In 1968, McCarthy ran against incumbent President
Lyndon 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 anti-war college students and other activists from around the country traveled to
New Hampshire to support McCarthy's campaign. Some
anti-war students who had the long-haired 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."
McCarthy's decision to run was partly an outcome of opposition to the war by
Oregon's Wayne Morse, one of the two Senators to vote against the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Morse gave speeches denouncing the war before it had entered the consciousness of most Americans. Following that, several politically active Oregon Democrats asked
Robert Kennedy to run as an anti-war candidate. Initially Kennedy refused, so the group asked McCarthy to run, and he responded favorably.
McCarthy declared his candidacy in December of 1967, but was seen as little more than a novelty by the press, and given little chance of making any impact against Johnson in the primaries. But public perception of him changed following the
Tet Offensive in January of '68, the aftermath of which saw many Democrats grow disillusioned by the war, and quite a few interested in an alternative to LBJ. As his volunteers 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 opinion polls.
When McCarthy scored 42% to Johnson's 49% in the popular vote (and 20 of the 24 N.H. delegates to the Democratic national nominating convention) in New Hampshire on March 12 it was clear that deep division existed among Democrats on the war issue. 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) was unlikely. On March 16 Kennedy announced that he would run, and was seen by many Democrats as a stronger candidate than McCarthy.
On March 31, in a surprise move, Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. Following that McCarthy won in
Wisconsin where the Kennedy campaign was still getting organized. Although it was largely forgotten following subsequent events, McCarthy also won in Oregon against a well-organized Kennedy effort.
Quite a few of the people who had joined McCarthy's effort early on were Kennedy loyalists. Now that RFK was in the race, many jumped ship to his campaign, and they urged McCarthy to drop out and support Kennedy for the nomination. However, McCarthy resented the fact that Bobby had let him do the "dirty work" of challenging Johnson, and then only entered the race once it was apparent that the President was vulnerable. As a result, while he initially entered the campaign with few illusions of wining, McCarthy now devoted himself to beating Kennedy (and
Hubert Humphrey, who entered the race after LBJ removed himself) and gaining the nomination.
While Humphrey was avoiding the primaries and counting on party bosses to make him the candidate at the convention, McCarthy and Kennedy squared off in
California, each knowing that the state would be the make or break for them. They both campaigned vigorously up and down the state, with many polls showing them neck-and-neck, and a few even predicting a McCarthy victory. But a televised debate between them, in which McCarthy came off as both remote on the issues and ill-tempered toward his opponent, began to tilt undecided voters away from the Minnesota Senator. Kennedy took the crucial California primary on June 4, and looked forward to beating back Humphrey at the convention in
Chicago.
Robert Kennedy was shot after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in
Los Angeles, a speech he had delivered after midnight on June 5, just after learning of his victory. He died early on the morning of June 6. In response McCarthy refrained from political action for several days, but did not remove himself from the race.
Despite strong showings in several primaries, McCarthy garnered only 23 percent of the delegates at the
1968 Democratic National Convention, largely due to the control of state party organizations over the delegate selection process. After the assassination, many delegates for Kennedy chose to support George McGovern rather than McCarthy. Moreover, although the eventual nominee,
Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was not clearly an anti-war candidate, there was hope among some anti-war Democrats that Humphrey as President might succeed where Johnson had failed — in extricating the United States from Vietnam. McCarthy eventually gave a lukewarm endorsement of Humphrey.
Although McCarthy did not win the Democratic nomination, the anti-war "New Party," which ran several candidates for President that year, listed him as their nominee on the ballot in
Arizona, where he received 2,751 votes. He also received 20,721 votes as a
write-in candidate in
California. However, even in Oregon where McCarthy had shown his greatest strength, it was the Kennedy forces who had a lasting impact on state politics, contributing Portland Mayor
Vera Katz and Governor
Neil Goldschmidt.
In the aftermath of their chaotic 1968 convention in
Chicago, Democrats convened the
McGovern-Fraser Commission to reexamine the manner in which delegates were chosen. The commission made a number of recommendations to reform the process, prompting widespread changes in Democratic state organizations and continual democratization of the nominating process for more than a decade. In response, the
Republicans also formed a similar commission. Because of these changes, the practical role of
national party conventions diminished dramatically. The most immediately visible effect of the reforms was the eventual nomination of nationally unknown Jimmy Carter by the Democrats in
1976. Some have argued that the increased significance of primaries has resulted in candidates who are more nationally palatable than those that might have been chosen in a "
smoke-filled room." Others see the changes as a mixed blessing because they may make initial name recognition and money more decisive factors in securing the nomination.
Following the 1968 election, McCarthy returned to the Senate, but announced that he would not be running for reelection in 1970, to the disappointment of many Minnesotans. He disappointed many more people nationwide by declining to take a leadership role in Congress against the war. Indeed, he almost seemed to take a turn to the political Right during his final two years in the Senate, as witnessed by his opposition to
President Richard Nixon's Family Assistance Plan, a form of "reverse income tax" to help the poor get off of welfare. What made McCarthy's opposition to FAP all the stranger was that it was almost identical to a plan he had proposed several years earlier.
