Nixon was favored to win the presidential nomination. But he was opposed by Nelson Rockefeller and RONALD REAGAN. (Rockefeller was the governor of New York. Reagan was the governor of California.) Moderate Republicans favored Rockefeller. (By 1968, there were almost no liberals left in the Republican Party. They had all become Democrats.)
Conservative Republicans favored Reagan. But Strom Thurman of South Carolina supported Nixon. Thurman broke Reagan's lock on conservative delegates. (Thurman had for president on the Dixiecrat Party ticket in 1948. He later became a Republican.) Most southern delegates switched to Nixon.
Nixon was nominated on the first ballot. He won 692 votes. Rockefeller won 692 votes. Reagan won 182 votes. Spiro T. Agnew was nominated for vice president.
The Democrats
Vice President Humphrey was favored to win the presidential nomination. But the party was sharply divided over the Vietnam War. Party regulars were committed to Humphrey. Antiwar delegates were split between Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. (McCarthy was a U.S. senator from Minnesota. McGovern was a U.S. senator from South Dakota.)
McCarthy had forced President Johnson out of the race. He nearly defeated the president in the New Hampshire primary. Senator Robert Kennedy had entered the race an antiwar candidate. But he was assassinated in Los Angeles after the California primary. McGovern entered the race after Kennedy's death. He inherited most of Kennedy's supporters.
The Democrats held their convention in Chicago, Illinois. The city braced for hordes of antiwar demonstrators. By 1968, the nature of antiwar protests had changed. It began as a movement of earnest, clean-cut college kids. But it had been captured by "revolutionary chic." Many of the demonstrators who arrived in Chicago were Yippies. (The Yippies were members of the Youth International Party.) Most of them were "unwashed." They camped out in Lincoln Park. They smoked "pot." They drank beer.
The Yippies came to Chicago to "crash" the convention. Chicago was run by Mayor Richard Daley. He was an old-style Irish politician. He ran a tight political machine. Daley loved Chicago and the Democratic Party. He knew how to deliver votes and win elections. But he despised the dirty, unruly demonstrators.
The demonstrators attacked the headquarters hotel. Then they headed for the convention hall. They battled the police. Before long, the demonstrators and the police were fighting in the streets. Downtown Chicago was swept up in a wave of anarchy. The Yippies decided to "trash" the city. They roved the streets breaking windows and shouting obscenities.
Inside the convention hall, delegates denounced Daley and the Chicago police from the speaker's podium. They fought over the Vietnam War plank in the party platform. Antiwar delegates wanted an immediate end to the war. The Humphrey camp wanted to approve President Johnson's Vietnam policy. Americans watched the proceedings on television. It was an appalling spectacle.
Humphrey was nominated on the first ballot. He won 1,760 1/4 votes. McCarthy won 601 votes. McGovern won 146 1/2 votes. Edmund Muskie was nominated for vice president. (He was a U.S. senator from Maine.)
The American Independents
The American Independents nominated George Wallace for president. (They had formed a political party to get his name on state ballots.) Wallace's running mate was Curtis Lemay. He was a former Air Force general.
The General Election Campaign
When the fall campaign began, Nixon was the front-runner. Vice President Humphrey was Johnson's heir apparent. But almost no one thought he could be elected president. The Democratic convention had been disastrous. Besides, middle-class America wanted a change.
Nixon's organization ran a smooth, carefully staged campaign. They wanted to remind voters of the peace and prosperity of the Eisenhower era. Republicans had a fairly easy task. By then, most voters associated Democrats with black militants and "unwashed" protesters. They remembered riots in the black ghettos. They had watched street battles at the Democratic convention. They valued civic peace. They had tired of youthful anarchy and revolutionary rhetoric.
Still, Nixon's strongest issue was the Vietnam War. Many Americans thought the antiwar movement was unpatriotic. But most Americans wanted an end to the war. Nixon announced that he had a "secret plan" to end the war. (It was not true.) At the end of October, President Johnson stopped bombing Vietnam. The Nixon campaign was surprised. Johnson's move gave the Humphrey organization a lift.
Humphrey campaigned hard. He showed up everywhere and gave hundreds of speeches. Labor donated money and fieldworkers to his campaign. Liberals and minorities decided they preferred Humphrey to Nixon. In the last days of the campaign, Humphrey gained support. But it was not enough. Nixon still led in the polls.
The Election Results
Nixon defeated Humphrey by a little more than 500,000 popular votes. (Nixon won only 43.3 percent of the vote. That was only slightly better than his showing against JOHN KENNEDY in 1960.) Humphrey won 42.7 percent of the popular vote. Wallace won 13.5 percent of the popular vote.
