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Land of my Fathers
A Kennedy family timeline to the future
NBC election coverage 1968
The Democratic National Convention opened in a shocked moment for the party. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, effectively the President's 3rd term and Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of late President John Kennedy, had entered in the convention in a deadlocked race, and the first ballot showed a tie. The second day featured the prominent rise of a young democrat from Hawaii in Daniel Inouye as the keynote speaker. While behind the scenes, Kennedy worked magic and made deals to key party officials, and he won the nomination on the 3rd ballot over Vice-President Humphrey, and the question then became who would Kennedy ask to be his runningmate. He had just under 24 hours to decide. Eventually the next day he chose former Florida Governor William Haydon Burns as his runningmate, and they were nominated together on the last night of the convention. The Republican National Convention was not nearly as classy, as New York Governor Nelson Rockfeller won the nomination and the convention was rather boring. Rockefeller defeated former Vice-President and 1960 Presidential candidate Richard Nixon and California Governor Ronald Reagan, but won with ease. But the big news was that Rockefeller named Jim Rhodes the former Governor of Ohio as his runningmate. The two tickets looked to be superb and the battle launched in late August.
As of today, September 28th, Senator Kennedy trails Governor Rockefeller by 2 point nationally. Interesting though, Kennedy leads in their mutual home state of New York by 5 points! The race is becoming a dead heat though, as Kennedy has gained 2 points this week alone. The first Presidential debate was seen as a tie, they'll have their second and final one on October 21st, while the Vice-Presidential debate is to be held on October 6th. Both Governor Burns and Rhodes have been playing the attack dog role well sometimes even hitting each other rather than their opponents top of the ticket.
"This race is as fiery as ever. You have Rockefeller over there, trying to drag his party away from the right and he's hitting me hard as he's being an independent non-partisan candidate, in contrast to my passionate liberal Kennedyism I inherited from our brother. I can't help what John stood for, but I am my own man god damnit! I will not be seen as his clone through and through. This is a chance for us to take this forward again, beyond the legacy of FDR, Truman, and John, and create a new future for the new democratic party, and a new future of a new country. I honestly wish I could've chosen you Teddy. Burns is a new-dealer, sure so he locks down that part of the vote, but he's just so moderate and almost everything else and he doesn't have a position on the rest of the things. It's a tough call on what's going to happen with this race, our debate was a draw, with each of us gaining one point from the undecided votes now we're at 46-44, which that just brings him closer to the 50% mark. Will has got to win in his debate, and I've got to crush Nelly if I want to put this race in the bag. The race will be tight, but I've just got this felling Teddy, this feeling like we're gonna get it done."
Senator Robert Kennedy speaking with his brother Teddy Kennedy