Talk Elections

I have heard a lot of references to Nixon's 1972 landslide victory over George McGovern.  It was one of the most lop-sided in history. McGovern's campaign is most famous for favoring a quick end to the VietNam War.  However, there must be other factors that resulted in a 49-state electoral college blow-out.  Why did Nixon, only modestly popular, win so easily?  And why was Massachusetts favoring McGovern by a comfortable margin at the same time?

There were clearly multiple reasons:
1) McGovern was too radical/liberal for the times
2) He made a huge mistake by selecting Tom Eagleton as his VP, then discovered he had gone through electroshock, said he'd stand behind him 1000%, then dumped him a few days later.
3) proposed massive social spending programs that would have required tax increases.

I was a student in Boston then and spent election day getting voters to the polls in Maine, I remember the shock of the election being called for Nixon almost immediately after the polls closed in the east.

Now why did MA go for McGovern?  The Liberal Kenedy legacy, in those days when canvassing door to door it was incredably common to go into any blue collar home and see two pictures side by side: Jesus and JFK.  Moreover the 200,000 studnts in Boston plus the 80 colleges bring an additonal liberal edge to the state.  MA remains highly democratic it had the third highest Gore margin in 2000 (after DC and RI)

All valid points, and another reason why Nixon's margin was so large was because of Watergate. Having copies of your opponent's campaign plan certainly doesn't hurt.
McGovern was not as extreme as he was made out to be. The man had been a war hero during World War II and been elected to the Senate from a conservative state (South Dakota). A large part of why he was able to be made to look like a fool was because of the fact that Nixon knew his every move in advance.

Well I suppose "little things" like that do help...

It always mystified me that Massachusetts, the only state to vote for McGovern in 1972, voted twice for Ronald Reagan.

Granted, it was generally the weakest state that he carried, receiving just under 41% of the vote in the 3-way 1980 race, and 51% of the vote in 1984.

But it still makes me wonder.  Is it because the Massachusetts liberalism was centered on anti-war views, and that once that issue was removed there was less incentive to vote Democratic?  Any ideas?

Well John Anderson helped Reagan to win the state in 1980, and it still very narrowly went for Reagan that year by less than 0.2%. And in 1984, it was the 2nd-most Democratic state in the nation behind Mondale's home state of Minnesota. But yes, Massachusetts did swing a little more Republican in the 80's than it had been before, and than it has been since. Even Massachusetts native Dukakis only carried it by 8 percent in 1988, but it really started to become much more Democratic under Clinton. In 1984, Massachusetts was only about 15 percentage points more Democratic than the national average, rather than almost 30 points more Democratic like it is now.
But yes, 1980 especially was somewhat of an aberration in Massachusetts, as it was only the 7th most Democratic state in the nation that year, after usually being one of the 2 most Democratic along with Rhode Island for most of the last 40 years. The Massachusetts economy may have been especially hard hit by the recession that year, and Carter seems to not have been nearly as popular (relatively speaking) in Massachusetts and other Northeastern states as other Democratic nominees have been in the last 40 years, while on the other hand performing better in the South in both of his runs than any other Democrat in the last 40 years has.
Carter was an abberation in many respects, as the voting patterns during both of his runs represented somewhat of a return to the old pre-Civil Rights Act voting patterns, at least geographically speaking.
And yes, it is somewhat odd that McGovern won Massachusetts by 8 points, but lost Rhode Island, when both states have otherwise voted very similarly to each other throughout the years, except in 1980, when Carter was much stronger in Rhode Island than in Massachusetts. My theory is that Massachusetts voters are more liberal than those in Rhode Island, especially culturally, and thus were more likely to support McGovern, but Rhode Island has more "traditional" Democrats (the state is heavily Catholic, with Catholics that seem more devout than those in Massachusetts) who were more attracted to Carter. Rhode Island is just as Democratic if not slightly moreso than Massachusetts, but seems less liberal.

