June 5, 1968

[Chasstev365]

49 years ago today we tragically and senselessly lost Robert F. Kennedy. Had he lived, I believe he would have gone on to beat Richard Nixon in the 1968 general election, which have meant no Watetgate, Reagan Revolution, no Bill Clinton centrist DLC, and no Donald Trump fiasco.

The saddest part is that two generations of Americans have grown up basically believe taxes are only for the military and that government can do no right.

It all could have been so much better.

[maveric]

1. What could have been...

This country would be much different now had he not been executed.

[Mr. Evil]

16. The powers that be

could never allow another Kennedy presidency. Looking at suicide bombers of today and it proves one thing. You can always find someone gullible or trainable or just plain fucked up enough to do your bidding for you. Sirhan Sirhan, just another in a long list.

[Va Lefty]

2. Exactly right. RFK wins and this Country goes down an entirely different path

The Vietnam War ends in 1969. Like you say, no Watergate, which means no Carter who was a reaction to Watergate. No Reagan, who was a reaction to Carter. A world without yellow ribbons. Without Madison Ave. induced patriotism. Always saddens me to think of what could have been.

[sandensea]

10. That must have been a VERY good day to at last two cretins I can think of:

[sinkingfeeling]

3. He was such a gifted speaker.

[kimbutgar]

4. I saw him as a kid 3 days before at a rally in SF

My Dad lifted me up in the crowd and he shook my hand. Even as a kid I knew it was special. I to,d my Dad I didn't want to wash my hand!

And that night I remember my Dad starting to scream in his Den. I was asleep in my room and I ran in to see him crying out loud. My Dad rarely cried and my earliest memory was seeing him cry watching JFK's funeral on TV.

[deurbano]

8. Lucky!

I was in 8th grade, and I had stayed up to watch the election returns with my mom. My parents hated Kennedy (any Kennedy), but I was secretly rooting for him, and it was all so devastating... changing so rapidly from such a hopeful, uplifting election result to absolute despair. The day he died was the day of my 8th grade promotion and my teacher told me, "I guess you're happy, now." My parents' political views were known, and he thought I still shared them, so that crushed me further, making me feel guilty on top of devastated... like somehow I had contributed to RFK's death. 1968 was a crap year for the country, with its bad results still being felt.

[bdamomma]

5. such a tragic loss

for us and the country. What could have been??

[kairos12]

6. I remember that day quite well. Tet offensive, MLK murder, and Kennedy's death. It was

a bad year.

[uppityperson]

7. It was the moment tat transitioned me from child too adult

Why are they killing all the good guys?

[crazylikafox]

9. I remember like it was yesterday. I was watching him live on TV as it happened.

Always a political junkie, I stayed up late sewing clothes for my next semester in College & watching the California primary election returns in the wee hours of the morning. When he was shot, I ran upstairs & woke my family to tell them. My Dad was so upset, he put me in the car the next morning & we headed North to our lake cottage just to find some peace & grieve.

[Vinca]

11. I remember seeing a flag at half staff before I heard the report and I knew it was Bobby.

[jalan48]

12. I met him while at a youth conference in DC in 1967.

He was very charismatic-I believe he would have won the Presidency in 1968 had he not been killed. But then, he opposed the war machine and had promised to open an investigation into his brother's assassination. His fate was sealed.

[Lucky Luciano]

13. I have been binge watching Mad Men.

Last night, I was at the season 6 episode where he was killed.

[mainstreetonce]

24. The best thing about Mad Men

is if you lived those times and remember each news story as it breaks.

I binge watched it last year.
Someday I may do the whole thing again.

[Victory at Yorktown]

14. I remember the next morning

My Dad got me interested in politics at 5 when he told me that "if you vote for Goldwater he'll take away your Christmas presents.

At 9, I was following the primary and I remember the pundits saying that if RFK won the California primary he would be the nominee. I was in bed by 9 (strict bedtime), so the next morning I jumped up and checked the morning newspaper my Dad always left on the chair. When I saw the news I cried.

[murielm99]

15. I was a college student.

I had seen RFK at Valparaiso University about a month before his death. The room was packed. He quoted Camus about hungry children.

He went on to Indianapolis. He told the black crowds that MLK Jr. had just been assassinated. He is credited with calming the crowd and saving the city from riots. Other cities erupted into violence. It was just before spring break, and I had a hard time getting home.

RFK was shot, and died later, the morning of my last final. I was devastated.

When I went home a bit later, I was doing some door-to-door canvassing for a couple of local Democratic candidates. I don't even remember any more who they were. People came to their doors to commiserate about RFK. Some of them were republicans, too.

Yes. The were shooting all the good guys.

On edit: I don't like your snide commentary about Bill Clinton. He was a good President who had to put up with endless witch hunts and he had to twist himself into knots to get anything done.

[Honeycombe8]

17. A sad day. Then and still. nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Actually, RFK was a long way from having the delegate count

needed to secure the nomination.

Back then the nomination wasn't secured by winning primaries and caucuses as by persuading delegates who became delegates simply because they were well connected and loyal party members.

If he had gotten the nomination he'd probably have been a peace candidate, and that would have improved his chances of winning. But I think there were probably nearly as many people who were wary of a Kennedy dynasty as those who would have voted for him no matter what.

Bobby Kennedy was no saint. He apparently was not the most faithful of husbands, and J. Edgar Hoover is said to have had the goods on him.

[murielm99]

19. You have a point.

Humphrey might have been the nominee in spite of RFK's popularity. Perhaps Bobby would have been on the ticket as VP, but who knows? The rules were different then.

