-politician (which he was), the Senator from Minnesota was running against an incumbent President of his own party -- an audacious thing to do -- with a very simple campaign platform: Bring the troops home now. And people were responding enthusiastically, and hopefully, to his Quixotic effort.
I was one those people. I walked -- nearly ran -- straight from Carvel's Ice Cream to the campaign office. I ended up working in that office every day since that day, until the bitter end.
McCarthy nearly, but not quite, beat Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. (How times have changed. The "first in the nation" New Hampshire primary was held on March 12 that year.) The political moment was a stunner, though. Strongly challenged and rejected on Vietnam, Johnson withdrew from the race, almost unheard of for a sitting President.
I keep thinking back to that time now, not only because it marked a significant period in my life -- one of those ultimately life-changing experiences, actually -- but because of so many similarities to this year's presidential race. Not parallels, but similarities.
There was the war of course. Back then it was Vietnam. Now it's Iraq. What's different this year from 1968, though, is that the war is fading as an issue. I hope Obama can get it back on the agenda. In fact, I think he needs to do that to win. In 1968, the war dominated the campaign from start to finish, due in no small part to Gene McCarthy's daring run.
Then there's the enthusiasm, the broad interest in the race, and the involvement of thousands of new voters and activists, many of them young. The 1968 campaign was practically defined by that youthful energy. The 2008 campaign is coming close.
Ultimately, the Democratic Party leadership -- the insiders, the elites -- cut the legs out from under McCarthy's campaign. First, after McCarthy knocked Johnson from the race, Bobby Kennedy jumped in. In his favor, I will say that he energized even more new activists. He is certainly remembered today for his inspirational aura. I'm afraid I'll always remember him as the party apparatchik who was opportunistically sent out to stop the rebel McCarthy. (That doesn't diminish the tragedy of his assassination.)
With Kennedy gone, the Democratic cabal settled on Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Once an authentic populist liberal, Humphrey was so politically corrupted by his long tenure in Washington that he was a safe choice for the party's privileged and powerful wing.
Does any of this have a familiar ring?
The new activists walked away from the whole process. In droves. Myself included. Humphrey got trounced in the general election by Richard Nixon. The war raged on -- then dragged on -- for seven more years.
I agree with those who express concern -- and alarm -- that if the Democratic insiders end up manipulating the process again this year, especially this year, selecting the presumably safer candidate over the wishes of the party's voters, they may again drive away a new generation of activists and quite possibly lose the White House they should be waltzing into.
I agree with that. But I can see another scenario, as well. In 1968, when the electoral process was left in tatters by the political knife-fighters, the new level of activism didn't dissolve. It just took a different path. It moved into the streets. It went grassroots. It became independent of the party process. And it erupted into the greatest outpouring of democratic expression -- dissent -- this country may ever have seen.
The peace movement achieved critical mass. It remains a movement to this day.
That scenario is on the list of possibilities in 2008. A new critical mass, a re-energized movement. Maybe that's the best we can hope for in any election. (Don't misunderstand me. I do mean that's the best outcome.)
"Power concedes nothing without a demand," said Frederick Douglass, a former slave who understood power. "It never did and never will."
From Vietnam to Iraq, with far too many stops along the way, it's been forty years in the grassroots for me now. And I still believe the grassroots is the right place to be.
Time will tell.