Well I'll admit I dont know enough about New England to give an informed opinion, but your theory sounds plausible.
Its a similar situation right now in the South. A majority of most states probably self-identifies with republicans but the degree of commitment depends on the extent of their conservatism. Those not so solidly conservative are more likely to defect to the Demorats in a landslide year for them (just as Massachusetts democrats did for Reagan in the 80's)

Nice analysis NYM.  I've heard a theory that states who have a candidate rejected in the primaries are not enthusiastic for the primary winner.  In '80 Ted Kennedy challenged Carter in the primaries and did a lot of harm to his support in MA.  I think you can see the same phenomenon in AZ in '00, where McCain challenged Bush, or in KS in '88 where Dole challenged Bush, or CA for Ford in '76, when Reagan lost the nomination.  There's ceratinly exception to this-Bill Bradley lost to Gore in '00 but NJ went solidly for Gore-but the theory may explain less than expected vote margins in many cases.

All too true. This is a factor many of us have neglected. I completely forgot about Kennedy's run in 1980. I was just compiling my 2004 prediction map and while I refused to put Arizona on the tossup list, I was at a loss to explain the anemic GOP % there. Then of course I remembered McCain :D
Since GWB and him get on well know and 2000 is a long way back I see no probs for GOP in Arizona in 2004.

I agree that Arizona will probably end up Republican in 2004, but it's not a sure thing.  Most of those states are still toss-ups.

Here's another odd election:
1968 Nixon/Humphrey/Wallace
A lot of people (who should know better) where I live say that Humphrey lost by than than 1%. They also state that if the campaign had lasted 5 more days Humphrey would have won.   These comments cause two question in my mind:
1. Why do so many people ignore the electoral vote when referring to elections? In '68 is was as follows:Nixon 301, Humphrey 191, Wallace 46.
2.Does it make any sense at all to say "If the campaign had last longer HHH would have won"?
Was Johnson trying to end the VietNam war?

Wallace certainly cost Humphrey the election and North Vietnam was on the verge of collapse by 1968(a little known fact).

If the right combination of states had shifted from Nixon over to Humphrey (possibly Alaska, Missouri, New Jersey, Illinois, or some combination) Humphrey would have won.  I have not done a detailed analysis, but it probably would have taken 200,000 votes, or maybe a little more, for this to happen.

The presence of Wallace also raised the possibility that nobody would get a majority in the electoral college, in which case the election would have gone to the House of Representatives.  The House would probably have elected Humphrey, since Democrats were in the majority.

LBJ tried to throw the election to Humphrey by announcing a bombing halt of North Vietnam several days before the election, and implying that he was on the verge of a real breakthrough for peace.  Of course, this was not the case, but the idea was to time it so as to raise hopes with the voters just as they were going to the polls, and also so that they would have already voted before they figure out it was bogus.  It almost worked.

If North Vietnam had really been ready to collapse in 1968, Johnson blew it with the bombing halt, taking pressure off them while they were at their weakest.  Ironically, a similar thing happened with Nixon in 1972, when he eased bombing of North Vietnam before the election as a result of "progress" in the peace talks.

I think actually that Humphrey would have won if the election had been held a couple of days earlier.  By election day, it was becoming clearer that Johnson's move was a cynical ploy, and the South Vietnamese government had already declined to support the position that Johnson was taking, thereby undermining his credibility.  Nixon supposedly had a hand in this, as he had known for some time in advance that Johnson would try such a move.

What I would find interesting about that election is an analysis of those counties in the south that had voted for LBJ in 1964 and Wallace in 1968.  How widespread was this shift, and what caused it?

In 1964 the Deep South went very strongly for Goldwater and in 1968 went very strongly for Wallace.

The biggest shift in the Deep South was from Republican to Wallace.

However this was reversed in the Upper South where there was a big shift from Democrat to Wallace(Tennessee is the best example).

The shift in the upper south was what I was thinking about.

States such as Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina, that had voted pretty strongly for LBJ in 1964 shifted over to Nixon in 1968.

It appears that in these states, certain voters who had supported LBJ and the Democrats in 1968 switched to Wallace in 1968, allowing Nixon to narrowly carry these states in a 3-way race.

I would find a switch from LBJ to Nixon easier to understand in light of the failures and problems of the Johnson administration in the 1964-68 period, but a shift to Wallace from Johnson seems like a more radical change in attitude.  After all, we're not talking about people who voted for Goldwater in 1964 voting for Wallace in 1968.

Maybe it was a backlash against the urban riots of the mid and late 1960s, or the already apparent abuses and failures of the Great Society programs.

