Kerry vs. Bush: A Humphrey-Nixon Redux?

[Larkspur]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0918-05.htm

No wonder it feels so damn frustrating. It's like 1968 all over again.

The United States is bogged down in a bloody counter-insurgency war on the other side of the globe, a war that the majority of the American people believe we should have never entered. Polls consistently show it is the number one issue on the minds of American voters in the weeks leading up to a close presidential election. The majority of Democrats and independents and a growing minority of Republicans believe that the war is unwinnable and we should get out.

Despite that, both Republicans and Democrats have nominated presidential and vice-presidential candidates who have supported the war from the beginning and have pledged to continue fighting it for years to come.

Both Hubert Humphrey and John Kerry were once considered leading liberals in the Democratic Party. They took great political risks early by taking highly principled positions (Humphrey in his support for civil rights and Kerry in his opposition to the Vietnam War), only to estrange their supporters by backing an unnecessary, illegal, immoral and disastrous U.S. military intervention in the Third World.
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[David Dunham]

1. A majority of voters do NOT want the US to leave ASAP

[blackcat77]

2. No comparison at all

The party isn't split like it was then, and we were the ones in power. There are no widespread protests like there were then. And, thank goodness, we aren't coming off a series of assassinationa and riots that rocked the naton to the core.

[21winner]

3. Bad example.

Wallace ran as AIP that year. He won 5 states and 9% of the vote. Hardly a good comparison.

[displacedtexan]

4. Uh, No.

Even I found it difficult to take Humphrey seriously in '68.

They had just killed our candidate, and Hubert paled in comparison.

[fairfaxvadem]

5. If Bush announces "a secret plan to get out of Iraq", maybe.

But with all due respect to Richard Nixon (and I'm not completely insincere in saying that!) W ain't no Tricky Dick.

On the other hand, maybe we'd like to see Bush take the bait:

"I have a plan!! I just can't tell you because that would give aid and comfort to Al Queda."