OCR Text |
Show I In November, 1968, Hubert H. Humphrey, presidential presi-dential candidate, made a speech in which he broke with the Vietnam policy ol the Johnson administra tion. Tuesday, he explained the ramifications i that speech. November, 1968 Humphrey tells inside story of campaign's fateful last days what's happening to it." I And his poll rating gained fej the low 26 per cent on Septemkl 30 to a rating so close to U; Nixons's that Gallup and Hw.1 polls refused to call the winner I And the results were so cfcl that he came within 3 tenths I one per cent of winning theekl tion. I Mr. Nixon spent $22 million; radio and television broadcast! alone, compared to the $8milliJ that Mr. Humphrey spent. I "Money isn't everything," : emphasized, "but money I time" is the answer. I One other detriment to I Democrat campaign of '68 . the fact that the conventions so late. I "We left the convention, I'lkl frankly and candidly, in hope!; division," Mr. Humphrey said. I "It should have been held late July. That would have let I week to rest." That would h:j also given time to let the emotiVI subside and let the candidate J his own emotions under conn I "I never had time to unwind- get the cool objectivity that I need to run a good campaign," said. I "Mr. Nixon went around a . called on all his adversaries. Evrl thing in the newspapers was j conciliation,' " he said. I But there wasn't enough il'J to do that for Mr. Humptej "We left Chicago still contim J -the battle-not against the fef j C licans, but against each other, j said. I "The main thing you've goij do is put it back in the his1 books and forget. There j difference between defeat ; failure," he continued. I f BY DAN HINMON Staff Writer It's November, 1968. One of the most involved and expensive practices in the United States, the elction of a president, is in full swing. A week before the election national magazines give Hubert H. Humphrey, democratic candidate for the presidency, a positive four electoral votes and the outside possibility of 39 to 44 electoral votes, excluding even his home state from those states he would carry. It was written that he would suffer the worst political defeat ever felt by a Democrat in the 20th Century. Well, in actuality Mr. Humphrey garnered a total of 192 electoral votes and could have thrown the election into Congress if only he had only carried New Jersey. And 73,000 votes in the right places would have put him in the White House. The story contains a lot of "ifs," but the rise in momentum of the Humphrey campaign in '68, and the reasons why Mr. Humphrey Hum-phrey didn't make it quite to the top were told by him Tuesday at a Young Democrats' Luncheon on campus. The big change came on Sept. 30 at a nation-wide broadcast right here in Salt Lake City. Today former President Johnson calls it the reason why Mr. Humphrey lost the election. The trends following the broadcast broad-cast seem to point in a different direction, however. Mr. Humphrey was broke-as broke as could be. "I didn't even have enough money to pay our staff or pay for the airplanes," he said. "I had to borrow every cent." The polls were showing on 26 per cent popularity, and things didn't look very hopeful. That speech was the one in which Mr. Humphrey broke with Johnson and advocated a Vietnam War policy different than his. Along with the speech he decided to make a plea for contributions contri-butions to be sent to his campaign headquarters. "The response was tremendous," tremen-dous," he exclaimed. "The donations started coming in by the mailbags full. Some letters had one dollar, some $2 and $5 and some had $100 and $1,000. It was amazing," he continued. "In the next ten days we received over a million dollars." "Right after that the polls started coming up-fast!" he said. "We were gaining one, two and three points a day." The next problem was how to use the newly acquired money. "We wasted a lot," he said. "There was nothing we could spend it on. Mr. Nixon had bought 'up all the prime advertising advertis-ing time." "So instead we picked spots-like spots-like Milwaukee-and ran advertisements advertise-ments mere. And that was so ridiculous," ridi-culous," he added. The real problem "isn't so much how much money you have, but it's when you have it," he said. "Ninety per cent of all money we got in the campaign came the last three weeks, and then it was too late to use." But with the September 30 speech the campaign got moving. "Everything in politics is movement. move-ment. That's what counts," Mr. Humphrey said. "It isn't so much what your poll rating is, it's |