It has to be remembered that Wallace was a populist and was able to get people with very different attitudes to vote for him(especially in 1982 after he admitted he had been "wrong about race" when both the Bubbas and the Blacks voted for him), and he was able to tap into a lot of anger in some areas.

It's also false to say that people that voted for Wallace voted GOP afterwards, in the Upper South where Wallace polled best is where the Dems poll best nowadays.

1968 was the year that created a Conservative, Republican dynasty in the White House that has lasted to this day.  The Vietnam War, race riots, LBJ bowing out, and the RFK assassination had put the Democrats on the defensive.   And the Chicago riots outside the Democratic convention made Humphrey's chances very slim.  

Antagonism over the war was one of the reasons that put Nixon in the White House.  But another reason why he won was because the Republicans adopted the "SOUTHERN STRATEGY" which was meant to attract white Southern voters who were angered by the 1964 Civil Rights act.  

Despite Wallace's presence in the 1968 election (he got 5 deep South states), Future elections (except in 1976 Carter got the entire South, sans Virginia) proved that the Republican Party's strategy worked.  The 2000 election gave them the entire South (I am still very skeptical about Florida).    

LBJ knew this would happen after he did the right thing by signing the 1964 Civil Rights acts.  After signing the bill, Johnson leaned over to an aide and reportedly said: "I've just handed the South to the Republicans for a generation."  

Well, Dave has done the math...http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/GENERAL/pe1968whatif.html

Although it's worth noting that his "No Electoral Majority" What-If isn't the "best" possible one. At least in my opinion, no disrespect intended on your hard work Dave ;-). It relies on a faithless Nixon elector in North Carolina still casting his ballot for Wallace even though in this case it costs Nixon the election (which this elector probably would not have done), and besides, only Missouri and Ohio are required for Humphrey to win rather than Missouri, New Jersey, and Alaska (which requires a greater percentage shift to Humphrey in Alaska than would be required in Ohio).

Speaking of the Chicago riots in 1968, what are the chances for a more peaceful, but still sizeable, demonstration outside the Republican convention in New York, September of next year? New York has probably more Democrats around it than any other city, but Rove chose the city because he thinks he can exploit the 9/11 attack to favor his candidate.

The Difference is in WHO will do the rioting......in 1968 it showcased the schisms in the DEMOCRATIC base. In 2004 it will be nutcase far left activists making fools of themselves :D (and showing exactly what Bush is up against)

U think Karl Rove hasnt factored the demonstrations into his calculations??? ?? :D

Personally, I think the Republicans using New York as their convention city in order to exploit the 9-11 issue is going to backfire on them.  But the only thing we can do is wait and see.  

Meanwhile I'll be watching the Democratic convention in Boston.

 

Maybe Dems use of the revolution-history rich Boston is based on an alterior motive (trying to look mega-patriotic to average voter, who may see Dem presidential candidate rhetoric a little over the top)

I personally like the fact that Reps are heading straight into the lions den for the convention.  It might serve the Dems better if, rather than going to the safe haven of Boston, they went to a midwestern or southern city and tried to show average voter it's still safe to vote Dem, rather than having a love-in in Boston.

Great points by Ryan.

I think Boston was picked becasue of Kennedy's intense lobbying.  I had heard the Clintons wanted NYC and behind the scenes it got ugly.  One of the 2 parties should pick the Midwest or West for once-Minneapolis, St Louis, even Denver would be a nice change.

How about East St Louis?

Hey, I'm a local, and trust me, you don't want to go to East St. Louis unless absolutely necessary!  Around here, "the East Side" is known for high crime, violence, poverty...you name it.  The Dems do not want to use that locale for exactly that reason.

I'm well aware about East St Louis... problems. That's why I said it.

So it is true: you Americans don't have a sence of irony ;D

Why I took it as an honest and reasonable suggestion. I was just gonna forward it to the DNC.
And every day after the convention (so after dusk) the democratic senators and representatives should take a stroll through the streets to reconnect with the base. Now that would be good Democracy ;D

...And the RNC could go to that sh**t hole in Kansas where people are arrested for NOT having a gun...

I read that too, about the town where you get fined $10 if you don't have a gun....BIZARRE...I was thinking rather than an E St. Louis convention, how about an outdoor convention in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq.

