100 Years of 100 Things: The Democratic National Convention

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, we continue our WNYC centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things. We're up to thing number 13. Today, as the Democratic convention opens in Chicago, it's 100 years of Democratic presidential candidates, and we have the perfect guest for this, Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown, editor emeritus of Dissent magazine, whose most recent book is called What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party, published in 2022.

Now, in keeping with the theme of the book, we've pulled archive clips of every Democratic presidential candidate who did actually win the election from the past hundred years. The first was FDR in 1932. Here's a clip from his acceptance speech at the 1932 Democratic convention in which he is promising to repeal the 18th Amendment, that is repeal Prohibition.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Let it also be symbolic that in so doing, I broke traditions. Let it be from now on the task of our party to break foolish traditions. We will break foolish traditions and leave it to the Republican leadership, far more skilled in that art, to break promises. This convention wants repeal. Your candidate wants repeal. And I am confident that the United States of America wants repeal. I say to you now that from this date on, the 18th Amendment is doomed. I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.

Brian Lehrer: All right. He even got the term new deal in there while talking about repealing Prohibition. FDR in 1932. Not every day we can come across a 92-year-old soundbite, but there you go. Michael Kazin, author of What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party, joins me now. Michael, thanks for coming on for this. We really appreciate it. Welcome to WNYC today.

Michael Kazin: Thanks, Brian. Good to be on your show again. I was on seven years ago, I believe, talking about my last book. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, as we do in this 100 Years of 100 Things series, we're going to invite your oral history calls on the topic. Our oral history question for today, who was the first Democratic presidential candidate you voted for, and why? We're going to take this in three parts, so heads up if it's your turn yet, three parts so we can get callers of different ages. Part one right now, if your first vote for a Democratic presidential candidate was for Roosevelt, Truman, or Adlai Stevenson, call in and tell us why at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Now, I did the math, and I realized anyone living today who voted for FDR in his last election would have to be at least 101 years old, so I guess it's unlikely. We did have a 100-year-old caller last year, but you never know, maybe somebody's out there. Is there anyone listening right now who voted for Roosevelt in 1944? You will definitely get first priority on the phones. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. If we have any Harry Truman voters listening, you'd have to be at least 97 years old, not impossible, why'd you vote for Truman? 212-433-9692.

For Adlai Stevenson, the losing Democratic nominee against Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, you kiddies who could be as young as 89 years old, the phones are yours if you're out there. Why Adlai Stevenson? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 with Michael Kazin, author of What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party, here in our 100 Years of 100 Things series.

Michael, before we get to FDR and other winners from the last hundred years and see if we get any phone calls from FDR, Truman, or Adlai Stevenson voters, your book actually goes back 200 years to the political coalition that the Democrats forged in the 1820s under Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, which sort of set the course, I think, for modern political parties. Would you briefly describe that winning coalition and in what ways it began to establish political modernity?

Michael Kazin: Sure. Well, the Democratic Party was the first mass political party in the history of the world, actually, and it was formed in the 1820s as that mass political party. It was a pretty broad coalition of entirely white people at the time, but it was the first political party, really, to put together the South and the North together. It managed to group together Tammany Hall in its early days, which was a party of small businesses and craftsmen in New York City with southern planters in Virginia and the Carolinas.

It was a very broad coalition, again, of classes of white men, but it managed to dominate the next 30 years of American political history with this coalition, which didn't challenge slavery, of course, didn't challenge racial inequality, but did challenge the big financial interests of Wall Street and the Bank of the United States, which was headquartered in Philadelphia.

Brian Lehrer: Still, before we get to Roosevelt and other winning candidates from the last hundred years, if this is a valid centennial series as we're branding it, we need to mention here in 2024, the disastrous Democratic convention of 1924. It was here in New York at Madison Square Garden. Our archive team believes there is no surviving audio from that convention for us to play. It took more than 100 rounds of voting to settle on a nominee, and worse than that, there were literally fights in the streets among Democratic delegates.

Imagine that in Chicago this week. That's not going to happen. The main point of contention was whether or not to embrace the Ku Klux Klan. What was the state of the Democratic Party during the 1924 convention that had it in such political and moral, I should say, dysfunction?

Michael Kazin: It was a total mess. [laughs] The division then was between northern Democrats, who were backing the governor of New York, Al Smith, who were against Prohibition. They were against Ku Klux Klan, which was very strong at the time, against southern Democrats, who were still the base of the party in the 1920s, the core of the party. They supported the Ku Klux Klan. They supported Prohibition. The convention did take place in New York at the Old Madison Square Garden, which was actually in Madison Square back then before it moved across town and uptown.

There were 103 ballots because neither side would give in. The two sides were more or less equal strength at the time, and of course, the galleries were full of pro-Smith, anti-Klan, anti-Prohibition forces because it was in New York City, which was not the friendliest place for either Prohibition or the Klan. It was a Jewish, Black, and a Catholic city, and the Klan was opposed to all those people. By the way, it was on the radio. It was the first convention on the radio, so it's really a shame nobody was making recordings at the time.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. My understanding is that the technology did exist for live radio, obviously, but the technology did not exist for live event recording. By 1932, they went from that horror show and, of course, a loss that November in '24 and a loss in '28 to the winning FDR candidacy in 1932, by which time they were making audio recordings. We played that clip of FDR promoting repeal of Prohibition. Where did the Prohibition issue fit into the larger vision of an FDR philosophy or politically to his winning coalition?

Michael Kazin: Well, by '32, Prohibition was very unpopular. If it hadn't been unpopular, he wouldn't have called for the first repeal of a constitutional amendment in American history, which, of course, was repealed a few months after he took office. White Southerners who supported Prohibition and other evangelicals who supported Prohibition still supported FDR because there was the Great Depression and the issue of Prohibition had pretty much paled in significance by '32.

Some people were still for it, but what really mattered to people was the 25% unemployment, the banks were in trouble, and so whether or not you could go out and buy a drink was much less important to people than whether you had a job.

Brian Lehrer: We have to acknowledge the moral [unintelligible 00:10:05] elephant in the room. Right? The Democratic coalition in '32 still included the white segregationists of the South that would for decades more. How did it make any sense in the context of the times that the more Progressive Party of that era in other ways Democrats could hang on to that most awful of American institutions?

Michael Kazin: Well, as you know, political parties succeed by having a broad coalition, and they fail when they don't. We have a two-party system. Roosevelt had to win the white South or else he wasn't going to-- He might have won narrowly without him, but probably not. The white South was still the majority of the party in Congress until the late 1930s. You need those states. White racist Southerners were also very poor, many of them, also were hurting because of the deflation at the time, crop prices really down, people taking to the roads because they couldn't afford their mortgages.

In that sense, the economic discontent of the country united people of different races behind the Democrats in a way that's not true today, for example.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go on to the next winning Democrat for president, Harry Truman. This is from his acceptance speech at the 1948 Democratic convention.

Harry Truman: Confidence and security have been brought to the American people by the Democratic Party. Farm income has increased from less than $2.5 billion in 1933 to more than $18 billion in 1947. Never in the world were the farmers of any republic or any kingdom or any other country as prosperous as the farmers of the United States, and if they don't do their duty by the Democratic Party, they're the most ungrateful people in the world.

Wages and salaries in this country have increased from $29 billion in 1933 to more than $128 billion in 1947. That's labor, and labor never had but one friend in politics, and that was the Democratic Party and Franklin D. Roosevelt. And I say to labor just what I've said to the farmers, they are the most ungrateful people in the world if they pass the Democratic Party by this year.

Brian Lehrer: Harry Truman at the 1948 Democratic convention. Historian Michael Kazin with us. Michael, that clip was unbelievable to me because he's scolding people who he wants to vote for him. He's scolding farmers, he's scolding people in labor, saying, "If you don't vote for me, you're the most ungrateful people in the world." I can't imagine any candidate campaigning like that today.

Michael Kazin: Yes. Well, I think he wrote that speech himself mostly, which is not something that most presidents do anymore, at least not all by themselves. He was facing a problem then, which was that after four administrations of Democrats, of course, three that Franklin Roosevelt and then Truman took over, a few months after FDR died in 1945, that a lot of people, especially in Midwest and some of the swing states then as well as now, were drifting back to the Republican Party.

Those have been historically Republican states, and a lot of people in the labor movement were too, but the leadership of the labor movement was very much in favor of Democrats. In fact, without the CIO and the AFL, which were then separate organizations supporting Truman very heavily in 1948, he probably would have lost because they were really important. Yes, it was not the most successful phrase one could have come up with for an acceptance speech, but it worked to the degree that labor did stay very strongly with the Democrats in '48.

In fact, after the election was over, Truman said to one of his top advisors, Clark Clifford, he said, "Labor did it, labor did it. Without labor, we would not have won." Labor at the time was 30%, of the labor force were members of labor unions, and now it's only about 10%.

Brian Lehrer: Well, that was an astonishing clip when I came across it the other day from Truman at the 1948 Democratic convention. Guess what? We do have one caller who voted in the 1948 presidential election, 97-year-old Elizabeth in Green Brook, New Jersey. Mostly these call-ins this hour are going to be for people who voted for Democrats for president because we're in the Democratic convention week, and that's the history we're doing. She did not, but because she voted in 1948 at all, we're going to make an exception. Elizabeth, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in today. Can you hear me?

Elizabeth: Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can, just fine. Tell us about politics in 1948 according to you and who you did vote for.

Elizabeth: Well, actually, I voted for Henry Wallace. I regretted it. I thought that Truman didn't have a chance. All the newspapers were full of Dewey, Dewey, Dewey. In fact, the day after the election, there was one newspaper that came out at that point that said that Dewey had won, and I thought that Truman didn't have a chance. I voted for Henry Wallace, who was more Progressive, and I regret that I did that, although Truman got elected, so it didn't really matter. I could have been a spoiler and just spoiled it for him. Anyway, that's what I did. I voted for Henry Wallace.

Brian Lehrer: A great piece of oral history. Have you had a favorite president of all time during your lifetime?

Elizabeth: It might have been Roosevelt. I was, I guess, five years old when he was elected, and he was the only president that I knew until I was 18 when he died. I remember exactly how I felt when the news came of his death, and it was, "What's going to happen to us now?" I remember seeing in the newsreels-- We didn't have television, but at the movies, there were newsreels, and I remember seeing the train carrying his body from Georgia to Washington and how all along the way, all the people alongside the tracks, the railroad tracks, crying. We were in despair. I would say he was probably my favorite.

Brian Lehrer: Elizabeth, thank you so much for calling us today. We really appreciate it. Elizabeth in Green Brook, New Jersey. While, Michael, [unintelligible 00:17:35] is attacked, for one thing-

Michael Kazin: Yes, that's quite a memory. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: -she drew on that thing that a lot of people, at least who've studied journalism, know about the disastrous day after election day front page. Was it the New York Daily News that said--

Michael Kazin: Chicago Tribune-

Brian Lehrer: Chicago Tribune, "Dewey beats Truman."

Michael Kazin: -which was a Republican paper.

Brian Lehrer: They got it wrong. Any other thoughts about anything she brought up there, Henry Wallace, anything?

Michael Kazin: Well, the '48 election was interesting because the Democrats were split, and there were two third-party candidates who came out of the Democratic Party; Henry Wallace, who had been vice president in Roosevelt's third term. He ran with the Progressive Party ticket, which was staffed by a lot of people from the Communist Party, actually. They were opposed to the Cold War, which was just beginning, and they also were opposed to racial inequality. He was the first major minor party candidate, you can say, Wallace, who refused to speak to segregated audiences in the South and other places.

On the other hand, on the right, there was Strom Thurmond, who ran as a States' Rights party candidate because he thought the Democrats were too friendly to civil rights because, in 1948, Hubert Humphrey gave a famous speech at the Democratic convention where he said the Democrats must step into the bright sunlight of human rights. For the first time, Democrats at the convention came out for civil rights.

Brian Lehrer: 100 Years of 100 Things on The Brian Lehrer Show, thing 13, 100 years of Democratic presidential nominees here on day one of the Democratic convention with Michael Kazin, who's written a book all about that, called-- I'm looking for the exact title. There it is. What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. Let's take another oral history call. Maria in Jersey City, who's only 93, remembers voting for Adlai Stevenson, who lost to Dwight Eisenhower in '52 and '56. Maria, you're on WNYC. Thanks so much for calling in.

Maria: Good morning. Can you hear me? Long time fan.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on.

Maria: Forgive my voice, I lost it.

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you just fine. Tell us why--

Maria: [unintelligible 00:20:02] I was just--

Brian Lehrer: Yes, how old the first time you could vote? Go ahead.

Maria: I was just 21 in college, and it was my first election. The lady who just spoke from New Jersey brought back so many memories; that front page headline that Dewey had won, the grief over Roosevelt's death, I remember. Your screener asked me why did I vote Democratic. Partly, I suppose, because we got out of Nazi Germany in 1938 and have never been right-leaning.

Anyway, I remember Stevenson electioned well, partly because a picture was taken of him, of his shoe. He had worn a hole through his shoe while campaigning, so they made a little one-inch silver pin of the bottom of the shoe with a little hole in it. I still have that pin. That was his campaign pin. I remember his being called egghead because he was extremely articulate. I remember resenting that.

Also, a funny incident, there was a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was still alive, in the paper, which looked as though she had tears in her eyes. My mother wrote her a one-liner and said, "I wept too." Eleanor Roosevelt wrote back and said, "I was not weeping. I had a cinder in my eye."

Brian Lehrer: Ooh, you got to reply.

Maria: Those were some of my memories.

Brian Lehrer: Those are great, great stories. Can I ask you, Maria, what did you think of Eisenhower, who, of course, won those elections, and he was a war hero from being the general during World War II and I think, widely respected? What did you think of Eisenhower compared to Stevenson that made you choose Stevenson over him?

Maria: Well, for one thing, Eisenhower was a military man, which I shouldn't hold against him, but I think it was a strength of feeling for Stevenson rather than an objection to Eisenhower because Eisenhower was not really a bad president. He is one of the ones that I cite when I say, listen, there have been many honorable Republican presidents. I wouldn't have voted for them, but they were still decent men as opposed to current candidates.

Brian Lehrer: Maria, thank you so much for your call. We really, really appreciate you adding your oral history. Michael Kazin, what we saw then in '52 was the end of the Democrats' presidential winning streak. They had four terms of FDR plus the one of Truman, but then Eisenhower beat Stevenson in '52 and '56. What happened?

Michael Kazin: Well, by '52, Democrats have been in power for a long time. What happens often is you incur a lot of discontent when you've been in power a long time, and the Korean War was going on in '52. You become pretty unpopular by then. Howard Truman would have liked to run again. In fact, a little like Joe Biden this year, he said he did want to run again, but it was clear by the early spring of that year that he was so unpopular. His popularity rating was down to 25%. There's no way he could run again. Inflation was up, as often happened during wars, so he was very unpopular.

Eisenhower was a moderate Republican. He was nothing like Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump, for that matter. In fact, people weren't really sure until he decided to run for the Republican nomination whether he was a Democrat or Republican. In fact, Democrats in 1948 had unofficial conversations with him, Democratic bosses, about whether he might want to run as a Democrat. If he had, he probably would have got the nomination away from Harry Truman. We're not sure, but it's possible anyway, because Truman, people thought, might lose in '48, as your earlier caller said. So '52 was unusual in that sense.

Look, Americans historically, not in recent years, but back in American history, have often liked to have generals, successful generals, as presidents. We've had several of them, and Eisenhower was the last of those.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, you're invited for part two of our oral history call-in for this segment. If your first vote for a Democratic presidential candidate was in the 1960s, '70s, or '80s, call in and tell us for whom and why. If it was in the '60s, '70s, or '80s, 212-433-WNYC. If your first presidential general election vote was for JFK, LBJ, Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, or Michael Dukakis, you're invited to answer the same question that your elders just answered for their generations. Who was the first Democratic presidential candidate you voted for, and tell us why? 212-433-WNYC.

If your first general election presidential vote was in the 1960s, '70s, or '80s for any of those candidates, 212-433-WNYC. We're keeping this for this segment just to general election candidates, those who actually got the nomination. We're leaving the primaries out of it for today's conversation. If your first vote for a presidential candidate was for any of the Democrats in the 1960s, '70s, or '80s, call in and recall that vote and tell us why that person was your candidate.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 as we continue in our WNYC centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things, thing number 13 on this first day of the Democratic convention, 100 years of Democratic presidential nominees, with Michael Kazin from Georgetown and the author of What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC in our centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things, thing number 13, 100 years of Democratic presidential nominees on this day one of the convention. We've gotten through the 1950s. The Democrats went back to their winning streak ways in 1960 with John F. Kennedy, and after he was assassinated, Lyndon Johnson in '64. Here's Kennedy in his acceptance speech at the 1960 convention.

John F. Kennedy: We are not here to curse the darkness. We are here to light a candle. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some 20 years ago, if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future. Today, our concern must be with that future, for the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do. Abroad, the balance of power is shifting.

New and more terrible weapons are coming into use. One-third of the world may be free, but one-third is the victim of a cruel repression, and the other third is rocked by poverty and hunger and disease. Communist influence has penetrated into Asia. It stands in the Middle East and now festers some 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

Brian Lehrer: JFK from his acceptance speech in the 1960 convention. Here's LBJ from his in 1964.

Lyndon Baines Johnson: This nation, this generation, and this hour has man's first chance to build the great society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor. We seek a nation where every man can find reward in work and satisfaction in the use of his talents. We seek a nation where every man can seek knowledge and touch beauty and rejoice in the closeness of family and community. We seek a nation where every man can, in the world, words of our oldest promise, follow the pursuit of happiness, not just security, but achievements and excellence and fulfillment of the spirit.

Brian Lehrer: JFK and LBJ from their conventions. It's 100 Years of 100 Things, thing number 13, 100 years of Democratic presidential nominees, especially those who won, with Georgetown's Michael Kazin, author of the book What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. Michael, why did the Democrats start winning the presidency again in those elections, and how much do you see them as two parts of a whole? Johnson was, after all, Kennedy's vice president.

Michael Kazin: Well, there was a recession in '58 which hurt the Republicans, and it lingered on until 1960. As people probably heard, there was the first presidential debate in 1960, there had never been one before, between the two major candidates, and it was on television. Most Americans by 1960 had a television. JFK just looked and sounded better than did Richard Nixon. Nixon had not-- He had a heavy shadow. He hadn't shaved since early in the morning, and it was the evening. He didn't look so good. He sounded okay on radio [unintelligible 00:30:23] good on television, and that made some difference.

It was a very close election, though. Whereas by '64, JFK had been assassinated, the Republicans were running a very conservative candidate, Barry Goldwater, who said things that sounded like he might be not so unwilling to use nuclear weapons. Also, he was opposed to the Civil Rights Act that had passed in '64, which by '64 was pretty popular among even moderate Republicans, as well as most Democrats outside the South. So '64 was easy. That was a landslide.

