I picked up an advance copy of Norman Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago, which is being re-issued this summer by NYRB Classics. There may be nothing better out there to give some historical perspective on the campaign this year. It makes you wish there were a Norman Mailer around to write about this year's campaign.
It also reminds you of how different political campaigns have become. The sixties was the end of the old era of political conventions, where the candidates used to make the rounds of the delegations trying to pick up some extra votes, as the outcome was not certain heading into the convention. Nowadays conventions are so stage-managed and choreographed they have lost most of their drama. They are infomercials for the party's candidates, really, and we will not tolerate the kind of uncertainty leading up to the convention that used to be taken for granted. We expect that the nominee will be selected by the voters, not the delegates. Not that these changes are bad necessarily, it's just interesting to be reminded how different our time is from the recent past.
And the story of the summer of 1968 reminds us of how tame politics has become. Even the Republican convention that year had some infighting. While Nixon had the nomination pretty well locked up before the convention, Rockefeller was hoping to get enough votes on the first ballot that he could turn the convention to him in a subsequent ballot. On the Democratic side, Humphrey went into the convention also with a comfortable lead, but knew that anything could happen that year. Eugene McCarthy still had enough loyal troops to cause trouble, though never enough to gain the nomination. George McGovern had just entered the race, trying to pick up all of the Bobby Kennedy delegates. There was a late movement to draft Teddy Kennedy into the race. In Mailer's view, Lyndon Johnson was behind the scenes the whole time, deliberately trying to split his party to preserve his legacy. And that was only the nomination fight. The real drama, with real blood flowing, of course took place on the streets outside the convention hall.
We think we have lived through an epic nomination battle this year? Compared to 1968, this was nothing.
Comments are closed for this post.