The Dem convention in MA , has already backfired.  It seemed at the time they picked AM as Kerry was going to be the party's guy and now he has fallen flat.  PLus this new Gay marriage ruling from MA will be talked about while the Dems are in Boston and lastly all the reminders of NE Liberals and MA and Dukakis will come to bear.

I thought at the time the Dems should have picked a city in a more competitive state.  MA is almosta  Dem lock, heck they even voted for McGovern!

For me a bizzare election would be 1916.  Charles Hughes came withing about 2000 votes of winning California and the entire election.  Hughes swept most of the Northeast and Midwest and when he went to bed on election night he was assured that count in California had him ahead and he could win in several other Western states.  In other words, he went to bed thinking he beat Wilson and was the next President of the USA.  He woke up to discover that he only carried Oregon in the West and lost the election to Wilson by just 23 EV.  Other than 1876 and 2000 this was the closest race in USA history.

Also, invert the results in 1916 for Ohio, Maryland, West Virgina, Washington, California, South Dakata, and Indiana.  It would be an exactly mirror image of 2000 with the Democrats and Republicans inverted.   New Hampshire was also very close in 1916 just like 2000.  Wilson won by 50 some votes.  

 

Don't forget 1960 for closest elections.  Isn't it like one vote per precint would have given it to Nixon?

  Plus a few more live people in Chicago, St Louis and texas, but another story.  :)

I vaguley remember hearing that a freak storm in the  Republican area of nothern CA kept the vote totals down.  I wonder what would happen if an earthquake disrupted an election?  There's no provision to re-schedule a general election!

What would happen, a lot of Cali liberals would be crying unfair! God is even against us! LOL

Carter was pretty bad. Also, it was a period when republicans dominated presidential elections, Carter won narrowly in the aftermatn of Watergate. And Reagan was a great politician, no matter what you think of his political views, he was able to get the voters on his side.

Carter was absolutely dreadful, although not all the problems he faced were of his making.

During Carter's presidency, the country endured double digit inflation, acute shortages of gasoline, the taking of American hostages in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Carter projected weakness and uncertainty in dealing with these problems.  Certainly, he inherited stagflation from his predecessors, a condition with roots going all the way back to the Johnson administration, and clearly contributed to by Nixon's manipulative economic policies and the power of OPEC to severely increase the price of oil.  So the economic problems of Carter's term were not all his fault, although it could be said that he didn't deal with them all that well.

On foreign policy, he began his term by saying, at the height of the Cold War, and at the US' weakest point in the Cold War, that we should get over our inordinate fear of communism.  Soviet adventurism accelerated during his term in office, raising great alarm about the security of the US, culminating in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Carter was generally tougher on our friends than enemies when it came to his vauted human rights policy, something that may have contributed to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran.  This event had catastrophic political consequences for Carter, with the taking of the hostage by the militant Islamic government that replaced the Shah.  Carter effectively ceded all initiative in the hostage crisis to the Iranians, making himself a virtual hostage in the White House until they were released, which they were just as he left office.

For somebody who was not around at that time, it's hard to explain the mood of gloom and anxiety that pervaded the country under Carter.  People voted for Reagan because he gave them some hope, any hope, for something better.  And that's usually what elections are about -- who gives people a more optimistic view of the future.  And Carter lost that, hands down.

There is a pretty good novel by Frederick Forsythe, The Devil's Alternative, in which the world is almost brought to nuclear war, b/c Soviet extremists are confident that Carter is too weak to strike back.

The strategy of bankrupting the Soviet Union was actually Reagan's.  His successful plan was to force them to respond to the US weapon's buildup, and therefore destroy their economy.

Carter did unwittingly contribute to the unraveling of the Soviet Union through his human rights policy.  He helped to spread the seed of separatism through the Muslim republics, and created fear about their own internal stability among the paranoid Soviet leadership.  Since these were conquered people who had not joined the union voluntarily at any point, they had good reason to fear.

The Helsinki Accords, which many conservatives including Ronald Reagan derided, also played a role in the unraveling of the Soviet empire.  The official placement of human rights in a document that the Soviets signed, whatever their cynical intentions were about honoring their agreement, led to a sprouting of independence movements in the captive nations, such as Solidarity in Poland.

President Ford, not Carter, signed the Helsinki Accords, but Carter made use of the Helsinki Accords to pressure the Soviets about human rights.

