ABC News: ABC Evening News: A Few Days Before The 1972 Democratic Convention

ABC News: ABC Evening News: A Few Days Before The 1972 Democratic Convention

Here's a reason to watch ABC Now if you are a political junky. There was simply no way that the Democratic Party was going to win the 1972 presidential election. Even if you could get past the facts that President Richard Nixon was ending the Vietnam War, that his policies to talk to and work with Russia and China were paying off and that the American economy was still relatively healthy. But the state of the Democratic Party was the main issues for Democrats in 72. The emerging that I at least would call socialist New-Left that backed Senator George McGovern for president who went out his way to have this fringe political faction behind him. Combined with what was left of the Southern right-wing base in the party that backed Governor George Wallace. And the traditional New Deal/Great Society progressive coalition that was behind Senator Hubert Humphrey.

Democrats and Senator George McGovern were so desperate to get attention and support behind their campaign that they tried to make Watergate an issue in the summer and fall of 72. Even though most of the country hadn't even heard of the Watergate Hotel yet, let alone the burglary there. Landslides tend to happen at least at the presidential level when you have a fairly popular president which is what Richard Nixon was for most of 1972, with a large percentage of the country believing things are going well. Facing a divided opposition party like the Democratic Party in 72. That couldn't decide who their presidential nominee was going to be and which faction of the party would get it until they got to the convention itself. Opposition parties need to be united behind a leader in order to defeat the President of the United States. Which is not what the Democrats were in 72.