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民主党1968年代表大会至今余音犹在

(2012-06-28 16:07:07)
标签:

杂谈

分类: 政治与经济
http://photos.state.gov/libraries/amgov/3234/week_3/06202012_AP6808290404-300.jpg

(1968年民主党代表大会上,代表们选出一位没有参加初选的候选人,疏远了许多选民。)

 

美国国务院国际信息局《美国参考》Stephen Kaufman 华盛顿报道— 2012年共和党与民主党大会的会议活动一定会文明有序,针对电视观众做了精心策划,其结果也基本没有悬念。但党代会的情形并非一向如此。

1968年的芝加哥就成为冲突四起的民主党党代表大会的“十足的风暴”之地。这次党代会时值不受欢迎的越战期间,而且对总统提名人的角逐非常激烈,进而导致争议,触发了暴力示威。 在民主党这次大会上获得提名的总统后选人并没有参加任何初选,因此也导致民主党人推选总统候选人的方式从此发生改变。

1968年8月26日至29日的大会成为新老两代人冲突的导火线——民主党较年长的领导层与示威者激进的理想主义形成对立,后者仍处于民权领袖马丁·路德·金(Martin Luther King Jr)当年4月遇刺和6月总统候选人罗伯特·肯尼迪(Robert F. Kennedy)被害的惊恸中。肯尼迪以反战、捍卫民权为主题的竞选已将无数年轻和少数族裔的选民动员起来。

1968年也是北越发起“春节攻势”(Tet Offensive)的一年,由此动摇了人们对美军能否在越南获胜的信心。同一年,林登•约翰逊(Lyndon Johnson)总统出人意料地决定不谋求竞选连任。这一年还恰逢在第二次世界大战后10年内出生的美国“婴儿潮”一代人步入成年、挑战传统和体制。

局内者与局外者

1968年的大会代表——他们主要是由政党领袖和包括劳工组织在内的有实力的团体所挑选的党内活动人士——与会场外抗议的年轻示威者鲜有共同之处。

代表们制定了大会议程,并将未参加初选的时任副总统、休伯特•汉弗莱(Hubert Humphrey)提为候选人。场外人士对此以示威活动表示不满,有些与警方发生暴力冲突,有些则以滑稽手法讽刺美国政治体制。

宾州圣约瑟夫大学(St. Joseph’s University)教授凯瑟琳•西布利(Katherine Sibley)在2008年的一次采访中说,芝加哥当年的那些活动既带来强烈的后果,也产生了积极的影响。

她说:“那是一个在多方面让人感到愤慨和失望的时刻,1968年许多人充满了理想主义,对时局极度不满。这从很多激进人士的不满中可以明显体现出来。不过,他们的愤慨和激进主义乃至暴力,也疏远了其他不少人,后者过去或许对那些人不曾留意,而现在对他们持消极眼光。”

 

http://photos.state.gov/libraries/amgov/3234/week_3/06202012_AP070409011791-300.jpg

(1968年8月在芝加哥民主党全国代表大会期间人们举行游行抗议。)

雪上加霜的是,芝加哥市长理查德•戴利(Richard Daley)拒绝颁发任何游行许可。西布利说:“无疑有一种感觉是,保守派,即老牌权力层,因为资格老、有势力就应该拥有权力。”她说,戴利拒绝承认公民享有集会和示威的权利,“让麻烦必现无疑”。

青年国际党(Youth International Party)(即所谓“易皮士”[Yippies]) 是当年参加示威抗议最知名的团体之一。它推出了一头他们命名为“Pigasus” 的野猪,作为其总统候选人。西布利说,这纯属滑稽之举,但其政治涵义非常深刻。她说:“他们的猪在某些方面是认真的,虽然他们只是出于幽默。他们认为‘我们受够了。我们不信任那些人。他们不信任‘猪’”——他们称警察为“猪”。

易皮士们还提议在芝加哥的自来水中参入LSD,即一种幻觉剂,以启蒙民众,不过这一建议被视为威胁。西布利说,民主党的乔治•麦戈文(George McGovern)1972年总统竞选失败,这在很大程度上是所谓的“沉默的多数”向激进派的极端化作出的反应。

大会程序改革

1968年,麦戈文率领一个委员会对党代表大会程序进行改革。西布利说:“当时的混乱和暴力促使人们认识到,程序有问题,确实需要开放。”

为了安抚年轻选民,产生了一个新的代表选拔程序,以更好体现人口的基本构成,特别是注意性别和种族,并且使提名程序更为公开化。麦戈文1972年失败后,民主党看到了由政治经验不足的人来制定议程的缺陷,因此专门设有四分之一的选票,留给“超级代表”,即那些当选官员或在政界已享有知名度的人士。

2008年,这些超级代表的作用从相对不甚显著,变得十分关键。当时,现任总统欧巴马在已表态的代表票数上略微领先希拉里•克林顿。最终,足够票数的超级代表宣布支持欧巴马,从而确保他赢得提名。

如同1968年,2008年的民主党面临着新老两代人之间和种族之间的分界,欧巴马的大部分支持者来自较年轻的选民和非洲裔选民。西布利说,对1968年大会的记忆,可能给超级代表有很大影响;他们面临巨大压力,要在初选季节结束前宣布支持其中一位候选人,以避免在丹佛大会上发生激烈的争吵。

