Roger Armbrust was national news editor of Back Stage in New York City. His poetry has appeared in New York Quarterly, Chelsea and Icarus. He has also published a book of poems called "How to Survive" and a chapbook titled "Final Grace." He recently moved back to his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. This is the third part of this interview.
Do you think that the riots at the Democratic Convention made more people vote for Nixon?
The riots probably did cause some percentage of the electorate to vote for Nixon, but, more important, their occurring in front of national television cameras almost assured the Democrats’ demise.
The Dems had found themselves in a grave position already due to the continuing national unrest. First, the Vietnam War had split generations, and Johnson’s war escalation made him the growing anti-war movement’s real enemy. Then, the president’s efforts at funding “guns and butter”—i.e. both military and social programs ranging from the Asian bloody war to the “War on Poverty”—plunged the nation further into debt. The poverty battle seemed cancelled out by the annual summer race riots occurring in major cities during LBJ’s administration. Then the Kennedy and King assassinations—the tragedies just seemed endless under Johnson’s watch.
Then Chicago’s Democratic Convention and violence in late August, which contrasted greatly to Miami’s Republican Convention earlier in the month, a gathering that in retrospect came off as seeming serene. Nixon received a first-ballot nomination, and called for leadership in all the areas where Johnson was failing: getting out of Vietnam, turning the economy around, bringing law and order back to the cities. Also, the Republicans, seeing Johnson’s growing unpopularity and Humphrey sinking in the polls, played it low-key. So with the Democratic Convention’s chaos, the Republicans had to feel they were in a great spot.
Surprisingly, Humphrey seemed to gain in the polls near general-election time by calling for a halt to bombing, and then Johnson followed by announcing a halt along with a possible peace agreement. That seemed to help Humphrey in the polls. Although, I must tell you, I was irate, feeling they must take us for dungbrains to think they could keep killing our young, then suddenly pull a peace rabbit out of the helmet at election time, and believe Americans would buy it. Some did, apparently, but not enough.
Here’s the real shaker, though. Even with all the Democrats major, major problems, Humphrey still came close to winning the popular vote. He lost by less than a percentage point, with both Nixon and Humphrey getting over 31 million votes.
But Humphrey lost badly in the electoral votes 301 to 191, with 270 needed to win.
One could argue the third party candidate, George Wallace, cost Humphrey the election, since he got just under 10 million in the popular vote. But Wallace only garnered 46 electoral votes, i.e. the remainder of the 538 total. So, you see, his 46 added to Humphrey’s 191 still couldn’t pass Nixon’s 301.
Had Wallace not run, could Humphrey have received enough of those votes to turn the tide where popular votes were close in major states like California, Ohio, and Illinois? I’d say probably not. Wallace drew largely conservative voters, and received his highest percentage, area-wise, in the rural districts. But the rural voters also made up one of the only areas where Nixon led Humphrey. The other was in high-income urban areas, where he doubled Humphrey’s vote. In middle-class urban areas, Nixon and Humphrey were neck and neck, 44-43, and Wallace probably hurt the Trickster there by pulling in 13 percent. But that obviously didn’t affect the electoral-vote outcome, which really determines the presidency…unless you find the Supreme Court deciding it, as happened with the “compassionate conservative’s” first win.
