1968

Party Democratic Republican American Independent

Candidate Hubert H. Humphrey Richard M. Nixon George C. Wallace

Electoral Count 191 301 46

Popular Vote 42.7% 43.4% 13.5%

Key Terms: 1968 Election "Clean for Gene"/LBJ quits The New Nixon and TV "Spiro Who" Law and Order Silent Majority new Dixecrats Police Riot in Chicago Curtis LeMay Viet Nam/bombing halt Secret Plan/Vietnam

Key Terms: Nixon Administration Alger Hiss/HUAC Checkers Speech kitchen Debate TV Debate/'60 New Nixon/'68 Buger Court Secret Plan/Vietnam Vietnamization Cambodia/Secret War "Peace With Honor" War Powers Act China Card/détente/SALT I wage and price freeze [Keyensian?] Pentagon Papers/CREEP Watergate/Creditability Gap

By 1968 all the TV networks had large research staffs busily at work ascertaining the loyalties of delegates to the national conventions so they could forecast presidential nominations. At the Republican convention a Reagan backer tried to switch a Nixon backer to Ronald Reagan. "But I can't switch," cried the delegate. "I'm already pledged." "To whom?" "I told CBS that I'm voting for Nixon. I'm pledged to CBS." After LBJ announced a bombing halt on October 31, one reporter wrote: "President Johnson gave Richard M. Nixon a trick and Vice-President Humphrey a treat for Halloween." Nixon's relations with the press tended to be strained, . . . Right after his victory, his aide John Ehrilichman gathered about twenty campaign workers together to congratulate them on their good public relations. Cried one of them, "Why don't we all get a member of the press and beat him up?" Presidential Campaigns, Paul F. Boller, Jr., Oxford University Press, New York, 1984.