[Common Tator]

The first radio station I owned went on the air in early June of 1972. Since it was a new station and thinly financed I wore a lot of hats that first year. I did a lot of newscasts and appreciable commentary.

That meant I read everything that came over the AP wire and listened to all the audio feeds that came over ABC radio network.

The media especially in June,July and August of 1972 were acting as if the Democratic Candidate was likely to win. Certainly if one only associated with Democrats, then the every observation would predict a Democrat victory. The media logic was simple and very flawed. It knew that after 4 years of war in Viet Nam, it was very unlikely that LBJ could even get the Democratic nomination in 1968 let alone win the office. So in 1968 LBJ dropped out. And Nixon went on to defeat HHH.

Four years later with the war continuing they expected Nixon to do as poorly as LBJ. But when Nixon had no trouble winning renomination, they assumed it was just that no Republican wanted to be the noiminee and lose.. After all the media in 1972 believed the Republicans would go down like LBJ and HHH had done in 1968.

But they did not understand the situation. Democrats became opposed to the war in 1967 and 68. But Republicansa and a large majority if independents continued to support the effort. Democrats in 68 were opposed to the war, and the centrists and REpublicans were opposed to the Democrat's position on the war. Thus no pro war Democrats could win. But with 60 percent of the population being pro-war not anti war democrat could win a general election.

I remember the media surprise in 1972 when Nixon got 60.6 percent of the vote to McGovern's 39 percent.

It was obvious McGovern got the democratic base and only a small minority of centrists.

The people who ran and controlled the media in 1972 are either dead or retired. And their replacements don't know history. The Democrats who supported and rooted for McGovern are mostly still active... but they do what they always do. The Democrats blame the messinger.. never the message. Thus is not the anti-american anti-war stance of McGovern in1972 that cost him any chance at being president ... It was the poor campaign skills of McGovern that cost Democrats the 1972 election.

Democrats are making the same mistake again. They can not believe that their anti american message can fail. They believe it was the messinger that cost them in 1972. And younger Democrats actually believe that the anti war crowd won the hearts and minds of the voting public back then.

They did not.

It is common in both parties. They do not study history and they do not learn its lessons.

[speedy]

Interesting to read your reminiscinces of that election. But I'm not sure you even need to go as far back as 1972. I thought that after the 2004 election, the Rats were claiming to have sobered up and to have realized that they had to re-connect with the average American. For a few months they were shell-shocked, then they went right back to doing the same stupid things. Liberals are always talking about their "dreams" and their "hopes" and "what could be." Because of this, they keep losing touch with reality because they keep convincing themselves that what they want to happen is what actually is happening.

It has never been a successful strategy to campaign on an anti-war platform when we actually have troops in the field of battle. It might work in Spain or France, but it doesn't work in the US.

Thanks again for the great recollection of those disturbing times in the early 70s. The media was as anti-US then as it is now.

[Mrs. Shawnlaw]

Thank you very much for the lesson!

I was in elementary school and growing up in a democrat household then. Cronkie was ALWAYS on at 5:30 so my views of that time were one-sided. Our poor vets from that time suffered so much because of his reporting techniques.

[billorites]

It does feel like 1972, doesn't it?

Even McGovern and Ramzi Clark are weighing in again.

[Brad from Tennessee]

I appreciate the historical review from your unique vantage point. I grew up in newspaper publishing and when I was a kid journalists with formal educations had degrees in History--being the most appropriate--English, Foreign Policy, Law, etc. Then "journalism schools" began to flourish, particularly after Watergate. Watergate and J-schools, in my opinion, changed journalism from a profession into a kind of activism with a salary. Of course the late Hunter S. Thompson said of American journalism in the early 1970's: it is not a profession or even a trade "but a catch-all for misfits and f*ck-ups" too lazy or too dysfunctional to practice a legitimate discipline.

[tertiary01]

And this is an era when Nixon was NOT personally very popular, and did not present an attractive image on TV.

[babydoll22]

Thank God for the internet and Free Republic.

[Coldwater Creek]

Thanks for the great history lesson. 1972 was not a good year for us, and politics were far from the mind.

[Chances Are]

That was a good, spot-on analysis, CT, and I by and large agree with it.

However, I really think the Dem's problems stem from '68. That was when the New Left captured the apparatus of that party.

The Chicago riots were only a harbinger of things to come. The Hard-Core, Radical leftist press (Remparts, LA Free Press, The Nation, et al), which most Americans weren't privy to, were going full-bore with this stuff. And a surprising number of "respectable" Democrats were coming out of the political closet.

The late Gene McCarthy, of course, was the vanguard candidate, sort of a one-man shock-troop battalion that was given no chance of success at all. (The papers really played up the New Hampshire primary, which he actually LOST - 43% and 0 delegates does not equal victory, sorry - but that, apparently, was neither here nor there.) In fact, it often seemed he was in it just to be heard. (No, I don't mean his "message" being heard - I meant HIM being heard.)

A comment by McCarthy after RFK's assassination proved revealing: in so many words, he said, "All he had to do was wait until '72, and the nomination, and the election, would have been his". What he unwittingly revealed was the degree of greed and contempt for others that seemed to punctuate Kennedy's political life and fortunes.

I remember thinking how quixotic McGovern's quest seemed when he first announced. The Progressive thought it was the greatest thing since, well, life on Earth appeared! But for the life of me I couldn't understand what his appeal would be to the general populace.

You're pretty accurate with the post-1972 stuff.

That was a real good post, CT! My hat's off to you!

CA....