她说:“我认为,有一种感觉是,如果普选票倾向另一方——尽管双方很接近——而超级代表选择了希拉里•克林顿而不是欧巴马的话,就确实会导致出现疏离感。”她说,甚至还会给克林顿作为候选人增添某种不够正当合理的感觉。不过,西布利说,如果超级代表们不管普选票结果如何而宣布支持克林顿的话,那么总有一种可能是,初选中的选民可能不会给予欧巴马同样程度的支持。



Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/chinese/article/2012/06/201206278227.html#ixzz1z4eSYbTP

Memories of 1968 Democratic Convention Still Resonate

Washington — The 2012 Republican and Democratic conventions promise to be fairly civilized events, carefully orchestrated for a television audience, with the outcomes mostly predetermined. It wasn’t always that way.

The city of Chicago in 1968 offered the “perfect storm” for a controversial political convention, set against the backdrop of an unpopular war and a closely contested presidential nominating contest, and it triggered controversy and violent protests. The 1968 Democratic Convention nominated a presidential candidate who had not run in any primary contest, but also ending up changing the way Democrats would choose their presidential candidate.

The August 26–29, 1968, convention was the flash point for a generational clash, pitting the older Democratic Party leadership against the radical idealism of protesters still reeling from the assassinations of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in April and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in June. Kennedy’s anti-war, pro-civil rights campaign had mobilized many young and minority voters.

That was also the year of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, which called into question U.S. military success in Vietnam, and the surprise decision by President Lyndon Johnson not to stand for re-election. It was also a time when the U.S. “baby boom” generation — those born in the decade after World War II — was entering adulthood and challenging traditions and institutions.

INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS

In 1968, convention delegates, mainly party activists chosen by party leaders and powerful organizations such as labor unions, bore little resemblance to the young protesters who gathered outside the conventional hall.

While delegates set the convention agenda and nominated then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had not run in any primary, the protesters outside voiced their displeasure with protests that varied from violent clashes with the police to comical displays of contempt for the U.S. political system.

Those events in Chicago “had both a haunting legacy and a very positive legacy,” Katherine Sibley, a professor at St. Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania, said in a 2008 interview.

“It was a time of a lot of anger and disillusionment on a lot of levels, the idealism that many brought into 1968, and this great disappointment with what happens,” she said. “That was sort of evident in the unhappiness of many of the radicals. But their anger and their radicalism and their violence also alienated many other people who, maybe before hadn’t paid much attention to them, and now were only paying negative attention to them.”

Complicating matters, Chicago’s mayor, Richard Daley, refused to grant permission for any protest. “There certainly was a sense … that the old guard, the old powers that be, should just have that power because they’re old and powerful,” Sibley said. By refusing to acknowledge the right of citizens to assemble and protest, Daley “was just guaranteeing trouble.”

One of highest-profile organizations participating in the protests, the Youth International Party (known as the “Yippies”), offered a boar they named “Pigasus” as its presidential nominee. It was comedy, Sibley said, but it was also an edgy political message.

“They were serious about the pig in some ways, even if they were being funny. They thought, ‘We’ve had it. We don’t trust these people. [And] we don’t trust the ‘pigs’” as they called police officers.

Yippie activists also proposed lacing Chicago’s water supply with LSD, a hallucinogen, to bring enlightenment to the populace, but, that offer was perceived as a threat. Sibley said that Democrat George McGovern’s defeat in the 1972 presidential election was, in a large part, a reaction by the so called “silent majority” to the excesses of the radicals.

CONVENTION PROCESS REFORM

It was McGovern who led a commission to reform the convention process after 1968. “[T]he whole mess there and the violence that went on just encouraged people that the process was flawed and [the need] to really open it up,” Sibley said.

To appease younger voters, a new delegate-selection process sought to “mirror more of the population as a whole,” with special attention to gender and race, to make the nominating process more open. After McGovern’s 1972 defeat, the Democratic Party saw the shortcomings of having its agenda set by the politically inexperienced and set aside one-quarter of the votes for “superdelegates” elected to political offices or already prominent in the political process.

In 2008, the role of these super delegates rose from relative obscurity to become a key factor in the campaign when Barack Obama held a narrow lead over Hillary Clinton in pledged delegate votes. Ultimately, enough superdelegates announced support for Obama to ensure him the nomination.

As in 1968, the Democratic Party of 2008 faced a generational and racial divide, with Obama drawing much of his support from younger voters and African Americans. Sibley said the memory of the 1968 convention likely weighed on the superdelegates, and they faced intense pressure to declare their support for one of the candidates before the primary season concluded to avoid a contentious floor fight at the convention in Denver.

“I think that there was a sense that the superdelegates, if they had gone for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama when the popular vote, even though it was close, was leaning the other way, would have really led to a sense of alienation,” she said, or even “added an element of illegitimacy” to Clinton’s candidacy. But, she said, it is always possible primary voters would not have given Obama the same level of support if superdelegates had declared themselves for Clinton regardless of the popular outcome.



Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/06/201206207801.html#ixzz1z4ehgNiH

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