Eugene Mc Carthy Presidential Campaign, 1968 - Challenging The Incumbent

Challenging The Incumbent

I run because this country is now involved in a deep crisis of leadership - a crisis of national purpose - and a crisis of American ideals. It is time to substitute a leadership of hope for a leadership of fear. This is not simply what I want, or what most of us want. It is, I believe, the deepest hunger of the American soul.

Citing the importance of preventing President Johnson's nomination, and the continuation of the war in Vietnam, McCarthy entered his name into four Democratic presidential primaries on November 30, 1967. Upon his entrance, the Senator articulated that he believed there was a "deepening moral crisis" in America with the rejection of the political system by citizens, and a helplessness he hoped to alleviate as president. A few days later, the Johnson administration made an announcement on the war in Vietnam that, according to McCarthy, was akin to an escalation. He believed that such an announcement would only strengthen his own campaign. The following week, rumors spread among the president's staff that the McCarthy campaign was a ploy to weaken Johnson and make it easier for Senator Robert F. Kennedy to defeat him. Kennedy had announced that he would not challenge Johnson for the nomination, but a presidential candidacy was not ruled out.

McCarthy began January by making no promises about a potential challenge of the president on the Florida primary ballot, but reaffirmed his goal to defeat the president in New Hampshire. The next day, he appeared as the first guest of the half-hour ABC news series Issues and Answers, and discussed his views on pertinent campaign issues. He claimed the North Vietnamese government was willing to negotiate, and that any further bombing should be halted to forge an end to the hostilities. As President Johnson prepared for his annual State of the Union Address, McCarthy requested for equal time from television networks after the president discussed the McCarthy-Kennedy conspiracy theory the previous month. The request was rejected. Later in the month, McCarthy delivered a speech in front of 6,500 students at University Park, Pennsylvania, that criticized the Johnson administration for being "afraid to negotiate" with the North Vietnamese. This came as Robert Kennedy commented that he would support Johnson as the nominee, even though his views more closely resembled McCarthy's, predicting that the campaign would have a "healthy influence" on Johnson, whom he picked to ultimately win the nomination. Near the end of January, McCarthy campaigned in St. Louis, where he continued his anti-war rhetoric, describing the Vietnam War as against "American tradition" and declared that "no nation has a right" to "destroy a nation" with the rationale of "nation building." He then discussed his support for normalized relations with Cuba. After seven weeks of campaigning, McCarthy concluded that his speeches were coming across more as poetry than substantive campaign messages. As he traveled through California, a stop in Stanford was greeted by newspaper headlines that asked the candidate whether he "want to make righteous speeches...or end the Viet Nam War." As his candidacy continued, McCarthy and his staffers worked to improve the campaign's "passion gap."