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Bagaimana Amerika Syarikat Memilih Presiden (Mungkin 2024)
Pilihan raya presiden Amerika Syarikat tahun 1968, pilihan raya presiden Amerika diadakan pada 5 November 1968, di mana Republikan Richard M. Nixon mengalahkan Demokrat Hubert H. Humphrey.
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Menjelang pilihan raya 1968 berubah pada tahun 1967 ketika senator Demokrat Minnesota, Eugene J. McCarthy, mencabar Pres Demokrat. Lyndon B. Johnson mengenai dasar Perang Vietnamnya. Johnson telah berjaya menjadi presiden pada tahun 1963, setelah pembunuhan John F. Kennedy, dan telah terpilih kembali pada tahun 1964. Pada awal masa jabatannya, dia sangat popular, tetapi penglibatan AS di Vietnam, yang telah meningkat secara tidak kelihatan semasa pemerintahan presiden baik Dwight D. Eisenhower dan Kennedy, menjadi sangat kelihatan dengan jumlah kematian AS yang meningkat dengan pesat, dan, ketika populariti perang meningkat, begitu juga dengan Johnson.
Pilihan raya 1966 mengembalikan Partai Republik sebagai minoriti besar di Kongres, dan undang-undang sosial melambat, bersaing dengan Perang Vietnam untuk mendapatkan wang yang ada. Walaupun Akta Hak Sivil (1964) dan Akta Hak Mengundi (1965), banyak orang Afrika Amerika menjadi kecewa dengan kemajuan hak sivil. Oleh itu, gerakan "Kekuatan Hitam" muncul, yang menyentuh populariti Johnson bahkan di kalangan orang Afrika Amerika. Peningkatan jenayah umum dan keganasan sporadis di bandar-bandar menimbulkan kebimbangan dalam masyarakat kulit putih. Seruan untuk "undang-undang dan ketertiban" adalah tindak balas, dan itu bukan hanya menjadi masalah tetapi, banyak yang percaya, kata kod untuk penindasan Amerika Afrika.
Pada awal tahun 1968, Pemerintah Republik Michigan George Romney mengumumkan pencalonannya untuk jawatan presiden. Banyak yang percaya bahawa gabenor New York, Nelson Rockefeller, mungkin juga menjadi pencabar, dan George Wallace, mantan gabenor Demokrat Alabama dan seorang segregasi pada masa jabatannya, mulai mengisyaratkan minatnya di pejabat itu. Puak damai dan militan kulit hitam bercakap mengenai mencalonkan calon mereka sendiri, dan jalan semula perlumbaan empat arah 1948 nampaknya mungkin.
Perdana
In this setting, McCarthy, whose criticism of the administration on its Vietnam policies had become increasingly caustic, announced his candidacy for president and entered the New Hampshire primary—the first of the presidential primaries. Rockefeller denied that he was a candidate but said that he would accept a draft; 30 Republican leaders endorsed him. At this time Nixon, who had been Eisenhower’s vice president and who had narrowly lost to Kennedy in 1960, declared that new leadership could end the war; he announced his candidacy and entered the New Hampshire primary.
McCarthy was the only major Democrat on the New Hampshire ballot, but, shortly before the March 12 voting, Democratic regulars, alarmed by the effectiveness of McCarthy’s legion of young amateur campaign workers, mounted a desperate write-in campaign for the president. Johnson won 48 percent of the vote, but McCarthy, with 42 percent, won 20 of the 24 delegates. Nixon won the Republican primary; Romney, with polls indicating that he had little hope of winning, had withdrawn from the primary and the presidential race.
A few days later Robert F. Kennedy announced that he would enter the race on the Democratic side. On March 31 President Johnson stunned the country by announcing an end to the bombing of most of North Vietnam—and his decision not to seek reelection. Two days later McCarthy won a somewhat diluted triumph over the president in the Wisconsin primary.
The following Thursday, April 4, African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Grief and shock among African Americans turned to anger, which found expression in rioting and violence in more than 100 cities, leading many white voters to look more closely at Wallace, who was stressing “law and order” and promising to be on the ballot in 50 states.
After King’s funeral, McCarthy, unopposed, won a preferential primary but no delegates in Pennsylvania. However, he took all the delegates in the Massachusetts primary. The upset Republican winner in Massachusetts was Rockefeller, for whom a hasty write-in campaign had been contrived. Rockefeller beat Gov. John Volpe, who was on the ballot, and Richard Nixon, who was not, and reversed his decision not to run.
Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, took four weeks to assess his chances after Johnson’s withdrawal. Humphrey then declared his candidacy and hurriedly assembled an organization to hunt delegates. In the Indiana primary Kennedy defeated both McCarthy and Indiana Gov. Roger Branigan. He also won in Washington, D.C., and trounced McCarthy in Nebraska. In Oregon McCarthy won his only primary victory over an active opponent who was on the ballot, handing Kennedy his first election defeat and winning 45 percent of the vote to Kennedy’s 39 percent. The next week, on June 4, Kennedy scored a solid victory over McCarthy in California, but shortly after midnight, as the votes were still being counted, Kennedy was fatally shot.
Nixon, meanwhile, won every Republican primary he entered; the Massachusetts write-in effort for Rockefeller was his only reverse. Rockefeller intensified his efforts and in mid-July finished a 44-state tour as his $3 million advertising campaign reached a peak.
Humphrey entered no primaries, but he was able to gain enough delegates in those states without primaries to give him apparent control over the convention. However, dissenters were taking an increasingly hard line against him and the administration. To ardent liberals, Humphrey—until recently denounced by rightists as a dangerous radical—was becoming the very image of the establishment.
