Kennedy

Believe it or not, Mike Bloomberg comes into play in this post about “Clean for Gene” and 1968. Here is my opinionated examination of the context of the tumultuous race and then my even more opinionated thoughts on how it might apply to hypotheticals involving Barack Obama.

3. "Clean for Gene" & R.F.K. - Eugene McCarthy believed he had no hope of beating President Johnson from the left in 1968, but he did it anyway. Gene announced that he was running to be the voice of the movement for a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam War.

Subsequently, his candidacy took off on College Campuses across America. In New England, where there is a citizen-to-college ratio of roughly 1:3, young volunteers were the key to McCarthy's surprise finish in the New Hampshire primary. That fall, antiwar students in New England and elsewhere went "Clean for Gene," cutting their hair and shaving off their dirty hippy beards in order to canvass and GOTV for McCarthy.

When McCarthy won 20 of the 24 NH delegates, President Johnson crapped his pants. Four days later, previously chicken Robert F. Kennedy announced he wanted in on that action. After the new year, LBJ folded. McCarthy was still huge on campus, as Kennedy once joked, “Gene gets all the A students and I get all the C students.” As somebody who banked on his youthfulness and intelligence, Kennedy bristled at losing the support of the intelligentsia and college campuses.

More after the bump