The only states that Johnson lost were a few states in the South and Arizona. Democrats were the majority party. They had been since the Great Depression had begun in the early 1930s, and so in some ways, the victories for the Democrats in '60 and '64 were a reversion to type.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get some more oral histories in here. Gregory in Harlem, remembering his first presidential vote. Gregory, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Gregory: Hi, Brian. Long-time listener and many-time caller. I was just 21 when I had the chance to vote for JFK. I was one of those nerdy kids who went to music and art high school and was always thinking about what was going to happen in the future. It was a very futuristic time for us at that point, thinking of all the good things that were going to happen, but that was kind of taken away from us, I think, but I still know--

Brian Lehrer: You mean by the assassination?

Gregory: I've been a long-time Democrat since and will be.

Brian Lehrer: Gregory, thank you very much. Susan in Bay Ridge, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi, Brian. Nice to talk to you guys today. I'm 77, and I voted for the first time for LBJ. Although we were a very political family, we were lifelong Democrats. My grandmother was a union organizer, had worked in the sweatshops. We always lived in racially mixed neighborhoods and had a strong sense about being anti-segregation. We were Progressives, and so we were Democrats.

When I moved to New York as a teenager to go to school, and I've been here for 60 years now, I recognized that there were things called liberal Republicans, which don't seem to be the case anymore at all. I was at the Chicago convention in '68. It's kind of exciting to see Chicago, where I had lived for a number of years prior to coming to New York, being back in the Democratic convention limelight. Let's hope it will be a calmer and more peaceful and more solid outcome because we need it desperately now.

Brian Lehrer: Susan, thank you. I'm going to leave it there for time. Thank you so much for that oral history. Mary in Greenport on the island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Good morning. I voted in '72. When I turned 18, I voted for McGovern. I'm still very political. I'm the most political Progressive in my family. They're all-- but my mother was a Roosevelt Democrat, and that's where it started. I voted that morning. I remember it was a torrentially rainy day, and I was so depressed because I just knew he wasn't going to win, and he didn't. I couldn't stand Nixon.

Brian Lehrer: Mary, thank you very much. Michael in Bethpage, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you just fine.

Michael: Great. I voted for Humphrey in '68 and was disturbed that he lost because a lot of people didn't vote for him because they were angry at what happened at the convention. I voted for him because I was against the war. I was a young kid at the time in college. I wanted the drugs to be legal, I wanted civil rights to take precedence, et cetera, et cetera.

More importantly, listening to your broadcast this morning about the Harry Truman speech, I think that's a great tactic that the Democrats should work on and use today to the extent that if Harris wins and we don't have a Democratic Congress, her agenda is going nowhere. I think Democrats should urge that their voters vote, not only for Harris but for their local congresspeople. I think it's so important.

Brian Lehrer: I'm sure we will hear that at the convention this week. Michael, thank you very much. A smattering of people whose first votes were in the '60s and '70s, I'll add this one that came in in a text message representing people whose first vote was for Jimmy Carter that says, "I voted for Carter in '76. I had just turned 18. When he was elected, my college, Smith College, served for breakfast, peanut pancakes, for lunch, peanut soup, and dinner, peanut noodle wiggle." I don't know what noodle wiggle is, but it's probably good if flavored with peanuts.

Michael Kazin, of course, the Democrat Hubert Humphrey lost to Nixon in '68. We're going to do a whole separate history segment on Hubert Humphrey on tomorrow's show, so listeners, heads up on that. We'll give Humphrey short shrift for now and skip ahead to their next winning candidate, who was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Here's Carter from his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention that year.

Jimmy Carter: It's time for our government leaders to respect the law no less than the humblest citizen so that we can end once and for all a double standard of justice. I see no reason-- I see no reason why big-shot crooks should go free and the poor ones go to jail.

Brian Lehrer: Jimmy Carter, who could turn 100 himself this October, as we continue in our series 100 Years of 100 Things with Michael Kazin. Michael, can you condense '68, '72 and '76? Such a dramatic period. Vietnam, Watergate, the counterculture, the civil rights laws were new, the assassinations of RFK and Dr. King. As I said, we're planning a separate segment on all of that, on Humphrey in particular for tomorrow.

