Eugene McCarthy inspired a generation of Americans during his Presidential campaign in 1968, myself included. I called myself a democrat, but the Oregon primary campaign that spring added the preface LIBERAL that has since defined my political leanings. In my last year at University of Oregon in Eugene, this was my first chance to vote, and the primary was especially exciting coming as it did just before California. Robert Kennedy had joined the contest after McCarthy's audacious decision to challenge a sitting President and his strong finish against LBJ in the New Hampshire primary. I admired McCarthy's courage, wit and intellect. I saw him twice during the campaign and enjoyed seeing Kennedy as well, reckoning either one would help bring peace to Vietnam and tackle the troubling social and political divisions in the U.S. We were all optimists that with Johnson's decision not to run the democrats had a chance to field an anti-war candidate and put an end to the Vietnam War. Eugene McCarthy won the Oregon primary over Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy was assassinated the night he won in California. Vice President Hubert Humphrey went on to win the nomination at a bloody, angry, divisive Democratic convention in Chicago where the police used violent tactics to beat down anti-war protestors. A generation of optimists were now outraged and then defeated as the vilified Richard Nixon became president. I have never lost the sense of outrage I felt that spring and summer of 1968. It is that same outrage I feel today with the Bush administration - the lies and deception that led to the war in Iraq, using the GWOT as a basis for illegal detainment and torture, failure to deal with Hurricane Katrina, outing of a covert CIA agent, election manipulation, corruption, smear tactics, paid media propaganda...there are no high minded principles guiding these callous, ruthless people, only power and money. Eugene McCarthy's principles and the strength of his convictions galvanised a movement. His passing should cause some reflection back to the spring and summer of 1968, and hopefully invigorate a new resolve to continue the fight. |
