Hope from 1968 via 2004 for 2024
I struggle to be optimistic. More specifically, at a young 48, I struggle to believe the generations coming after me will make the world better. In some ways, this is not fair, they inherit my world as I inherited my parents world. How arrogant to lay the burden of “the improvement” on their backs. This interchange between Eugene McCarthy, John Callahan and the students at Lewis
and Clark University struck me, from 2004. Quick reminder, President Bush was at the beginning of what would become the long war in the Middle East.
After his talk there is question and answer. Noting McCarthy’s optimism about the nation during the turbulent, hard year 1968, a student asked if he had become more pessimistic. McCarthy paused, “I’m more apprehensive now,” he said simply, the slight catch in his voice betraying the same quiet alarm I remembered from 1968. To see how far he’d go, I quoted his 1968 election-night remarks in New Hampshire: “People have said that the campaign has brought the young people back into the system. But it’s the other way around. The young people have brought the country back into the system.” McCarthy smiled. “Well,” he said, “the system’s tougher now.” He paused, looking at the students. “But maybe you are, too.”*
And here it is. Over fifty years ago, McCarthy praised young people in the USA for bringing us back to ourselves. Twenty years ago, McCarthy admitted the system had grown tougher, but still held hope that the kids are tougher too. And so this morning, as I read this, I want to share in the hopes of someone like McCarthy who can still say this in his 80s after losing in 68, with the Vietnam war continuing another seven years and only ending when Saigon fell to North Vietnam.
History is crazy, but so are we.
Who was McCarthy and when did he run for president?
Eisenhower. Almost fifteen years later it continued but the antiwar movement was in full swing. Lets go to the election in 1968. Lyndon Johnson became president after Kennedy’s assassination and then won against Barry Goldwater in 1964. Because of his low popularity he did not run again in 68 against Nixon. (Yes, I am thinking what you are thinking if you are reading this right now in 2024). He actually did plan to run and was in the running until Mar 31, 1968 when he announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.
Four months prior, Nov 30, 1967, Eugene McCarthy announced his campaign against the incumbent president of his own party saying "I am concerned that the Administration seems to have set no limit to the price it is willing to pay for a military victory.” There is lots more about this election, Nixon illegally corresponded with North Vietnam to delay peace talks to get elected; the Democratic convention came apart because black southerns wanted to be represented, at one point the mayor of Chicago yelled at Senator Ribicoff: “Fxxx, you, you Jew son of a bxxxx! You lousy motherfxxxxx, go home!” (Mayor Daley). But Eugene McCarthy didn’t win the chance to run against Nixon.
The incumbent VP, Hubert Humphry lost to Nixon, but about 1M popular votes, but over 100 electoral votes. (301 to 191); with George Wallace taking five southern states as an independent. Nonetheless, Lawrence O’Donnell in his book Playing With Fire on the 68 election goes so far as to say “If Gene McCarthy had not run for president in 1968, the draft would not have ended in 1973.”
Ok all this is to tell you that one of my heroes is John F. Callahan, the executer of Ralph Ellison’s estate and responsible for the release of his unpublished novel, his collected letters, his collected essays, his collected short stories and his own excellent essays, coordinated McCarthy’s effort in Oregon. As far as I can tell, he was his named VP in Oregon because McCarthy only named VP in states that required it and named multiple VP. In 2004 while Callahan was still teaching at Lewis and Clark University, he welcomed 88 year old Eugene McCarthy to speak to the school.
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