So Dean Phillips is no Gene McCarthy, tonight...
Results at this moment appear to show President Joe Biden winning the New Hampshire primary with
about 74% to Phillip's 20.8%,
without even being on the ballot....
[link:https://www.google.com/search?q=New+Hampshire+Democratic+primary+2024&sca_esv=600935136&sxsrf=ACQVn09pUY0tO0Pjx4Llgslo6ES68WPi5g%3A1706059872682&source=hp&ei=YGiwZYGiJ_rDkPIPn5G1qAk&iflsig=ANes7DEAAAAAZbB2cALWcjMW9xwSdz2YuklPG9l0w-7E&ved=0ahUKEwiB0rKl8PSDAxX6IUQIHZ9IDZUQ4dUDCA8&uact=5&oq=New+Hampshire+Democratic+primary+2024&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IiVOZXcgSGFtcHNoaXJlIERlbW9jcmF0aWMgcHJpbWFyeSAyMDI0SLFXUABY5lFwAHgAkAEAmAGqAaABph2qAQUxOS4xOLgBA8gBAPgBAcICDhAAGIAEGIoFGLEDGIMBwgILEAAYgAQYsQMYgwHCAgsQLhiABBixAxiDAcICERAuGIAEGLEDGIMBGMcBGNEDwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAgUQABiABMICDhAuGIAEGIoFGLEDGIMBwgIOEC4YgAQYsQMYxwEY0QPCAgUQLhiABMICDhAuGK8BGMcBGJIDGIAEwgILEC4YgAQYxwEY0QPCAgsQLhiABBjHARivAQ&sclient=gws-wiz|
Senator Gene McCarthy (D-Minnesota) was the initial challenger to the re-nomination of President Lyndon Johnson's re-nomination in 1968. He had an arguably "just cause"--- his opposition to the war in Vietnam. This year Mr. Phillips has had no such compelling cause for his challenge to President Joe Biden, only that 'Biden is old and he might lose'
Likewise in 1968, Johnson did not appear on the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic primary ballot---
(not sure of the reason, only that he did not file for it?? Campaigns began much later back in 1968.... it seems to me that he had never 'declared' his candidacy for re-election at that point).
Regardless, write-in votes for President Johnson in the '68 N.H. primary defeated McCarthy by a margin of roughly 49-44 percent (according to my memory since I can't find a link, but I am a student of the 1968 campaign)
Even though Johnson out-polled McCarthy without even being on the ballot, the media decided that it had been a "victory" for Gene McCarthy-- because it was so close.... and the New Hampshire results may have had an influence on President Johnson's decision to withdraw from the race a month later... as well as the decision of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy to also challenge him for re-election, on the grounds of his opposition to the Vietnam war, and his perception that President Johnson was not doing enough about the problems of the cities...
Well, this is not 1968, we are not engaged in a questionable war, President Joe Biden is not Lyndon Johnson (although his domestic accomplishments are likewise commendable), and Rep. Dean Phillips is not Gene McCarthy or Robert F. Kennedy, nor does he have any justifiable cause to challenge the re-nomination of a president whom tonight, in his concession speech, he called a very 'good man'....
And he didn't come close to Gene McCarthy's New Hampshire primary results in 1968, against a candidate who was not even on the ballot.
Frankly, he got the shit kicked out of him......! And Rightly So!
(not-withstanding poor predictions from somewhere in Brooklyn)
Phillips will not be recognized in election history as much as McCarthy from 1968....
He is more on the level of the Republican congressman who challenged President Nixon for re-nomination in 1972....
Does anyone remember what his name was?
And do the rest of you remember that any such challenge ever took place???
If that guy had many public events, I suspect that he also suffered the embarrassment of no one showing up...
In the words of Dean Phillips, perhaps the most memorable quote from this ill-considered campaign,
'sometimes you build it, and no-one shows up...)
I am awaiting Mr. Phillip's inevitable endorsement of the re-election of President Joe Biden!!!
= new reply since forum marked as read
I had forgotten that McCarthy also ran a few more times after 1968....
making himself the Democratic version of 'Harold Stassen'...
