Robert F. Kennedy’s Remarkable Campaign Stop In Lincoln
Nebraska in 1968 was critical because it was one of only fifteen states that held a presidential primary election. In the era before the 1972 reforms which required the vast majority of states to hold primary elections, most delegates were chosen by party insiders and leaders in caucuses and conventions which they controlled.
Since only fifteen states held primaries, that meant that only 900 delegates out of 2,600 were selected in the primaries. Presidential candidates ran in primary elections to prove to the party bosses that they were electable in the general election. They hoped that a series of victories in the primaries would convince these influential party leaders to support their candidacy.
The Democratic nomination fight in 1968 was dominated by the war in Vietnam. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy announced his candidacy for the presidency in late 1967 in what looked like a quixotic bid to take out President Lyndon Johnson. McCarthy shocked the world by winning 42% of the vote in the March 12 New Hampshire primary to Johnson’s 49%. The incumbent president had been expected to win by a wide margin in the Granite State.
Partially as a result of his poor showing in New Hampshire, Johnson surprised the country with his announcement on March 31 that: “Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” Vice President Hubert Humphrey began to lay the foundation for his own presidential campaign shortly after Johnson withdrew.
Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy announced his presidential candidacy on March 16, 1968. Most of his aides advised him to stay out of Nebraska. However, Nebraska native Ted Sorenson advised Kennedy to run in Nebraska and believed that he would run well there since Ted’s brother Phil Sorenson was available to manage the campaign. Phil Sorenson already had an established political organization in Nebraska because he had served there as lieutenant governor between 1965 to 1967, and had been the Democratic nominee for governor in 1966.
Kennedy made it clear early on that he planned to campaign in Nebraska. After delivering a speech at Kansas State University on March 18 Kennedy said that he planned to make appearances in Nebraska. “I will be there,” he told an Omaha World Herald reporter covering the Kansas State speech. “I’m just not sure when.” The New York Senator couldn’t be certain because he had no staff, no organization and no fundraising operation in place at the time.
Before he campaigned in Nebraska, Kennedy launched a national campaign and barnstormed through sixteen states, directly addressed close to a quarter of a million people and was seen by several hundred thousand more. Everywhere he went, Kennedy was mobbed by the crowds and received a tumultuous reception.
Robert Kennedy was the first candidate who campaigned in person in Nebraska. On March 26, the Kennedy campaign announced that the New York Senator would hold a rally at the Coliseum at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln campus on March 28. At the same time, the Kennedy campaign began organizing. Kennedy’s Nebraska campaign team was announced on March 26 and was headed up by Phil Sorenson.
Kennedy’s appearance in Lincoln exceeded all expectations. Kennedy was greeted at the Lincoln airport by seven hundred boisterous supporters. He briefly addressed the crowd and asked them for their help in bringing about new leadership. When Kennedy plunged into the crowd to shake hands, several people narrowly escaped getting hurt. An Omaha World Herald photographer helped a young mother protect her baby from the onrushing crowd.
Fifteen thousand people greeted Kennedy at the University of Nebraska campus, both inside and outside of the Coliseum. An estimated eleven thousand people packed into the building, where there was standing room only. When Kennedy arrived, the crowd roared and one reporter compared Kennedy’s reception by the crowd to the reception enjoyed by the Beatles. It was the biggest turnout for a political rally in Lincoln since 1952 when candidate Dwight Eisenhower was greeted by thirty thousand voters.
Kennedy’s speech at the rally was well received and would largely reflect his message throughout the Nebraska campaign. Kennedy opened up his remarks by addressing the Vietnam War. Per usual, the New York Senator opposed both the widening of the war and a precipitous withdrawal of United States troops. He simultaneously supported negotiations and a compromise peace with the National Liberation Front or the Viet Cong.
His proposal for negotiations with the Viet Cong was met by a smattering of boos, to which Kennedy responded as follows: “A lot of people say the front is communistic and should play no role in Vietnam. But unless we kill every one of them, women and children as well, we will have to deal with them.”
Kennedy then transitioned to domestic policy and the economy by questioning the accuracy of GNP (gross national product) in measuring the actual value of our economy. This led to the most memorable line from Kennedy’s speech:
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product — if we judge the United States of America by that — that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
Another staple of Kennedy’s college campuses talks were comments directed at the students and their responsibility to use their degrees to better society and not just themselves. At the University of Nebraska rally he told them: “You are the most exclusive minority in the world. You have a college education. Will you use it to gain economic advantage over your neighbor or to make a meaningful contribution?”
He then turned to discuss agriculture, beginning by bemoaning that commodity prices were lower and farmers’ overhead was higher in 1968 than it was in 1947. Kennedy then placed the agriculture economy into its larger national context: “Agriculture is the root of our economic strength, with twice the workers and four times the assets of any other industry. If you in Nebraska cannot get a fair return on your labor, if you must pay exorbitant interest rates for your credit, then it must follow that men in Michigan will not sell their tractors and trucks; men in New York will not sell their clothing and books, and those losses will reverberate across the land.”
Kennedy concluded the event by opening up the floor for questions and answers. Kennedy thrived in this format and usually asked the first few questions himself to explain his views and prompt the audience. He usually did this by asking for a show of hands from the voters on the most salient issues of the day.
Perhaps the most interesting question came from Nebraska starting fullback Dick Davis, an African-American. (In Nebraska, football is virtually a religion.) Davis was a standout athlete and an Academic-All American. Davis asked Kennedy if he considered the United States to be a racist society. “No,” Kennedy responded. “But we have dealt with the Black and other minorities unjustly. The solution is to provide jobs , working through the private sector, with tax incentives.” Davis told a reporter at the event that he wasn’t satisfied with Kennedy’s answer because he wasn’t specific enough.
Kennedy’s team was thrilled by the huge crowd and the positive reception. “We really wowed ’em. That was the spark we really need to get this thing rolling,” said Hans O. Jensen, Kennedy’s state campaign co-chairman. That groundswell of enthusiasm for Kennedy resulted in the return of twelve thousand volunteer pledge cards.
The Nebraska press was equally impressed by Kennedy’s campaign rollout. Veteran Lincoln reporter Don Walton wrote: “The Kennedy campaign soared in Nebraska last week beyond all expectations within the senator’s campaign organization. There were real apprehensions among staff members as to whether Kennedy could fill the Coliseum. Well, fill it he did…Perhaps more surprising than the mere surprise of the crowd was its enthusiasm.”
Kennedy had begun his Nebraska campaign with a bang but there were no guarantees he would prevail on May 14. The Nebraska press still regarded Lyndon Johnson as the favorite and McCarthy had already launched a serious campaign to contest Nebraska’s delegates to the Democratic convention in Chicago. The Minnesota senator began organizing in Nebraska as early as February and announced plans to knock on every Democratic door. The hotly contested Nebraska campaign was just getting started.
This is an excerpt from a book that I wrote with Dr. Laura J. Crawford about Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Nebraska Democratic primary. You can learn more at these links: