Why didn't the US election of 1968 reflect the polarization of the society?

[buritobr]

In 1968, American society was very polarized because of the Vietnam War, anti-war movement, hippies, race, gender, drugs. One could expect an election between a very left-wing candidate and a very right-wing candidate. But it didn't happen. Humphrey, Nixon and Wallace: none of them were very left-wing or very right-wing. Humphrey was on the left of Johnson and he promised to stop the air raids, but he was still a member of the party that sent the troops to Southeast Asia. And Humphrey was not McGovern. Nixon belonged to the moderate wing of the Republican Party. Wallace supported the states rights in order to allow segregation in the south, but in economic issues, he was like a democrat.

[Orser67]

Basically the root of the issue is that in 1968, primaries still weren't very important and party leaders could largely determine the presidential candidate. Democratic Party leaders favored Humphrey over McCarthy, and so Humphey was nominated at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. As for Nixon, he simply did a great job of appealing to both wings of the Republican Party, though he did face a challenge from the right in the form of Ronald Reagan. One other thing I would note is that the hippie/anti-war/left-wing movement was never quite as broad-based as you might think given the attention it received, and lots of Democrats wanted nothing to do with the New Left.

A much longer and detailed answer is possible here (including the fact that many believe RFK could have won had he not been shot), but I'll just note that 1968 led to McGovern-Fraser reforms, which created the primary system as we know it today.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Nixon ran a pretty right wing campaign on cultural issues in 68(Probably more than any Republican did until 1988 and maybe even 2004) . Nixon also wasnt either a Rockefeller Republican nor a Conservative one and in 1968 neither wing was even that strong in the GOP so Nixon was able to grab support from the whole party as a whole and get the nomination.


Nixon also in many ways is the person who began the process of destroying the Rockefeller wing of the GOP as Nixon backed Reagan over Christopher in the 66 primaries , backed Buckley over Goodell in NY in 1970 etc. The 1976 Republican primaries didnt really even have someone from the Rockefeller wing representing them as Ford had moved to the right as well and it was for this reason, Mathias was considering a run in 1976.

[Beet]

The parties were not nearly as ideologically polarized in 1968. You had liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats.