Liberal Democratic Senator Eugene J. McCarthy from Minnesota, an advocate of a negotiated end to the war in Vietnam, declares that he intends to enter several Democratic Presidential primaries in 1968.
McCarthy believed that the majority of Americans were unhappy with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s handling of the war, and he planned to challenge the president for the Democratic nomination. McCarthy conducted his campaign outside normal Democratic Party channels, relying on volunteers who conducted a grassroots campaign that emphasized the moral indefensibility of U.S. action in Vietnam and the need for a negotiated settlement of the war.
McCarthy shocked the political establishment when he almost defeated Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. When Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey defeated McCarthy for the presidential nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Ultimately, Humphrey was defeated in the national election by Republican Richard M. Nixon.
