Staring straight at the camera, with a grave expression on his face, the president uttered these famous words: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
Lyndon Johnson made that announcement at the end of his nationally televised address on the Vietnam War on March 31, 1968. Those words now echo loudly, as pundits recall them in the wake of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election.
Like Biden, Johnson was a sitting Democratic president who was eligible for another term. Both men understood the odds against reelection, and both opted out. Their decisions shape their legacies as presidents who compiled impressive records yet failed to sustain their power across a longer span.
As the author of “The Men and the Moment,” a short narrative history of the presidential election of 1968, I have reflected on these parallels, too. But I think we can learn more from the differences in the circumstances of Biden’s and Johnson’s withdrawals. They illustrate the high hurdles that the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, now must clear, while also sounding a note of hope for the Democratic Party.
Staring straight at the camera, with a grave expression on his face, the president uttered these famous words: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
Lyndon Johnson made that announcement at the end of his nationally televised address on the Vietnam War on March 31, 1968. Those words now echo loudly, as pundits recall them in the wake of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election.
Like Biden, Johnson was a sitting Democratic president who was eligible for another term. Both men understood the odds against reelection, and both opted out. Their decisions shape their legacies as presidents who compiled impressive records yet failed to sustain their power across a longer span.
As the author of “The Men and the Moment,” a short narrative history of the presidential election of 1968, I have reflected on these parallels, too. But I think we can learn more from the differences in the circumstances of Biden’s and Johnson’s withdrawals. They illustrate the high hurdles that the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, now must clear, while also sounding a note of hope for the Democratic Party.
President Lyndon Johnson announces on March 31, 1968, that he will not seek reelection.
The Supreme Court has rejected an emergency appeal from Nevada’s Green Party seeking to include presidential candidate Jill Stein on the ballot in the battleground state