June 5, 2018 is the 50th anniversary of the shooting of Robert Kennedy. He died of his injuries on June 6. This is a compilation reel of excerpts from his speeches in the state.
A politician who gave Americans hope, but also admitted he doesn’t have all the answers, didn’t make empty promises, quoted poetry (Tennyson here, Aeschylus during his speech after the assassination of MLK), spoke with utter honesty, and when he was asked why he lost Oregon, he replied, “I have to do better.” We will never see the likes of this man ever again. RIP, Bobby.
I find it hard to believe, even now, that this brilliant man would be killed so horribly just as he made his greatest step towards the presidency. it's still an unbearable loss.
SENATOR ROBERT FRANCIS KENNEDY Quotes ALFRED LORD TENNYSON ~ "The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."
Tennyson wrote, in Ulysses: ...that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Thank you very much. -'Remarks to the Cleveland City Club' April 5th, 1968
SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY ~ "If we can win this election here in Oregon, if we can win in May, we'll then go on to win in California in the first week in June. I think that if we can do that, we can win the Convention in August in Chicago, we can beat Richard Nixon in November." It is hard to believe Senator Kennedy lost the Oregon Presidential Primary on May 28,1968 to Senator Eugene J. McCarthy. Senator McCarthy 44.7% ~ Senator Kennedy 38.8%.
Man, I still don't know how HHH wound up with the nomination over McCarthy, something was rotten in Denmark, that's for sure. Jstor has a pretty good article from The Western Political Quarterly, Sept. '69 that reads: "Any attempt to characterize the two campaigns would be a hollow replica of the intense and emotional reality. The most significant difference, aside from the personalities of the two men, was the nature of the political organizations working for the two candidates. McCarthy's campaign, which had been launched much earlier than Kennedy's, relied primarily upon an imposing array of "grass roots" organizations which appeared to compensate amateurism with an almost fanatic ranatic enthusiasm. There were some forty-two campaign headquarters operating throughout the state for McCarthy at the height of the campaign, and literally thousands of volunteers involved in canvassing and related activities. On the other hand Kennedy, who had been a late starter, relied more upon professional, well-organized staff who were given the task of bringing together the organization which had supported President Kennedy in the 1960 primary. They were at least partially successful, and the Kennedy campaign quickly flourished into a potent and enthusiastic crescendo of support." and "The strength of the McCarthy campaign was its appeal to the middle to upper socioeconomic strata which includes white-collar Republican suburbanites as well as liberal Democrats." And bere's a quote on losing Oregon from Peter B. Edelman's RFK Oral History Interview #3: "and it was just awful going into these factories and these workers just sit there blah, you know. They just look like you just descended on them from some other planet, and you didn‘t know what to say that would get them interested. You talk about the cost of living. Well, you know, most of them are making enough money so that that was a minor irritation. And you talk about how much the lumber industry in Oregon was being hurt by the credit squeeze and they sort of look at you. You talk about how beautiful Oregon is and they sort of.... There just wasn‘t anything you could say that would turn them on. Now I think, in retrospect, he should have talked about the war. He was afraid to talk about the war because he thought that maybe that was one of the things that had gotten Morse [Sen. Wayne Morse of Oregon] into trouble. But I think that that would have appealed to them. They weren‘t interested in racial problems. They have, in Portland, Oregon maybe four thousand Negroes or eight thousand Negroes. You know, it‘s nothing."
Kennedy lost in liberal leaning Oregon because his "liberal" leanings were suspect. It's sometimes forgotten today that Kennedy was quite hawkish up to the time of his brother's death. McCarthy on the other hand, was undeniably liberal his entire public life. Also, Kennedy got into the race late. McCarthy already had a statewide organization in place before Kennedy even arrived to campaign.
@@robertbates6249 I was clarifying the specific math in the statement posted that quoted from that oral history interview: "They have, in Portland, Oregon maybe four thousand Negroes or eight thousand Negroes. You know, it‘s nothing." I see 23,000 as significantly higher than 4 or 8 thousand.
I think often about what he would have achieved as president. Grievous troubles at home and abroad would have been dropped on his desk on his first day in the Oval Office. A Congress with a Southern Democratic- Northern Republican majority, an obstacle that bedeviled each Democratic president from Truman through Carter. A nation mostly centrist and white and hedging on its support for racial equality. But as his president brother said, don’t pray for easier living, pray for more strength.
I just can't believe Senator Robert F. Kennedy lost the Oregon Presidential Primary to Senator Eugene Joseph McCarthy!!! May 28,1968. Senator McCarthy ~ 44.7% Senator Kennedy ~ 38.8% Quote by Senator Robert F. Kennedy/Concession speech ~ "We can both take some satisfaction in the overwhelming expression of the Oregon voters for a change." The Oregonian ~ "Senator Kennedy jokingly blamed Freckles for the loss, saying he would" 'take a new look at my organization and may have to send my dog Freckles home.'
Support at the grass roots level was split in favor of McCarthy across the country. Kennedy entered the race comparatively late, causing a level of resentment with the Democratic Party voters. After he had repeatedly declined to run, those voters got behind Eugene McCarthy's campaign. Then, in an about face, Senator Kennedy decided to run after all. Many felt at the time he only decided to throw his hat in the ring because of the success McCarthy was having... thus the resentment! Although I grew up in a household that absolutely believed Robert Kennedy was going to be the 37th president, some historians have made the case that, had he not been assassinated, he might have failed to gain the Democratic nomination at all that year.
And he would have been running against a ruthless Richard Nixon. And an unsupportive LBJ would have likely preferred Nixon over RFK to be his successor.
@@williamanthony9090 Kennedy wouldn't have won the Democratic nomination for president in 1968. Hubert Humphrey (who stayed out of the primaries) had almost enough delegates to clinch the nomination. Kennedy hoped that going into the convention in Chicago he could sway some of Humphrey's delegates over to him. The other problem for Kennedy was that when he won the California primary Eugene McCarthy was about to pull out of the race and his delegates deeply hated Kennedy and would have supported Humphrey's candidacy.
"and it was just awful going into these factories and these workers just sit there blah, you know. They just look like you just descended on them from some other planet, and you didn‘t know what to say that would get them interested. "You talk about the cost of living. Well, you know, most of them are making enough money so that that was a minor irritation. And you talk about how much the lumber industry in Oregon was being hurt by the credit squeeze and they sort of look at you. You talk about how beautiful Oregon is ..." *Wow, is that a different time.* Today, the lumber industry has been devastated, and the cost of living far, far has outraced wages. If you talk to Oregon blue collar workers about how beautiful Oregon is, you'll get an angry response about how job losses are far more important. When job security is taken away, as it has been throughout the industrial world, the workers will be swept up by hate groups with their scapegoating and quick fix cons.
The loss in Oregon had been the first time that a Kennedy had lost in an election primary (including during JFK's 1960 election campaign leading to becoming the Democratic candidate for president). RFK was devastated by losing Oregon and made it clear that if he lost the upcoming California primary to McCarthy he would pull out of the race.
