[Graybeard58]

There hasn’t been a third party campaign that actually won any states and electoral votes since George Wallace and Curtis LeMay on the American Independent ticket in ‘68

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That was the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in (age 23). I was asked to and did serve as an observer in our little town’s polling place, I helped illiterate people vote, many black people from outlying farm areas, who voted straight democrat ticket.

In a district that usually voted overwhelmingly democrat, the vote wound up being split equally three ways. Yes, Wallace on the ballot pulled a lot of votes from Humphrey.

[mkjessup]

That [1968] was the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in (age 23). I was asked to and did serve as an observer in our little town’s polling place, I helped illiterate people vote, many black people from outlying farm areas, who voted straight democrat ticket.

In a district that usually voted overwhelmingly democrat, the vote wound up being split equally three ways. Yes, Wallace on the ballot pulled a lot of votes from Humphrey.

I remember that election vividly. In a race that tight, the little things, the imponderables become factors that can tip the election one way or the other, and I've heard it said more than once that Nixon choosing to appear on 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh In' with his famous line "Sock it ... to ME?" not only mellowed his image with the voters who saw that he could poke fun at himself, but the fact that Vice President Hubert Humphrey refused to appear on 'Laugh In' (Rowan & Martin offered him 'equal time') because Humphrey didn't think it would look 'dignified'.

Had HHH gone on the tube and laughed it up, who knows what might have happened. Humphrey was one of the few remaining pro-defense Democrats, a strong defender of the 2nd Amendment (proud member of the NRA too), his election as President would have been 'interesting'.