So I think that Carter needs to be given some credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union.  He also helped stabilize the middle east to a degree by negotiating the peace treaty between Eqypt and Israel.  He had solid accomplishments, but I think that a lot of instincts for dealing with the nation's problems were not the correct ones.  Nothing is all black or all white.

Hear, hear. Just out of curiosity, can anyone be said to have joined the Soviet Union voluntarily??

Huh?

I don't think so.  The Baltic states were occupied militarily, as were the caucasus states and the muslim republics.  I think it was basically Russia forcibly conquering those other "republics."

Speaking of unusual elections, what is everybody's take on the 1948 election?

Not only was Truman not particularly popular going into the election, but his base was split not once but twice.  First, Henry Wallace, the former Roosevelt VP who would have been president had he not been forced off the 1944 ticket, ran against Truman as a progressive, on a platform urging accomdation with the Soviet Union rather than Truman's containment and cold war policies.

Then, the Dixiecrats broke with Truman over his support for civil rights for blacks.  At that time, it was considered impossible for a Democrat to win the presidency without the "solid south," a similar position to what the Republicans are in today.

And yet Truman won anyway.  I guess it helped that Wallace won no electoral votes, but he probably cost Truman New York state anyway.  And Strom Thurmond won several southern states as the Dixiecrat candidate.

This election did have the effect of actually hastening civil rights reforms, because once the Democrats saw that they could actually win without the whole south, they became more courageous about advocating equal rights for blacks.

I have always been a fan of Truman because he had the 'nads to revolutionize US foreign policy and he set up a national security structure that exists to this day.  He showed tremendous courage in urging permanent world involvement to a nation used to minding its own business unless attacked, and took the first step to save the world from Soviet tyranny.  I also admired his desire to move the country in the direction of fair treatment of blacks.

Does anybody have any thoughts on how Truman pulled off this victory against such great odds?

No, but I agree that Truman was a great president.

Btw, I know one of Henry Wallace's descendants who is living in Sweden. From what I have heard he has something against Truman! :)

Two comments on 1948
1) When Truman proposed Civil Rights it was an incredibly anti-political move, a Gallop Poll after his announcement of support for a comprehensive Civil Rights Legislation was opposed by 91% of the American Public, that included nearly 50% of the minority population!
2)  Truman won by running a campaign of exaggeration verging on demagoguery.  He painted Dewey as anti-working man, anti-farmer, anti-elderly, anti-New deal, and pro-rich fat cats,  when in fact Dewey was a liberal Republican.  Dewey refused to partake of this "class warfare" preferring to promise to improve the economy to benefit everyone.  Truman's fiery attacks (shall we say Dean-like?) hit a responsive nerve leading to his victory.  Though he won by  2 million votes, a shift of 12,000 votes in CA and OH would have thrown the election into the House.

See Truman -- by David McCullough

A while back, I read an analysis that stated that Truman's support of civil rights actually benefited him politically despite his loss of several states in the south to Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats.  I wish I could remember where I saw it and dig it up again.

I agree that there was a lot of demagoguery in what Truman said.  I also think that he was basically an economic illiterate.  His main economic proposals seem to have been wage and price control, high tax rates on higher income earners, rent control, government subsidized housing, .... you get the picture.

Luckily, Congress didn't pass most of his economic proposals, so the country prospered economically despite his left-leaning direction in economic affairs.

What really stands out about his presidency is his leadership in foreign affairs.  He went far beyond where Roosevelt had contemplated in confronting the Soviet Union and keeping the US engaged in world affairs after the war.

Yes, this was Truman's strong point, but I think his handling of the Korean War (police action) undermined his support.  His approval rating dropped to about 30% by 1952.  I think the country was tired of Democrat Presidents by then too.

Yes, Korea was the forerunner to Vietnam, and although it wasn't as long as Vietnam (3 years of combat vs. 8 years in Vietnam), the casualties were comparable.

It was frustrating for the American people because it was a "limited" war, when Americans are more suited to all-out war like World War II.

The foreshadowed the period of getting involved in wars in which we fought only to avoid defeat, not to attain victory.  Americans don't do too well with that concept.

Truman was right in concept in Korea, but a good deal of it may have been mishandled in my opinion.  However, the importance of details fades with time, and the big picture is what counts.

