Will 1968 Repeat Itself?

On March 31, 1968, Lyndon Baines Johnson shocked the nation by ending his televised speech with the following words: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

For a sitting president, who just four years earlier had won a landslide victory, to make such a decision and issue such a statement meant that there were forces at play behind the scenes to which the average American was not privy. In Johnson’s case, one of them was his declining health. In fact, an actuary study that he had secretly commissioned accurately predicted that LBJ would die at age 64. In other words, the 36th President of the United States had just five years to live… and he didn’t want to hasten his demise or to spend his few remaining years in the White House, preferring instead to return to his ranch in Texas.

On the political front, Johnson had just been embarrassed by Eugene McCarthy’s strong showing in the New Hampshire primary where the liberal senator from Minnesota had finished a very close second thanks to the anti-war vote. Sensing blood in the water, Robert F. Kennedy announced his candidacy five days later.

Polls for the upcoming Wisconsin primary showed Johnson trailing badly. Yes, he still retained the backing of the party regulars, labor unions, and local party bosses such as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, but McCarthy was siphoning off the academic and youth vote while RFK was receiving strong support from Catholics, Blacks, and Hispanics. Meanwhile, white Southerners – many of them segregationists – were rallying around Alabama Gov. George Wallace and the American Independent Party.

Seeing no way to secure the nomination let alone win the general election, Johnson chose to get out while the getting was good by leaving on his own terms. And so, the three-way race for the nomination became a two-way one… that is, until Kennedy was assassinated the night he won the California primary. Not wanting McCarthy to become his party’s standard bearer, Johnson used his political skills and clout to secure the nomination for his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who hadn’t campaigned or entered a single primary. As a result, McCarthy’s supporters felt slighted and Chicago, the host city for the Democratic National Convention, saw mass protests and rioting.

The fracture in the Democrat Party never fully healed that fall, allowing Wallace to capture 13.5% of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes. Republican Richard Nixon, following his southern strategy, narrowly won the popular vote by 500,000 votes but was elected with 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 191.

Fast forward to 2024 and an equally splintered Democrat Party is trying to figure out what to do about Joe Biden. His job performance numbers are at historic lows, and he is badly trailing former President Donald Trump on the two most important issues: the economy and immigration. With inflation stubbornly refusing to go away and record numbers of illegal immigrants pouring across our southern border, Geritol Joe is in deep trouble… and party insiders know it. However, unlike LBJ in 1968, Biden refuses to do what is best for the DNC, which would be to graciously exit the stage and allow a more popular and energetic alternative to take his place on the fall ballot.

Meanwhile, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas rallies are shutting down college campuses just like the Vietnam War protesters did 56 years ago. Coincidentally (?) there is another Robert F. Kennedy on the ballot and the Democratic National Convention is being held this summer in – of all places – Chicago. You simply can’t come up with a better script.

Look for powerbrokers and donors alike to pressure Sleepy, Creepy, Sleazy Joe to reconsider his decision to run between now and the convention, especially if polls continue to show him trailing Donald Trump. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if former President Barack Obama didn’t put the squeeze on ol’ Joe but, at the end of the day, it’s still Joe’s (or Jill’s) decision to make.

Unless, of course, the convention delegates can be persuaded to give Joe the boot on the convention floor and coronate Gavin Newsom. Sorry Kamala, but your chances of getting the party nod are about as good as mine… and I’m a Republican.

As Laugh-In's Arte Johnson would say, the next three months should prove "very interesting!"