Ok everyone, here is the next installment over the General election of 1968 and the final electoral results. I hope you all enjoy
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We few, We Happy few: The 1968 General Election and its results.
Ronald Reagan, following his successful “Stop Nixon” entered the 1968 General Election riding on a wave of enthusiasm from his supporters not seen since before Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. Electorally, Reagan and his staff believed that he could already count on the votes from the West Coast and the Midwest. However, the gipper could be in a fight in the South and the Industrial Northeast in order to receive the threshold of 270 electoral votes. To help Reagan in the Northeast was his running mate, the 61st & 63rd Governor of Massachusetts…John A. Volpe. Although, many pundits began to turn a deaf ear to the ticket due to a significant lack of foreign experience, many Working Class Whites and Urban Blacks slowly began to warm up to Volpe on the campaign stump as he reminded voters of some of his past achievements as Governor. The modern Horatio Agler, a term coined by Reagan, soon became known across the nation for his support of ethics regulations, campaign finance reports, education reform and increases in public housing for lower income families.
Yet as the Governor’s stock began to rise in the North, his poll numbers began to dip slightly in the South enough so that if forced Reagan to do a new Southern tour. He was able to reassure voters that he will keep the promises made to their delegates in Miami, restoration to Law and Order and strikes a chord during a campaign speech in Hope, Arkansas when he announced that
“Programs like education and others should be turned back to the states and local communities with the tax sources to fund them. I believe in states’ rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can at the community level and the private level." He also focus most of his attacks during his southern tour on George Wallace, as someone who couldn’t possibly win in the electoral candidate and as someone who plays to peoples fears/not to their hopes.
The Vice-President had the unfortunate opportunity of being the lightening rod for what all was seen wrong with the Johnson administration. He promised to expand the Great Society and continue the “War on Poverty” started by LBJ as well as a continuation of the expansion of civil rights for minority groups. However, the happy warrior felt as if he could not voice any opposition to the Vietnam War as any peace proposal would be shot down by the 36th President. All of which would be reiterated by Ronald Reagan, who frequently quoted a late August Time Magazine article that
“The old Democratic coalition was disintegrating, with untold numbers of blue-collar workers responding to Wallace's blandishments, Negroes threatening to sit out the election, liberals disaffected over the Viet Nam War, the South lost. The war chest was almost empty, and the party's machinery, neglected by Lyndon Johnson, creaked in disrepair.”
All three ideologies would be seen nationally in contrast to each other on a sole Presidential debate broadcast in late October. All of the candidates would stick to their guns, but Reagan is seen as the winner of the debate as he made clear of his opposition to Earl Warren’s Supreme Court, He would also plan to end the draft as soon a true victory became within sights. Humphrey attempts to showcase Reagan as an ultra light weight Goldwaterite floundered but he successfully portrayed Wallace as a racist bigot further cementing his decline with union workers in the North and the Midwest. One of the most memorable lines of the debate came from the gipper, when after Humphrey makes a rather long winded comparison between his GOP opponent’s relatively short records to his long tenure in the Senate, Reagan replies back to Humphrey
“There you go again Mr. Vice President…”
Although this would greatly boost Reagan’s image to the American people, it would be an “October Surprise” which featured President Johnson announcing of a bombing halt and even a peace deal possibly by the weekend before the election, which would through the election into a toss up by election night. The Reagan/Volpe campaign used their communication skills and a new friend in former Rockefeller ally Henry Kissinger to be able to stall the South Vietnamese from making any peace talk until January under a new administration. President Nguyen Van Thieu obliged, thus stunting the surmounting Humphrey candidacy.
By election night, November 5th, 1968 with the results proved to be extremely tight. Ronald Reagan and John Volpe with their families, closet advisors and staff all nervously watched the returns come in at the Governor’s mansion in Sacramento. On the East coast, Reagan lost a majority of the states including Maine, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, and the District of Columbia all remain in the Democratic column. Humphrey would also barely squeeze by Reagan in Governor Volpe’s home state of Massachusetts on a razor thin margin. However the picking of a Rockefeller Republican was not totally in vain as Reagan was able to pick up the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey, and Delaware.
In the Industrial states, the Vice President work to win back the labor unions and use them as his base was proven to be a largely successful strategy as he won both the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan on fairly comfortable margins. Humphrey would also gain Ohio’s precious 26 electoral votes in a razor thin win over Reagan. Yet the Happy Warrior lost the state of Indiana to Reagan by a wide margin and lost the state of Illinois in a heartbreaker.
The third-party candidate George Wallace’s hope of forcing the election to the House of Representatives soon became dashed as the results from the South came pouring in and it became evident that Wallace and Reagan effectively split the conservative vote. Reagan’s campaign became invigorated as he won the states of Kentucky, Virginia and Florida all on very comfortable margins. The gipper would also bring Tennessee, The Carolinas and surprisingly the state of Arkansas on very slim margins into the GOP column. Although the Reagan/Volpe campaign had hoped for a surprise victory in Texas, it would be Hubert Humphrey who would come away with its 25 electoral votes. Wallace, once the favorite son of the old Confederacy, only gains the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and his home state of Alabama.
Humphrey would only with the states of Minnesota and just barely in Wisconsin as Ronald Reagan swept all of the Midwestern states, just as his campaign managers had predicted. Yet as the results slowly came in for the West Coast, the electoral count stood at Reagan 221, Humphrey 216, and Wallace at 39. Word soon came into Sacramento that California was going to be really close and that the governor very well might loose his home state. It worried the gipper so much that he had prepared his concession speech and told Cliff White’s fifteen year old daughter, who was disconsolate at the possibility of a Reagan loss,
“Carole, the good Lord knows what He is doing. This might not be out turn.”
The feeling of uncertainty was felt by all Americans, who had to wait until the next morning to hear the final count and just exactly who would their next president be. It soon became apparent when Vice President Humphrey only picked up the states of Washington and Hawaii and that not only did Ronald Reagan secure his home state of California precious 40 electoral votes, but he also picked up the states of Oregon and Alaska as well. The former B movie star and 1st term Governor was on January 20th, 1969 to become the 37th President of the United States…with the final electoral vote count at Reagan with 270, Humphrey with 229 and with Wallace placing a distant third with 39 electoral votes.