I feel like we're trying to cover so much ground that the media rarely covers in this hundred-year segment. People talk so much about 1968. I really don't want to talk about 1968, but anything to say in terms of a through line or a couple of through lines that determine why Humphrey and McGovern lost and then Jimmy Carter won?

Michael Kazin: Sure. Well, the Democratic coalition, the New Deal coalition that FDR had assembled in the 1930s, was beginning to break up by the late '60s. Of course, you saw that at the convention in '68 and '72 as well, which was a pretty tumultuous convention.

Brian Lehrer: I'll just jump in to say that one of the things that jumped out at me from your book is that when McGovern lost to Nixon in '72, which was a landslide, one thing that happened that year was that the AFL-CIO did not endorse either candidate. In historical terms, not endorsing a Democrat was really rare. Right?

Michael Kazin: The first time since 1924 that the leading labor organization in the country had not endorsed a Democrat, yes, and that's because of the war in Vietnam, which McGovern was very much against. He was the anti-war candidate. Labor was led by a guy named George Meany, who was a former New York plumber who was very supportive of the Cold War policy both of Johnson and then of Nixon. He didn't like someone who thought was too pro-communist, George McGovern.

The through line, I think, is that Democrats had ceased being the majority party as they had been for more than 30 years. There was really no majority party. Really, we haven't had one for the last 50 years or so, which is the first time in American history that's been true. What would happen by '76 was that, first of all, there was a financial crisis in 1973, oil crisis under Nixon. Then, of course, Watergate turned Nixon's landslide in '72 into sort of a bad joke for them.

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] for them, yes.

Michael Kazin: Carter, remember, was a Southerner, and the Democrats had been losing the South because of civil rights, the white South, at least, and that was the majority of people in the South. The fact that Democrats could win back some of the southern states like Georgia, they were Mississippi too in 1976, really, it was an attempt undercard to put together the old Democratic coalition, and he did, at least temporarily.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, you're invited for part three of our oral history call-in for this segment. If your first vote for a Democratic presidential candidate was for Bill Clinton to the present, you're invited to answer the same question that your elders have been answering for their generations. Who was the first Democratic presidential candidate you voted for and why? 212-433-WNYC. If your first general election presidential vote was for Bill Clinton in '92 or '96 or anyone more recent, that would be Gore, Kerry, Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden, call in and answer the same question that your elders just answered for their generations.

Who was the first Democratic presidential candidate you voted for and why, Bill Clinton and up to the present? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. As calls are coming in, Michael, the next winning Democrat after Carter and then after Reagan and Bush in the '80s, one for the Republicans was Bill Clinton in 1992. Here's a clip from his nomination acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic convention in which you can hear the lean toward the center that was part of Clinton's brand.

Bill Clinton: Now, George Bush talks a good game, but he has no game plan to rebuild America from the cities to the suburbs to the countryside so that we can compete and win again in the global economy. I do. He won't take on the big insurance companies and the bureaucracies to control health costs and give us affordable healthcare for all Americans, but I will. He won't even implement the recommendations of his own commission on AIDS, but I will. He won't streamline the federal government and change the way it works, cut 100,000 bureaucrats and put 100,000 new police officers on the streets of American cities, but I will.

Brian Lehrer: Bill Clinton, who won in '92 and '96. We'll go right on to Barack Obama, who won in 2008 after George Bush the son won two terms. Obama at the 2008 Democratic convention.

Barack Obama: These are the policies I will pursue, and in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain. But what I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and each other's patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook, so let us agree that patriotism has no party.

I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together, and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America. They have served the United States of America.

Brian Lehrer: Clinton and Obama. For more oral history, Rachel in Nutley, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel: Good morning, Brian. How are you today?