So, MA because Nixon was the state's icon's opponent in 1960? That's an interesting theory.

I seem to remember that some ambassador gave the Koreans the wrong signal, so they thought they could invade without getting the western powers against them.

Yes, it was Sec. of State Dean Acheson, who gave a speech in January 1950 in which he omitted Korea from the areas he mentioned as vital to American security.  Some have said that this gave the North Koreans, with Russian support, the green light to invade South Korea without fearing American intervention.  It turned out to be a miscalculation on their part, but maybe it could have been prevented if the US had made it clear that it would defend Korea.  But maybe not.

Yes, that was it, thank you. I think the North Koreans were less crazed back then, so the war might well have been avoided.

Maybe, maybe not.  It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but we'll never know how much they wre affected by Acheson's omission.

I read an interesting passage once that said that while South Vietnam was collapsing in 1974-75, the North Koreans wanted to take advantage of the situation and invade South Korea, but that the Chinese told them to wait (apparently forever).  Of course, by this time the Chinese had begun their relationship with the United States, and considered the Soviet Union their greatest threat, and didn't want to deal a big setback to the United States.

That's an interesting "what-if". I think it might have been beneficial to the US, you could have fought a "good" war, and helped restore faith after Vietnam much quicker. AND THEN, what would have happened?

I'm not sure it would have been seen that way in the US.  I don't think the US was in the mood at that time to engage in another war to protect other people from communism so soon after Vietnam.  Also remember that the Korean War became increasingly unpopular as it dragged on, and it was a huge relief when it ended - in a draw - in 1953.  So I really don't think the US could have produced a great victory over Communism under those circumstances.

We did a slight boost at the time from the Mayaguez incident in May 1975.  Cambodian communists stormed an American ship and took the crew hostage, and the US responded with military force to free the ship.  This was strongly popular with the American people at the time, but then it was only a 3-day operation.  I think it did show the world the the US would not be totally passive, even in the wake of the Vietnam debacle.

Korea could have been different from Vietnam, but I agree that it could have made everything go to hell, basically, with the domino effect kicking in. Then America and the world could have turned out considerably different, for the worse I think.

I hope the lessons from Korea and Vietnam are these:  you can't fight a war not to win and expect to do so.

There is another lesson as well: a foreign power cannot try and fight a civil war in another country.  

I don't agree.  We could have easily won both wars if the politicians would have let the generals wint he wars.  Truman held McArther back and LBJ was too worried with how the press would play it instead of winnign the war and getting it over with.

Korea yes. Vietnam no. You would have had to kill everyone, millions of civilians to win. It would never have worked. You were essentially a foreign power invading another nation, and the people would have fought you relentlessly. I agree that wasn't very fair, but it's the way it turned out. You could have nuked them, or something similar, but what kind of a win would that have been? Look at the Russian civil war, Chechnya, Kurdistan, there are many examples.  

We could have won Vietnam.  Ok this will sound cold but true in war.

LBJ was afraid to bomb strategic targets , where civilian casualties could have been greater.  However when Nixon allowed it they North woke up! they said hey maybe we at least better negotiate instead of sitting in Paris and talking about how long the table is.  

By allowing their supply lines to continue they were allowed to kill many other Americans.  You have to destroy the enemies will to resist in all manners possible.

That would have been hard to do, cosidering the fact that you were getting such heavy criticism anyway. There was no logical reason for the war, it would have been hard to explain the extinction so many innocent lives. But look at Afghanistan. The Soviets didn't have to care as much about civilian casualties. They still lost. You have to have Stalin-like ruthlessness to win such a war. You may think that the US had that during the Cold War, but I would like to think that you didn't. And if you had walked down that road, America would not be what it is today. It is extremely hard to totally defeat a regime that is not unpopular at home. And that's what you were trying to do.

Vietnam is not the same thing as Afghanistan.  You may have fallen for the propaganda that the US was looking to impose a government in South Vietnam that nobody wanted.

But there were many people who feared living under the communists, and wanted to fight them.  The whole thing never came together, and it turned out to be a mistake, but it is not equivalent to the Soviet Union seeking to impose a repressive government of its liking on Afghanistan.