[ehrnst]

20. True this. (nt)

[mountain grammy]

29. My mom never got over him prosecuting Jimmy Hoffa and supported McCarthy in 68.

But, she was devastated when Bobby was murdered. She always thought the CIA and Allen Dulles were behind the killings of both Kennedys.

Had he gotten the nomination, she would have been for Kennedy all the way.

[Hekate]

21. I was with my friends at the small California town's Gene McCarthy HQ warching the returns...

...until we could tell that we had lost and Bobby had won. I went home to my little apartment and listened some more on my transistor radio until the battery died, and went to sleep. The next morning I went downstairs to see the elderly couple whose house it was and do the washing up after breakfast. Mr and Mrs Mason were sitting in front of the tv, I think still in their bathrobes, in shock. That's how I found out. I remember the news clips that morning showing Mankiewicz aging a hundred years overnight...


All I ask is that you rethink Bill Clinton's place in your litany of deplorables. Aside from being persecuted for doing what every single one of his persecutors was doing at the time (cheating on his wife) he did the best he could with what he had to work with. I remember that vividly as well, as should we all.

[ehrnst]

22. Why the crack about Bill Clinton? Why lump him in with Vietnam?

That's like that hateful "Irena Sendler was a great humanitarian, and she deserved the Nobel Prize way more than Obama or Gore." Facebook meme that was going around.

If you admire RFK, then you have to hate Bill Clinton and the "centrist" DLC in equal measure, I suppose.

[murielm99]

23. I went to a JFK dinner in Northern Illinois

on Thursday night. We have a large number of Democrats running for governor. Given the failure of our unpopular repiggie governor, I think a strong Democrat can take back that office. Rauner the ruiner thinks he can buy the office again, but I doubt it.

Chris Kennedy is one of the candidates. He could not be there, so he sent his son to speak for him. That young man is a Kennedy all right. He has the look and charm of his grandfather RFK.

[Chasstev365]

31. His father, not grandfather

[murielm99]

33. Chris Kennedy, the candidate is RFK's son.

He could not be there to speak so he sent HIS son to speak on his behalf. Chris Kennedy's son is RFK's grandson. I said that already in my post.

[Chasstev365]

36. My fault: sorry!

[ProudMNDemocrat]

25. I was a 16 year old High School student when......

I saw and heard Bobby Kennedy give a speech in St. James Park, downtown San Jose, California the day before he was shot dead. It was as if a family member had died.

My then Social Studies teacher and High School counselor, Mr. Connelly, was the Treasurer of the Santa Clara County Democratic Party then and a Kennedy backer since 1960. He took a handful of his best students to see and hear the Senator from New York. I will always remember that day as the day I became a Democrat.

[mountain grammy]

26. Pretty much why he had to die

because, corporations, and the business of America is business.. sad.

[nolabear]

27. I had the first of only two eerie dreams I've ever had regarding this.

I was a kid, thirteen years old, living after my mother's death with my grandparents. There was a news anchor named Frank Reynolds. I simply dreamed he was sitting at his anchor desk and said with an enormous sigh, "Senator Robert Francis Kennedy...is dead." I jerked awake, turned on the TV, and it was fact.

I also had a friend whose mother was there in the audience to whom he gave his speech before he went to the kitchen. They apparently had to stay there for a very long time, in shock, while the police tried to figure out if it was anyone but Sirhan.

[Different Drummer]

28. ...

[Awsi Dooger]

30. I was in 3rd grade

My world was basic and happy before June 5th. As soon as I saw the header on this thread I knew immediately what it meant. It was heading toward the end of the school year and I was very enthused every day because I was in a split 3rd/4th class yet was doing great every day during recess in a game called Flyers Up. One person kicked the ball -- size of a soccer ball but much softer -- and there was a mad scramble to catch it from maybe 20 yards away. I was beating the 4th graders every day and earning praise from them. I hated for the session to end every day.

My father and I visited my grandmother one night and we ate at Huddle House down the street. We sat at the counter and my dad had a long conversation with the guy next to us, about that night's California primary and specifically Robert Kennedy's chances. I knew my dad knew a ton about politics but that only enforced it. I could only listen.

The next morning I turned on the TV to watch my typical kids shows before school. Instead there was a very strange sight -- a man standing atop a white van and shouting into a megaphone. I listened briefly before learning what had happened -- RFK had been shot.

I went into my parents' room and woke them up with the news. My father started screaming something about it being a joke. I somberly insisted it was not a joke. My dad dashed out of bed into the Florida room to watch TV.

I remember attending school amidst mostly silence, and numbed teachers with sad faces. Most kids were carrying on normally but I was not. We had some hope RFK would survive but I remember talking with friends that RFK wouldn't be able to run for president anymore if he did survive, and would probably have brain damage. Then a day later we received the news about his death.

My dad immediately grabbed all my fake guns from my toy box and threw them away. Anything resembling a gun.

For some reason I remember that RFK posthumously won the next primary. Illinois maybe? Somehow I was pleased.

[Chasstev365]

32. Thanks to the many of you who shared your personal stories and a note about Bill Clinton

I NEVER said I hated Bill Clinton. I just think NAFTA, deregulating the telecommunication industry, and the repeal of Glass Steigal were Republican ideas supported by a Democratic president and they all had bad consequences for the USA.

I doubt very much that RFK, JFK, LBJ, HHH, Harry Truman, or FDR would gone along with these awful laws.

[Lifelong Protester]

34. I miss him.

[GReedDiamond]

35. I still have my RFK Peace Sign Button from 1968...

Sorry about the blurry pic.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

37. K&R nt

[niyad]

38. how different our world would look now.