whatever happened to the gene mccarthy/rfk voters?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

This is... such... a strange thread for many reasons. The main one being that most of the hippies\yippies\SDSers were voters in the first place. Perhaps alot people influenced by them were - especially for McCarthy, but they never made up even a huge proportion of the population.

Though as Tom Wolfe pointed out the whole 60s counter culture was partially driven by money in the first place. Which is why the Oil Crisis killed it, not Altamont.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

^^^ That's Vaguely right. Though McCarthy at the start of campaign got support from people who wanted to escalate the war, not end it. That's because he acted as an "opposition to LBJ" weather vain. Also there was a decent amount of blue collar support for McCarthy in the Primary as there would be for McGovern four years later - especially in areas with weaker unions.. but that dissapated hard in the general of 1972, probably due to "Acid, Amnesty and Abortion". Of course there was always an element of hardcore in the Student movement who would never support a presidential candidate for the Democrats.. these were the people at Chicago and probably make up a good deal of ageing hippies themselves.

Also I don't really see McGovern as an elitist... the people he was (unfairly) associated with though...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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Which is where he ran strongest (mostly). O\c neither state was exactly a stronghold of "hippieland" or the supposed Educated Elite.

Out of curiosity, would it be possible to get a map of the 1968 D California primary between RFK and McCarthy. I think that would be interesting.

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I agree. But it was significant enough to give him a stronger vote and showed how utterly dead the LBJ presidency was.

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RFK: Blue Collar? Not really - It was mainly Humphrey who got the blue collar support (at least in 1972.. I admit I don't know too much detail about the 68' primaries as I do about the 72' ones.). RFK was the candidate of Minorities, Catholics and the more moderate liberal intellectuals.

I do know that McGovern actually did do fairly well in Blue Collar areas in the 72' primaries; especially at the start of the campaign before Humphrey came in strong and the Democratic establishment much less determined to stop him winning.

As for McCarthy, well, who do you think voted for him in Minnesota? (Though I admit that voting for senator and voting for president are two different things..)

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Even that support was tenuous in many cases.

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They were small (though not THAT small; significant enough that they became in many ways the faces of the student movement.) but fairly important. After the Riots in Chicago Abbie Hoffman made a prediction that his group (the Yippies - he was their leader) had just elected Richard Nixon. Given how close it was in the very end seems to indicate that there was some truth in it.

After all even at its peak what is known as "the Student movement" made up what... 1% of the population. If even that. And those groups like the yippies were a fraction of that. Yet they had enomorous cultural significance (Though more in Music than in Politics o\c) . The fact that this is the 40th Anniversary of 1968 and the students, et al are still being talked about just shows this.

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I would believe that, but it wasn't just protestors Daly's crew were attacking - often passing civilians aswell.

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It gave the impression that the party was in chaos and falling rapidly apart. For some Democratic conservatives it seemed to show how the youth movement was trying to take over the party (Lol: But many believed that..) I can't claim with certainly that if not for Chicago Humphrey would have won.. but it was surely a factor and remember it was really, really close.

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Yes. Though to be honest it wasn't hard in 1972 - especially spouting anti-Vietnam views; which often were in the student movement and the hippies and etc a strong resentment of the military. They would claim that is because they were pacifists but that's not how most Americans saw it.