Well, no, not an axact paralell, but the government in South Vietnam was not very popular, and rightly so. I don't think you were imposing a government the way the Soviets did, that's different, but you were supporting it. I am sure that  there were people willing to fight communism, but the side that's supported by a foreign power always lose legitimacy. Look at the whites in the Russian Civil War. I maintain that in the context of a conventional war where you did not sink to completely inhuman levels, Vietnam was unwinnable.

The mistake was in getting so deeply involved.  The North Vietnamese were supported by foreign powers (Soviet Union and China) but they did all their own fighting.  The question should have been, if the North Vietnamese can do their own fighting, with support from their friends, why can't the South Vietnamese do the same?

Part of the problem was the liberal 1960s mentality of creating dependency.  We effectively did the same thing to the South Vietnamese that we did at home to the poor, telling them that the answer to their problems was to accept help from the US government.  It failed in both cases.

Another problem for the South Vietnamese government was that its top echelon was comprise of people who had been loyal to the French, so it allowed the communists to pose as the only true Vietnamese nationalists.

I think a better course of action would have been to offer the South Vietnamese full assistance short of troops, and if they weren't able to hack it against the North Vietnamese alone, then it just wasn't meant to be, and the war would have been lost anyway, as it was.

Exactly. That is precisely what I have been trying to say.


Again, very right. I think the war would still have been lost, but with lesser cost to the US.

Brw, am I the only one to be reminded of "A Fish Called Wanda"? ("IT WAS A TIE!!") :)

Despite all that I said, I still think it was a terrible human tragedy that the North Vietnamese communists ending up taking over the whole country.

That's why I can never agree with the self-righteous anti-war people who said the war was morally wrong.  A mistake, yes, but it can never be wrong to fight evil -- the question is in how you go about it.  Many of the anti-war people were on the other side, and not only in Vietnam, and I find that unforgivable -- to live in a free society, reap all the benefits of a free society, and effectively support a totalitarian system for others.

That is true in general, but I'm not that sure about Vietnam. The South was pretty bad too, but I agree it would probably have been better with a non-communist government. In many other instances, I completely agreee. Like the people who protested against the placing of missiles in Western Europe in the 80s. I despise many of these people for their hypocrisy and naivety.

I was just in Vietnam for a week in December, my second trip.  Whenever I visit that country the first thing that pops into my head is 'the wrong people won'.  The occupation of the South by the North has been just that - an imposed rule by outsiders.  Its a lot like the situation in the US immediately after the civil war.  And there's really no comparison between the old Southern dictatorships and the Communists - socialism is always more disruptive and misery-causing than any rightist dictator could be.

As to whether we could have won the war - of course we could have!  In fact the problem was we hardly fought it, as some have said here.  If the politicians hadn't limited the military, we could have thoroughly destroyed the North.  Equally important would have been raising the stakes with the Russians and Chinese.  I think if we had really scared them into thinking we'd broaden the conflict they would've withdrawn support.

Well, if you had destroyed the country, then you might have won. But I shudder at thinking at what kind of a blood bath that would have been. Within the context of civilized behaviour you couldn't have won it.

I don't know about Communists being worse than fascists. What about Hitler? Also, you have to remember that most dictators are pretty much alike, few are ideologcally Communist.

You really can't compare the South Vietnamese government to a fascist dictatorship.  This is a government that had to endure continuous infiltration and invasion by a hostile power, disloyalty by some portion of its own population, and despite that ran a society that was relatively free and threatened no other country.

There were no boat people fleeing from South Vietnam while the US-backed government was in power, despite the terrible war.  There were no large-scale "re-education" (read:concentration) camps sponsored by the South Vietnamese government, and that government did not kill people by the scores of thousands, as the communists did.  So there is no moral equivalency between the US-backed regime, whatever its imperfections, and the vile communist regime in the north.

The mistake we made was limiting the war to the south.  You must take the war to the enemy; that is a major dictate of war.  Had we brought the war to the north, through invasion and heavy bombing, they may have called off their aggression.  As it was, when Nixon resumed bombing of the north in 1972 in reaction to their massive conventional invasion of the south, it got them to the peace table, although by that time, there was little left to negotiate, as the US had removed nearly all its forces from South Vietnam, and had conceded on its demand that North Vietnam withdraw its forces from South Vietnam.  So it really down to a deal that we would stop the bombing if they returned the POWs and agreed to a "ceasefire" that they had no intention of carrying out, while leaving 300,000 troops in South Vietnam to continue their aggression at the most opportune time.

