Editing Eugene McCarthy (section)

=== Kennedy enters the race ===
{{More sources|section|date=February 2025}}

On March 16, [[Robert F. Kennedy]] announced that he would run; many Democrats saw Kennedy as a stronger candidate than McCarthy. On March 31, Johnson surprised the world by announcing that he would not seek reelection. After that, McCarthy won in [[Wisconsin]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://madison.com/democratic-winner-eugene-mccarthy/article_349d5b25-ad8b-5676-9415-7b96907a625e.html|title=1968 Democratic winner: Eugene McCarthy|website=madison.com|date=March 29, 2016 }}</ref> where the Kennedy campaign was still getting organized. McCarthy also won in Oregon against a well-organized Kennedy effort; it was considered his first official victory over Kennedy.<ref name=kennedymccarthy />

McCarthy styled himself as a clean politician, but criticized his opponents. Known for his wit, when asked if Michigan Governor [[George W. Romney|George Romney]]'s comment that Romney had been "brainwashed" about the [[Vietnam War]] had ended Romney's presidential hopes, McCarthy remarked, "Well... no, not really. Anyway, I think in that case a light rinse would have been sufficient."<ref name="ChesterHodgson1969">{{cite book|author1=Lewis Chester|author2=Godfrey Hodgson|author3=Bruce Page|title=An American melodrama: the presidential campaign of 1968|url=https://archive.org/details/americanmelodram00ches|url-access=registration|access-date=May 15, 2013|year=1969|publisher=Viking Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/americanmelodram00ches/page/101 101]|isbn=9780670119912}}<br/> as cited in: {{cite web|last=Campbell|first=W. Joseph|title=Recalling George Romney's "brainwashing" and Gene McCarthy's "light rinse" retort|url=http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/recalling-george-romneys-brainwashing-and-gene-mccarthys-light-rinse-retort|publisher=Media Myth Alert|date=September 4, 2012|access-date=May 16, 2013}}</ref> He mocked Kennedy and his supporters. A major gaffe occurred in Oregon, when McCarthy called Kennedy supporters "less intelligent" than his own and belittled Indiana (which had by then gone for Kennedy) for lacking a poet of the stature of [[Robert Lowell]]—a friend of McCarthy's who often traveled with him.<ref name=after>{{cite news|url=http://www.slate.com/id/2192865|title=After the Assassination: How Gene McCarthy's response to Bobby Kennedy's murder crippled the Democrats|website=Slate.com|first=David|last=Greenberg|date=June 4, 2008|access-date=January 29, 2016}}</ref> In May, Kennedy attacked McCarthy's civil rights record.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Allen |first1=Robert S. |title=McCarthy did vote against Poll Tax repeal |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LaIgAAAAIBAJ&pg=1145%2C1421679 |work=[[Lewiston Daily Sun]] |date=May 11, 1968 |page=3 |via=Google News Archive}}</ref>

Some of those who joined McCarthy's effort early on were Kennedy loyalists. Now that Kennedy was in the race, many of them jumped ship, urging McCarthy to drop out and support Kennedy.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} McCarthy resented that Kennedy had let him do the "dirty work" of challenging Johnson and entered the race only when it became apparent that Johnson was vulnerable.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} As a result, while he initially entered the campaign with few illusions of winning, McCarthy now devoted himself to beating Kennedy (and Humphrey, who entered the race after Johnson withdrew) and gaining the nomination.<ref name=kennedymccarthy />

Humphrey, long a champion of labor unions and of [[civil rights]], entered the race with the support of the party "establishment", including most members of Congress, mayors, governors and labor union leaders.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} He entered too late to compete in any primaries, but had the support of Johnson and many Democratic insiders.{{who|date=June 2014}}

Kennedy, like his brother John in 1960, planned to win the nomination through popular support in the primaries. McCarthy and Kennedy squared off in California, knowing that the result there would be decisive. They both campaigned vigorously up and down the state, with many polls showing them neck-and-neck, and a few predicting a McCarthy victory.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}

A televised debate between them began to tilt undecided voters away from McCarthy. He made two statements many found ill-considered: that he would accept a government including Communists in South Vietnam, and that only the relocation of inner-city blacks would solve the urban problem. Kennedy pounced, portraying the former idea as soft on communism and the latter as a scheme to bus tens of thousands of ghetto residents into white, conservative [[Orange County, California|Orange County]].<ref name=after/> Kennedy won the California primary on June 4, but was [[Robert F. Kennedy assassination|shot]] after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and died soon afterwards. In response, McCarthy refrained from political action for several days. One aide recalled McCarthy sneering about his fallen rival, saying that Kennedy was "demagoguing to the last". Another heard McCarthy say that Kennedy had "brought it on himself"—implying that he had provoked [[Sirhan Sirhan]], the Palestinian gunman convicted of killing him, by promising military support to the state of Israel.<ref name=after/>

Despite strong showings in several primaries—he won more votes than any other Democratic candidate—McCarthy garnered only 23% of the delegates at the [[1968 Democratic National Convention]], largely due to the control of state-party organizations over the delegate-selection process. After Kennedy's assassination, many Kennedy delegates, remembering his bitter war of words with McCarthy, chose to support [[George McGovern]] rather than McCarthy.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} Moreover, although Humphrey was not clearly an antiwar candidate, some antiwar Democrats hoped that as president he might succeed where Johnson had failed and extricate the United States from Vietnam. On June 23, 1968, [[Hubert Humphrey]] defeated McCarthy, securing significant delegates in their shared home state of Minnesota.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/50174297/|title=HHH Given 3-1 Edge In Convention Delegates|page=1 | newspaper=The Winona Daily News|date=June 24, 1968| via= newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TqIgAAAAIBAJ&pg=4212%2C7197516|title=Nixon, Humphrey Add Delegates, Widen Leads|page=1 | newspaper=The Lewiston Daily Sun|date=June 24, 1968| via= Google News Archive Search}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2011/05/two-favorite-sons-humphrey-mccarthy-battle-1968/|title=Two favorite sons: the Humphrey-McCarthy battle of 1968 | newspaper=MinnPost|first=Iric|last=Nathanson|date=May 25, 2011|access-date=March 29, 2020 }}</ref> Before election day, McCarthy confirmed that he would personally vote for Humphrey, but said that he would go no further than that, stopping short of endorsing him.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} Although McCarthy did not win the Democratic nomination, the antiwar "New Party", which ran several candidates for president that year, listed him as its nominee on the ballot in [[Arizona]], where he received 2,751 votes, and in Vermont, gaining 579 votes. He also appeared on the Oregon ballot as the New Party choice. He received 20,721 votes as a [[write-in candidate]] in California.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}

Despite McCarthy's anti-Vietnam War stance, North Vietnam's Communist government had a cynical attitude toward him, largely because the lack of money in his campaign made it highly skeptical of what he could achieve, describing McCarthy as "a second-rate politician with little experience or money" in its analysis of the presidential election published in their Army Newspaper dated August 10, 1968.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170119035742/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005976301.pdf The President's Daily Brief] August 13, 1968. Retrieved March 29, 2020.</ref>