"On Friday, the former first lady met with a South Dakota newspaper’s
editorial board in advance of that state’s primary next week. When
asked why she thought certain segments of the party were calling for
her to withdraw from the race, Clinton responded that it just didn’t
make sense to her, noting that previous Democratic nomination contests
have continued deep into the summer months.
This is an
established fact. The 1980 nomination battle between President Jimmy
Carter and Sen. Edward Kennedy and the 1984 race between Vice President
Walter Mondale and Sen. Gary Hart were contested all the way to the
Democratic National Conventions of those respective years.
Yet
Clinton did not reference these examples. Instead, the junior senator
from New York spoke the unspeakable, raising the specter of one of the
darkest moments in American political history: the assassination of
Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968.
We are quickly approaching the 40th anniversary of RFK’s assassination. And in many ways, this year’s presidential campaign shares a great deal in common with its 1968 counterpart. Then, as now, the nation faced grave uncertainty, was embroiled in a tragic and unnecessary war and was intensely divided. Likewise, then, as now, there was a candidate who inspired a movement for change, as millions of Americans dared to hope for a future untainted by war, greed and corruption. That vision for change was snuffed out by an assassin’s bullet. We pray that this year’s campaign renders a different result.
