Eugene McCarthy

In 1968, Allard K. Lowenstein and his anti-Vietnam War Dump Johnson movement recruited McCarthy to run against incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. Reportedly, Lowenstein first attempted to recruit Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who declined to run, then Senator George McGovern, who also declined (Kennedy decided to run after the primary on March 16, 1968,[15] and McGovern also later briefly entered the race). McCarthy entered and almost defeated Johnson in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, with the intention of influencing the federal government—then controlled by Democrats—to curtail its involvement in the Vietnam War. A number of antiwar college students and other activists from around the country traveled to New Hampshire to support McCarthy's campaign. Some antiwar students who had the long-haired, counterculture appearance of hippies chose to cut their long hair and shave off their beards in order to campaign for McCarthy door-to-door, a phenomenon that led to the informal slogan "Get clean for Gene".[16]

McCarthy's decision to run arose partly as an outcome of Oregon Senator Wayne Morse's opposition to the war. Morse was one of two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 1964. He gave speeches denouncing the war before it had entered most Americans' awareness. Thereafter, several politically active Oregon Democrats asked Kennedy to run as an antiwar candidate. McCarthy also encouraged Kennedy to run.[17] After Kennedy refused, the group asked McCarthy to run, and he responded favorably. After Kennedy entered the race and Johnson withdrew, however, McCarthy shifted his focus toward Kennedy.[17]

McCarthy declared his candidacy on November 30, 1967, 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." Political experts and the news media dismissed his candidacy, and he was given little chance of making any impact against Johnson in the primaries.[18] But public perception of him changed following the Tet Offensive (January 30 – February 23, 1968), the aftermath of which saw many Democrats grow disillusioned with the war, and quite a few interested in an alternative to Johnson. McCarthy said, "My decision to challenge the President's position and the administration's position has been strengthened by recent announcements out of the administration. The evident intention to escalate and to intensify the war in Vietnam, and on the other hand, the absence of any positive indication or suggestion for a compromise or for a negotiated political settlement."[19]

On December 3, 1967, McCarthy addressed the Conference of Concerned Democrats in Chicago, accusing the Johnson administration of ignoring and bungling opportunities for bringing the war to a conclusion.[20] Eight days later it was reported that he had suggested abandoning some areas of South Vietnam to the Viet Cong.[21] On February 17, 1968, it was reported that McCarthy's campaign had raised only a quarter of the funds it had hoped to raise nationally.[22] In May, Kennedy attacked McCarthy's civil rights record.[23] On June 23, 1968, Hubert Humphrey defeated McCarthy, securing significant delegates in their shared home state of Minnesota.[24][25][26]

As his volunteers (led by youth coordinator Sam Brown) went door to door in New Hampshire, and as the media began paying more serious attention to the senator, McCarthy began to rise in the polls. When he received 42% of the vote to Johnson's 49% in the March 12 New Hampshire primary (and 20 of New Hampshire's 24 delegates to the Democratic convention), it became clear that there was deep division among Democrats about the war. By this time, Johnson had become inextricably defined by Vietnam, and this demonstration of divided support within his party meant his reelection (only four years after winning the highest percentage of the popular vote in modern history) seemed unlikely. The folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary released a record "Eugene McCarthy For President (If You Love Your Country)", endorsing McCarthy, who they said had stood alone against Johnson over "more timid men" now echoing him.[27]

On March 16, Robert F. Kennedy announced that he would run; many Democrats saw Kennedy as a stronger candidate than McCarthy. On March 31, Johnson surprised the world by announcing that he would not seek reelection. After that, McCarthy won in Wisconsin,[28] where the Kennedy campaign was still getting organized. McCarthy also won in Oregon against a well-organized Kennedy effort; it was considered his first official victory over Kennedy.[17]

McCarthy styled himself as a clean politician, but criticized his opponents. Known for his wit, when asked if Michigan Governor George Romney's comment that Romney had been "brainwashed" about the Vietnam War had ended Romney's presidential hopes, McCarthy remarked, "Well... no, not really. Anyway, I think in that case a light rinse would have been sufficient."[29] He mocked Kennedy and his supporters. A major gaffe occurred in Oregon, when McCarthy called Kennedy supporters "less intelligent" than his own and belittled Indiana (which had by then gone for Kennedy) for lacking a poet of the stature of Robert Lowell—a friend of McCarthy's who often traveled with him.[30]

Some of those who joined McCarthy's effort early on were Kennedy loyalists. Now that Kennedy was in the race, many of them jumped ship, urging McCarthy to drop out and support Kennedy. McCarthy resented that Kennedy had let him do the "dirty work" of challenging Johnson and entered the race only when it became apparent that Johnson was vulnerable. As a result, while he initially entered the campaign with few illusions of winning, McCarthy now devoted himself to beating Kennedy (and Humphrey, who entered the race after Johnson withdrew) and gaining the nomination.[17]

Humphrey, long a champion of labor unions and of civil rights, entered the race with the support of the party "establishment", including most members of Congress, mayors, governors and labor union leaders. He entered too late to compete in any primaries, but had the support of Johnson and many Democratic insiders.

Kennedy, like his brother John in 1960, planned to win the nomination through popular support in the primaries. McCarthy and Kennedy squared off in California, knowing that the result there would be decisive. They both campaigned vigorously up and down the state, with many polls showing them neck-and-neck, and a few predicting a McCarthy victory.