Nixon won 301 electoral votes and carried 32 states. Humphrey won 191 electoral votes and carried 13 states. Wallace won 46 electoral votes and carried 5 states.
ELECTION (1972)
Nixon's Political Party: Republican Party
Nixon's Opponent(s):
George S. McGovern- Democratic Party
John Hospers- Libertarian Party
Election Facts:
The Republicans
President Nixon was heavily favored to win renomination. He had two minor opponents. But neither was a serious threat. Paul McCloskey was the antiwar candidate. John Ashbrook was the right-wing candidate. (McCloskey was a U.S. representative from California. Ashbrook was a U.S. representative from Ohio.)
Nixon was renominated on the first ballot. He won 1,347 votes. Vice President Agnew was renominated.
The Democrats
George McGovern was favored to win the presidential nomination. (McGovern was a U.S. senator from South Dakota. He had been an antiwar candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1968.) McGovern's campaign was supported entirely by liberals. He inherited most of his supporters from the 1968 campaigns of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy.
Governor George Wallace of Alabama was the right-wing candidate in the race. He was gravely wounded in an assassination attempt during the Maryland primary. By the time of the Democratic convention, Wallace was out of the race.
Early in the campaign, labor leaders and party regulars supported Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. (He had been the vice presidential nominee in 1968.) But he lost their support during the New Hampshire primary. The Manchester Union Leader is a New Hampshire newspaper. Its editors attacked Muskie's wife in an editorial. He responded by crying in public. Democratic party bosses wondered aloud if a man who cried publicly could be elected president.
But the party regulars disliked McGovern and his supporters. They formed a stop-McGovern movement. They chose Henry Jackson as their candidate. (He was a U.S. senator from Washington.) Shirley Chisholm was supported by some blacks and women. (She was a black U.S. representative from New York.) Southern moderates supported Terry Sanford. (He was the governor of North Carolina.)
McGovern was nominated on the first ballot. He won 1,715 votes. Jackson won 534 votes. Chisholm won 152 votes. Sanford won 78 votes. McGovern chose Thomas Eagleton as his running mate. Eagleton was a U.S. senator from Missouri.
The General Election Campaign
In the fall campaign, President Nixon was the clear favorite. He did not campaign much. His organization was called the Committee to Reelect the President (or CREEP). CREEP had lots of money. The Nixon camp blanketed the television networks with campaign ads. Nixon let Vice President Agnew attack his opponents. Agnew attacked the "liberal" news media and the "leftist" intellectual elites.
McGovern's campaign troubles began early. Reporters learned that Eagleton had undergone shock therapy for psychological depression. Eagleton refused to withdraw from the ticket. Finally, McGovern dumped him. McGovern chose Sargent Shriver as his running mate. (Shriver had never run for political office. But he was married to one of JOHN KENNEDY's sisters.)
McGovern called for an immediate end to the Vietnam War. He wanted the federal government to give every American family a minimum income. McGovernnever explained how his goals would be accomplished. But he gave Republicans an opening. They painted him as a cowardly, left-wing radical. (The charge was not true. McGovern was a decorated World War II veteran.)
On top of his other troubles, McGovern's organization was seriously short of money. Labor unions usually provided lots of money and fieldworkers to Democratic presidential campaigns. But labor leaders and union members disliked McGovern. The AFL-CIO refused to endorse him. The Teamsters Union endorsed Nixon.
The Election Results
Nixon defeated McGovern by nearly 18 million popular votes. (He won 61 percent of the vote. McGovern won 38 percent of the total vote.) Nixon won 520 electoral votes and carried 49 states. McGovern won 17 electoral votes and carried 1 state (Massachusetts) and the District of Columbia. Hospers won 1 electoral vote.
RICHARD NIXON'S VICE PRESIDENT(S)
FIRST ADMINISTRATION (1969-1973):
Spiro T. Agnew, Maryland
Vice President (1969-1973)
Birth- 1918
Profession- Lawyer
Offices- County executive, Baltimore (1963-1967);
Governor, Maryland (1967-1969).
Other Facts-
Agnew was the first vice president of southern European heritage. He was of Greek origin. After the 1972 election, federal agents found that Agnew had accepted bribes when he was a public official in Maryland. He continued to accept bribes as vice president. To avoid criminal prosecution, Agnew pleaded guilty to tax evasion. He resigned from the vice presidency in October, 1973.
