President Joe Biden is skipping the New Hampshire presidential primary following the Democratic National Committee’s decision to place South Carolina first on their nominating calendar. As a result, Biden’s supporters are launching a write-in campaign encouraging Granite Staters to still choose him as their nominee.
In 1968, Democrats also ran a write-in campaign for then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley spoke with former state lawmaker Jim Splaine about the 1968 write-in campaign that he worked on as a young Democrat, and the parallels he sees between Johnson and Biden as incumbent presidents.
Transcript
So, it's 1968. Paint us a picture here. What was this write-in effort like?
You know, a lot of Democrats were very upset with what was happening nationally. I was among those. I was a student at the University of New Hampshire at the time. Many people my age were seeing body bags coming back from Vietnam. A lot of people were upset with what was happening in Vietnam. And United States Senator Eugene McCarthy decided to come to New Hampshire and challenge whomever may be running.
And at that point, President [Lyndon B.] Johnson did not say that he was going to run, but it was obvious that he was going to want another term. At least that was the prevailing attitude. So we ended up having quite a contest in New Hampshire in the Democrats.
How did that campaign for the write-in go? How did it begin?
Well, it began by a lot of institutional Democrats, for want of another word. Some of the hierarchy of the Democratic Party in New Hampshire, the ones who ran the Democratic Party, not unlike what we see now with the write-ins for Biden, decided that they wanted to show loyalty to President Johnson.
So they put in a write-in campaign. I had been president of the Young Democrats at both UNH and in Portsmouth at the time, and I was part of that system. So I was supporting the write-in campaign, and the write-in campaign ended up making a lot of mistakes. I think we see that in analysis of those days, and it did not succeed as well as some people wanted to see it done.
And of course, Johnson did not do so well when the election was held. He did not maintain or obtain a majority vote, a 50% vote in the primary in 1968, so he ended up withdrawing.
You say there were some mistakes made in this write-in campaign. What were some of those mistakes?
Well, a couple of mistakes that I think we all admit to, those of us who were involved in it, was an effort to draw out our support among Democrats in New Hampshire by having them sign what essentially was a loyalty card. It was a three-part card that you're supposed to say as a voter that you support Lyndon Johnson, you support the president. And one part was going to be given to you to remind you to vote. Another part was going to be sent to the state party to show the state party that you're a loyal Democrat. And the third was going to be sent to the White House to show Lyndon Johnson that you're supporting him. And that really sounded like not a very secret vote, and the McCarthy campaign effectively hit the write-in campaign effort for Lyndon Johnson that way.
And I and many others were embarrassed by it. I didn't like the idea, but it was the idea decided by the Democratic hierarchy who were doing the write-in for Lyndon Johnson. So it certainly contributed to a division that we ended up seeing for years afterward in the New Hampshire Democratic Party and nationally, too. That was probably the biggest mistake.
Another mistake, I think, was the fact that a lot of money was spent on behalf of somebody who wasn't even on the ballot, Lyndon Johnson. And I think a lot of Democrats wondered, 'Why was that happening?'
Yeah, so much was made about Johnson not getting to that 50%. Johnson did end up winning the primary, but it was a close race with Eugene McCarthy.
It was about 3 - 4% that he got more than Gene McCarthy. And of course, Robert Kennedy ended up running within a week after that. And Lyndon Johnson said something that I think Joe Biden could very easily say now. At the end of that primary, Lyndon Johnson said that he was not going to run because he needed to concentrate on the Vietnam War and other problems on the national level, and he could not spend time campaigning.
Speaker1: [00:04:37] What parallels or differences do you see between that write-in campaign in '68 and the current effort for Biden?
Well, in addition to the Vietnam War being the driving factor for Johnson and the fact that a lot of Democrats and Republicans, a lot of Americans, did not like the fact that America was spending so much capital -- 500,000 Americans being sent to Vietnam at that time. Much is the same this year with a lot of Americans. Democrats included, are concerned about the money being spent in a couple of wars, and the fact that the border leaves much to be desired, even among Democrats. We can only place blame on the Republicans so long.
And those kinds of issues, I think, gives Joe Biden the message, the very good message, that if he doesn't run but he spends time being president for the next 12 months, he'll have enough to do. And that lets us be able to identify another candidate, a younger candidate, perhaps, who can run in November and win.
