Too Quick Stop Making Yourself Miserable

In the last episode, we took a quick look back at Robert F. Kennedy’s rise to the senate in November of 1964. Then we mentioned that in 1967, the soon to be anti-war candidate, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy had approached him with the idea of opposing President Lyndon Johnson for the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States. But Kennedy had quickly turned the idea down. Now back to early 1968.
Everybody knew that Bobby was certainly no friend of LBJ’s. They had a long and well-known history of animosity between them. But again, for many significant reasons, he didn’t think the timing was right to mount a challenge against a sitting president, so he just stayed in the wings and watched Gene McCarthy try to take him on.
Then on March 12, 1968, something completely unexpected happened. The largely unknown senator from Minnesota, whose grass roots campaign had been largely run by a group of underfunded student volunteers, made a truly significant showing in the New Hampshire primary, and it proved to be a shocking upset. 
Lyndon Johnson, who had the powerful name recognition of the incumbent, was well-funded and well organized with a huge staff of seasoned supporters. But he won only 49.4 per cent of the vote. And incredibly, McCarthy won a remarkable 42.2 per cent, which really took everyone by surprise. Suddenly it became obvious that the anti-Johnson, anti-war sentiment in the country was far larger and deeper than anyone had calculated.
Overnight, the equation had clearly changed and Johnson was not as firmly in the driver’s seat as he seemed to be. And as you can imagine, the outcome caught Senator Kennedy’s attention as well.
Now, there have been several biographies about RFK written over the years and many of them have examined the evolution and inner growth that led him up to this time. He had traveled extensively throughout the entire country and his views on the makeup of the American culture had broadened deeply.
 I remember watching some of his speeches and noticing that there did seem to be something different about him, like a deeper level of empathy and compassion was emerging, especially for the underdog. And he seemed to have let his hair grow longer as well, maybe to emphasize his youth. Not that he needed it - he was only forty-two years old, afterall.
Anyway, it didn’t take him long to make up his mind.  And just four days after the outcome in New Hampshire, on March 16, 1968, in the same room where his brother had done it eight years earlier, Robert F. Kennedy announced his intention to run for president of the United States.
Of course, his move was met with mixed reactions. Many people in the anti-war movement called him an opportunist, coming in only after McCarthy had courageously paved the way. But somehow, it seemed much bigger than that, like he was on a completely different level from the rest of the prospective field and was capable of producing the major change in the county that was so desperately needed. 
“It is a time of difficult choices, a time of danger and opportunity,” he said. “It is a time for all of us to choose whether we will stand for what we believe in, or whether we will be silent.
“I believe that we can build a country where every man, woman, and child has the opportunity to live up to his or her full potential. I believe that we can build a country where every person is judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And I believe that we can build a country where the pursuit of happiness is not just a dream, but a reality.
“But in order to do that, we must first have the courage to change,” he continued.  “We must have the courage to stand up and speak out for what we believe in. We must have the courage to demand better from our leaders, and better from ourselves.
“That is why I am here today. That is why I am running for President. Because I believe that we can do better.