Presidential Elections - Part 1

Now that we pretty much officially have our candidates for president and we’re set for several months of rhetoric on all sides, I ‘ve started thinking about the presidential elections and campaigns I’ve lived though. This will be the fourteenth. I thought it might be interesting (or it might not) to share my memories and how they line up with what history actually says about what went on.

The first one was in 1964. I was a little shy of my third birthday, so I remember nothing of LBJ blowing out Barry Goldwater. The first campaign I remember anything about at all is 1968. I was in the 2nd grade at Freemont Elementary. What I can remember is kids talking about who their parents voted for. I remember a lot of kids saying their parents voted for somebody named George Wallace. He was a third party candidate (and governor of Alabama) that year who had broken ranks with Democrats He was the last third party candidate to win a state’s electoral votes – he actually won five states (Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana). Richard Nixon still ended up winning enough electoral votes to beat out Vice President Hubert Humphrey and beaome president. I have read since about President Johnson deciding not to run (he could have since he served less than two years of John Kennedy’s term after his assassination). I have no remembrance of Robert Kennedy’s assassination during the 1968 Democratic primaries. Had he been the nominee, things could have turned out totally differently. What I initially remember about Richard Nixon after his election is his going to China and re-initiating foreign relations with them.

What little I remember about the 1972 presidential election was that George Wallace campaigned again and was shot. He lived but was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. George McGovern won the Democratic primary and Richard Nixon won over him in a landslide. This is what made the uncovering of the Watergate scandal soon after so bizarre. I still don’t understand why there was a need to spy on the Democrats. I remember the Watergate hearings running seemingly forever and interrupting all the game shows I liked to watch during the day. Nixon’s VP Spiro Agnew resigned over things he’d done while governor of Maryland and Gerald Ford was the first replacement VP ever chosen (which would become important later). It turned out Nixon had taped a lot of his meetings and there was a huge battle to get a hold of those tapes. I actually read the transcripts of those tapes in a book later. They were pretty boring - the thing I remember most was how many times "Expletive Deleted" was in there. The Supreme Court finally ruled the tapes had to be turned over. Soon after, Richard Nixon did what many thought a US President would never do. He resigned the presidency. I remember that day. A bunch of us were playing outside and Troy Wurth’s (Troy Bean as we called him) mom made him come in to watch Nixon resign and leave the White House because it was so historic. Gerald Ford ended up giving Nixon a full pardon – a move which would play out in the upcoming presidential election.

That’s enough for now. If I haven’t totally lost your interest, my next post will be about the 1976 election – the first one I took a real interest in. I’ll also discuss the 1980 election. It was the first one I ever voted in and you’ll find who I voted for and why.