I agree with you on the time frame, but I think the main reason for the "launch" was they realized they were becoming old and increasingly irrelevant, and if they didn't make one more push for their '60s ideals, time would pass them by.
Time has, of course. They are irrelevant. It's only the media that worships the '60s as the height of cool that gives these strident, increasingly crazy people a voice.
Your reference to the 1960s overlooks the fact that the Obama voter in 2008, tended to be much younger than the McCain voter; that most of those who are under 40 today, have been brainwashed with Jacobin/Marxist/Collectivist/Egalitarian types of ideas, where those who succeed are demonized & those who fail treated as victims.
This can yet be turned around, but not by failing to understand the pattern of indoctrination. (The reality, of course, is that Collectivist/Egalitarianism Sabotages Human Potential.)
William Flax