November 5, 1968
from ’68 – A Novel
“I
can’t believe it’s this close. Humphrey was so far behind coming out of Chicago
in August, I didn’t think it was possible for him to make up the ground.”
“Yeah, but he waited too long to
break with Johnson and come out for an end to the bombing. He should have done
that right off the bat.”
“And what about Nixon? Losing to
Kennedy in ’60. Losing for governor in ’62. I thought he was dead. What a
comeback!”
“You know, I think he’ll be a
pretty good president.”
The lone woman sitting at the bar
spoke up then, her voice heavy with emotion. “Ah, they’re all a bunch of crooks
… a bunch of lousy crooks, every damn one of ’em.”
“Come on, Alice, why do you say
that?”
“Because it’s true. Look what they
do: stage some phony Gulf of Tonkin incident so they can bomb North Vietnam.
Send five hundred thousand of our kids to prop up those crooks in Saigon. And
then, at the last minute, a week before the election, Johnson declares a halt
to the bombing and says a peace agreement is close, just to try to throw the
election to Humphrey.”
“Well, hell—”
“Do you think LBJ cares about the
kids that are dying while he plays politics with their lives? He doesn’t give a
rat’s ass! All they care about is power. They’ll do anything to get it, and
they’ll do anything to keep it.”
“Hey, calm down, Alice. Come on—”
She was crying openly now. “My best
friend just lost her son. He’s coming home in a box. And for what? Half the
country is against the damn war. They’re all a bunch of crooks.”
“Well, Nixon says he’s got a secret
plan to end the war.”
“And you believe that crap? If he’s
got a plan, why doesn’t he tell us what it is? And what about Humphrey? He
didn’t come out for a bombing halt until he saw he was getting his ass kicked
in the polls. They’re a bunch of damn crooks.”
“You know, Alice may be right.
Remember that Orson Welles film, where his character Harry Lime is way up in a
Ferris wheel or something, and he says to Joseph Cotton, ‘See those people down
there, all those little black dots? If one of those dots stopped moving
forever, would you really care?’ That’s our politicians, up there in that
Ferris wheel, looking down at all of us little black dots on the ground.”
“Well, listen to you, Mr.
Philosopher. Since when did you get so intellectual? Orson Welles, my ass.”
Their attention returned to the
election results.
“Hey, how ’bout George Wallace?
Looks like he is going to carry about five states— Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Arkansas.”
“Geez, Humphrey could really use
those electoral votes.”
“Hell, those votes were never going
to Humphrey. They would have gone to Nixon. The old ‘solid South’ hates the
Democrats now, because of the civil rights laws.”
“Wallace was never going to win the
election. What was he trying to do?”
“He wanted to keep Humphrey and
Nixon from getting two hundred and seventy electoral votes, throw the election
into the House of Representatives.”
“How the hell does that work
anyway? Since they’re mostly Democrats, wouldn’t they just vote for Humphrey?”
“Damned if I know. I’m sure if it
looks like it’s going that way, Uncle Walter will explain it to us.”
And so it went as the clock ticked
closer to midnight. Alice’s friends took her home. Skip resisted the temptation
to switch channels in search of something to laugh about. Eventually Walter
Cronkite advised his viewers that it was all coming down to Ohio, Illinois, and
California—all three states too close to call. Nixon would wind up carrying
those three states and the country would wake up to the news that he, Richard
M. Nixon, would become the thirty-seventh president of the United States,
winning three hundred and one votes in the Electoral College. The true election
wonks noticed right away that if Humphrey had carried California, George
Wallace would have achieved his goal.
Nixon’s secret plan took another
seven years to bear fruit. In the meantime, many more sons and daughters came
home in flag-draped coffins, black dots on the ground that simply stopped
moving forever.
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