1952-2020****
968 NIXON vs. HUMPHREY vs. WALLACE
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1968
NIXON
HUMPHREY
WALLACE RESU
By 1968, one of the most turbulent years in American
history, the number of American troops in Vietnam had riser
from 16,000 (in 1963) to more than 500,000. Nightly TV
coverage of the "living-room war" ignited an antiwar
movement. After a weak showing in the New Hampshire
primary, President Johnson shocked the country on March
31 by announcing that he would not seek reelection. Just
four days later, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated,
sparking riots in more than 100 cities. In June, Robert F.
Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California
primary. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who entered the
race late and had not won any primaries, became the
Democratic nominee at a tumultuous convention in
Chicago marred by disorder inside the convention hall and
by the televised spectacle of violent confrontations betwee
police and antiwar protesters.
The Republicans nominated Richard M. Nixon, who was
attempting a political comeback after losing the 1960
presidential election and the 1962 California gubernatoria
race. Nixon claimed to speak for the "silent majority of law
abiding citizens whose voices were presumably drowned
out amidst the social upheaval, and he promised a return to
the stability of the Eisenhower years. How does that commercial showing fear?