A televised debate between them began to tilt undecided voters away from McCarthy. He made two statements many found ill-considered: that he would accept a government including Communists in South Vietnam, and that only the relocation of inner-city blacks would solve the urban problem. Kennedy pounced, portraying the former idea as soft on communism and the latter as a scheme to bus tens of thousands of ghetto residents into white, conservative Orange County.[30] Kennedy won the California primary on June 4, but was shot after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and died soon afterwards. In response, McCarthy refrained from political action for several days. One aide recalled McCarthy sneering about his fallen rival, saying that Kennedy was "demagoguing to the last". Another heard McCarthy say that Kennedy had "brought it on himself"—implying that he had provoked Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian gunman convicted of killing him, by promising military support to the state of Israel.[30]

Despite strong showings in several primaries—he won more votes than any other Democratic candidate—McCarthy garnered only 23% of the delegates at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, largely due to the control of state-party organizations over the delegate-selection process. After Kennedy's assassination, many Kennedy delegates, remembering his bitter war of words with McCarthy, chose to support George McGovern rather than McCarthy. Moreover, although Humphrey was not clearly an antiwar candidate, some antiwar Democrats hoped that as president he might succeed where Johnson had failed and extricate the United States from Vietnam. Before election day, McCarthy confirmed that he would personally vote for Humphrey, but said that he would go no further than that, stopping short of endorsing him. Although McCarthy did not win the Democratic nomination, the antiwar "New Party", which ran several candidates for president that year, listed him as its nominee on the ballot in Arizona, where he received 2,751 votes, and in Vermont, gaining 579 votes. He also appeared on the Oregon ballot as the New Party choice. He received 20,721 votes as a write-in candidate in California.

Despite McCarthy's anti-Vietnam War stance, North Vietnam's Communist government had a cynical attitude toward him, largely because the lack of money in his campaign made it highly skeptical of what he could achieve, describing McCarthy as "a second-rate politician with little experience or money" in its analysis of the presidential election published in their Army Newspaper dated August 10, 1968.[31]

McCarthy returned to politics as a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1972, but he fared poorly in New Hampshire and Wisconsin and soon dropped out.

Illinois was the only primary in which McCarthy actively participated. He got 38% of the vote to the then leading contender Edmund Muskie's 59%, but the media ignored McCarthy's Illinois campaign.

After his 1972 campaign, McCarthy left the Democratic Party, and ran as an Independent candidate for president in 1976. During that campaign, he took a libertarian stance on civil liberties, promised to create full employment by shortening the work week, came out in favor of nuclear disarmament, attacked the Internal Revenue Service,[32] and said whom he would nominate to various Cabinet posts if elected. Mainly, however, he battled ballot access laws he deemed too restrictive and encouraged voters to reject the two-party system.[33]

His numerous legal battles during the election, along with a strong grassroots effort in friendly states, allowed him to appear on the ballot in 30 states and eased ballot access for later third-party candidates. His party affiliation was variously listed on ballots as "Independent," "McCarthy '76," "Non-Partisan," "Nom. Petition," "Nomination," "Not Designated," and "Court Order". Although he was not on the California and Wyoming ballots, he was recognized as a write-in candidate in those states. In many states, he did not run with a vice-presidential nominee, but he came to have a total of 15 running mates in states where he was required to have one. At least eight of his running mates were women.[34]

Nationally, McCarthy received 740,460 votes, 0.91% of the total, finishing third in the election.[34] His best showing came in Oregon, where he received 40,207 votes, 3.90% of the vote.[34]

McCarthy in 1968

McCarthy opposed Watergate-era campaign finance laws, becoming a plaintiff in the landmark case Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain provisions of federal campaign finance laws were unconstitutional.[35] McCarthy, the New York Civil Liberties Union, philanthropist Stewart Mott, the Conservative Party of New York State, the Mississippi Republican Party, and the Libertarian Party were the plaintiffs in Buckley, becoming key players in killing campaign spending limits and public financing of political campaigns.

In 1980, dismayed by what he saw as the abject failure of Jimmy Carter's presidency (he later said, "he was the worst president we ever had"),[36] he appeared in a campaign ad for Libertarian candidate Ed Clark and wrote the introduction to Clark's campaign book.[37] He eventually endorsed Ronald Reagan for president.[38]

In 1982, McCarthy ran for the U.S Senate but lost the Democratic primary to businessman Mark Dayton, 69% to 24%.

In the 1988 election, McCarthy appeared on the ballot as the presidential candidate of a handful of left-wing state parties, specifically the Consumer Parties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and the Minnesota Progressive Party in Minnesota. In his campaign he supported trade protectionism, Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative and the abolition of the two-party system.[39] He received 30,905 votes.[40]

In 1992, returning to the Democratic Party, he entered the New Hampshire presidential primary and campaigned for the Democratic nomination, but was excluded from the first televised debate. Along with other candidates who had been excluded from the 1992 Democratic debates (including two-time New Alliance Party Presidential candidate Lenora Fulani, former Irvine, California mayor Larry Agran, Billy Jack actor Tom Laughlin, and others), McCarthy staged protests and took unsuccessful legal action in an attempt to be included in the debates. Unlike the other excluded candidates, McCarthy was a longstanding national figure and had mounted credible campaigns for president in previous elections. He won 108,679 votes in the 1992 primaries.[41]