Peggy Noonan on the Democrats

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"The war then dragged on for many more years under a Republican president who claimed he had a "secret plan" to end the war."

Doubtful someone could get elected today on that kind of a "platform." In retrospect, in true Orwellian fashion his plan to end the war was an escalation of the carpet bombing of North Vietnam and widening the fronts to incursions into Cambodia and Laos (if memory serves). The 1968 Presidential campaign didn't offer the voters much to choose from. HHH represented the status quo which was horrible; RMN had a plan to end the war but wouldn't tell the electorate which furthered his reputation as "tricky Dick" and third party candidate George Wallace, with Curtis "bombs away" LeMay as his running mate, spouting "We need to quit pussy footin around over there" as if B-52 carpet bombing, napalm, agent orange, etc. was "pussy footin around." Wallace had some other distasteful ideas as well (huge understatement). In the end I guess the voters thought "tricky Dick" was the best alternative or the least reviled one.