As I said, I think it would have been better had we never gotten so involved in Vietnam, and had made the south do their own fighting or perish earlier.  But that is hindsight.   I can't accept the idea that there is a moral equivalency between an incompetent and mildly repressive government, operating under unimaginable difficulties, and a brutal totalitarian communist dicatatorship that was willing to murder hundreds of thousands of its own people.

I don't have enough expertise on Vietnam to be sure about these things, but I do seem to recall that the South Vietnam government was rather fascist, at least as the later stages approached, with all these generals. The original government was more of a corrupt feudal aristocracy. No matter what, they were unpopular though, and would have had a hard time winning the war.

Mass. is largly Catholic, economicly liberal, not very pro-war, but not all that socially liberal.  Regan gathered some Catholic anti-abortion votes, and Carter had done poorly.

Carter was a very Southern candidate in '80, he did very poorly in almost all the Northern states, whereas with a 2% shift he would have won the vast majority of Southern states. Also there was the Anderson factor cutting into Carter in NE and the Northwest.

Here's a map where the Red states are states where Reagan's margin was below average and the Blue are where it was above average.

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It was a combination of many factors. First, Truman ran a great campaign. Clark Clifford planned it out and Truman carried it out brilliantly.
Second, Dewey ran a lousy campaign. He decided he had the election sewed up and played it safe, a terrible mistake.
Third, the Republicans did not even realize what was happening. They were so convinced that they had it won, they stopped polling sometime in September, another incredibly stupid move. Thus they missed the late surge to Truman and did nothing to combat it.
Fourth, the Republican Congress which had been elected in 1946 played into Truman's hands. During his acceptance speech, Truman announced that he was calling them back into a special session so they could enact all the legislation they'd been talking about. They did nothing, and Truman went out on the stump and called them the "Do-Nothing Congress." Another master stroke on Truman's part.
Fifth, Wallace and Thurmond both got far fewer votes than projected, as a lot of voters who originally planned to vote for them came home to Truman.
Sixth, FDR won another one from beyond the grave. Truman campaigned on the pledge to continue New Deal policies, and the loyalty of the old New Deal coalition pulled him through.

Truman always said, in discussing his 1948 victory, that "labor did it."  That is, in part, true.  Many factors added up to his victory.

In addition to the ones mentioned above, the significance of the African-American vote to his victory cannot be underestimated.  Many African-Americans migrated north and west during WWII in search of wartime jobs.  Their votes in critical states such as California, Illinois, and Ohio helped provide the slim Truman margins.

McGovern was the first victim of the "Too liberal bias" in America. Today, McGovern can be regarded as a moderate liberal, but in the 70's, he was thought of as a radical. He also ran a really bad campaign. It started with the Eagleton fiasco and went from there.

Also McGovern's eventual running mate was a Kennedy in-law.

McGovern was sunk by the Eagleton fiasco when essentially his image as an anti-politican politican basically self-destructed, so the type of disenfranchised people he really needed to reach out to in order to win given his fairly radical by American Standards campaign, did not turned out to vote at all. At least that's the impression the Doctor of Gonzo gave me in his book on the election. He also seemed to suggest that Nixon was pushing Agnew forward more in a Machiavellian scheme to appeal to those democrats who thought McGovern was "too liberal". (The scheme was, if he was re-elected, Nixon suggested that he would try to make Agnew Republican candidate in 1976 - a sure fire Democratic victory then). All these factors plus by 1972 the rise of the Anti-radicals sank McGovern.

This certainly isn't true. Massachusetts was not exactly the bastion of social liberalism at the time; that title went to Minnesota in the 1980s. Still, Reagan won Massachusetts on economic policies, not social ones, and on party loyalty and the North-South divide. 1980 was the last election in which the Democrats represented the South and the Republicans the North (or at least the Union), and Reagan was just moderate enough on economics to convince both sides of the Massachusetts economic spectrum to vote for him. (Catholic distrust of southerners helped.)

McGovern did well in Massachusetts at least partially because of his name.

Finally, as Gustaf points out, Massachusetts still voted more for Carter than the average state in 1980.