Brian Lehrer: Good. How are you doing? Who was your first vote for?

Rachel: I'm good. I remember that I voted for Clinton, and I remember I had told the screener that I was in a bar with some theater friends after rehearsal watching one of the debates. We were all talking, being in our early 20s, about how he really made us feel hope for the first time in the system. Now my kids are 21 and 15, so my older kid's going to vote for the first time this fall in a presidential election, and it's just bringing all that back up for me.

Brian Lehrer: Rachel, thank you so much. Dan in Brick, you're on WNYC. Remembering your first presidential vote, right?

Dan: Yes. I voted for John Kerry in 2004, and the reason I voted for him was I joined the anti-war movement in 2003 and I couldn't vote for Bush. I was not a huge Kerry guy, but I knew that was our only other option at that point in time.

Brian Lehrer: Dan, thank you very much. Yes, of course, 2003, the year the Iraq war started. Parisa in Hoboken, you're on WNYC. Hi, Parisa.

Parisa: Hi, Brian. I've called before. It's great to be back on. This resonates with me because I got my citizenship in 2005. I'm Iranian American. My first presidential election was for Barack Obama, where I remember saying to friends that I Baracked the vote. It was something that I grew up with, and I felt so much hope when he won. He signified so much of our struggles, but to kind of come through with it, through this feeling of hope, and I feel reinvigorated just given where we are now in history [unintelligible 00:45:56].

Brian Lehrer: Parisa, thank you very much for your call. Michael Kazin, we've got about three, four minutes left in this segment. We've been hearing some of what we've been hearing from the historical sound bites and from the callers. You've written that since the end of the FDR era, it's been easier for Democrats to say what they're against than to say what they're for. Is that a big part of what you think led to Reagan and then both Bushes getting elected as many times as they did?

Michael Kazin: I think in part, yes. The Democrats are still a very broad coalition. Even when they don't win reelection or elections, they still are. It's difficult to satisfy all sides of the coalition, difficult to satisfy working-class people in the Bronx as well as professors from Columbia, just to talk about New York City, not to speak of people all across the big country we have. I argue in my book that what Democrats do best, they support universal programs like Social Security, like Medicare, aid to education, and they find ways to moderate their cultural differences, which, of course, always exists among Democrats going back to the days of slavery.

That's something they have to do today as well, so it's not surprising in some ways that Democrats have a hard time with their message. Republicans have less of a hard time, especially now, because whatever Donald Trump says, that's what the Republicans are for. Democrats have a more difficult time because they are a broader coalition and they're not the creature of one individual the way the Republicans have become.

Brian Lehrer: In our last minute, I think I see a consciousness of that offense versus just defense, just trying to stop Trump in the way Kamala Harris has taken the baton from Joe Biden. If Biden was about stopping Trumpism and running in response to Charlottesville, as he said many times, and then in response to January 6, things like that, that he has said Harris is campaigning more on things she wants to fight for, I think, do you hear it that way at all?

Michael Kazin: Yes, definitely. She gave a speech in North Carolina the other day where she laid out a very ambitious program about subsidized housing and help for people with children and so forth, even price supports on groceries, which can be debated in various ways. Economists are debating them right now, but at least it gives people some sense of what she would do as president, not just stopping Trump. That's very important, I think.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it for today with Michael Kazin, Georgetown professor, former editor of Dissent magazine, and the author of What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. Michael, thank you very much for walking us through a century and really two centuries of Democratic Party presidential candidates. We focused on those who won the elections in the last hundred years in keeping with the theme of your book. Thank you so much for today.

Michael Kazin: Thanks very much for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: That's our centennial series for today, 100 Years of 100 Things, thing number 13. 100 years of Democratic presidential candidates will continue on Wednesday with 100 years of memorable Democratic convention speech moments. Tomorrow, we'll start our convention coverage with clips from tonight's speeches, Hillary Clinton and others. Tune in for that in our convention coverage on the station, live at 9:00 PM.

 

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