Election Night 1968 CBS News Part 1
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- Опубликовано: 12 фев 2012
- Here is the first part of the election coverage from CBS. This is in Black and White of course, and don't complain about it, we are lucky this is around! They follow in a more slower pace than the NBC coverage I have, and it's interesting to see the differences. Cronkite is the lead anchor of course and the same crew from 1972 is in this coverage as well. Theodore White's in this coverage as well, but is not as involved as he was in the 1976 coverage I also have uploaded.
There are commercials with this set of coverage unlike my NBC coverage. There are also some local breaks as well. I hope to have the first part of the NBC coverage done tonight or tomorrow.
It's great to be able to travel back in time to see things like this. Having the original commercials included makes it an even better experience. Thanks for posting!
I was 18, watching the returns in our standing-room-only college dorm TV room. We were trying to be civil with each other, but the real resentment was that we had to be 21 to vote! We couldn't legally buy beer but could be sent to Vietnam, but not vote! I have NO sympathy whatever with 18-year-olds who NOW can't be bothered to go vote.
Thank you for putting this up. Fantastic!
This was an aircheck made by the Vanderbilt University TV News Archives, which in 1968, could only record in black-and-white.
The CBS 1968 Election Night coverage, as was the case with NBC and ABC, was originally broadcast in color.
Considering that my family didn't get our first color TV set until 1979, black & white is exactly how my parents would've watched this (not sure which network they did watch as I was only three weeks old by this point 👶).
This is fascinating! I love history!
Just in case anyone is curious, the walls are blue, Walter's desk is brown and the screen behind him is green when not being used. Curiously enough, the walls were still orange two days before this and on the monday between Walter was back at the regular Evening News desk. Painting in progress I suppose.
This miserable night was anticlimactic.
All three candidates were horrible. The best candidates were gone: Bobby Kennedy was killed and Gene McCarthy lost the nomination to Hubert "Dump the Hump" Humphrey because LBJ's camp selected 65 percent of the delegates, even though 80 percent of the primary vote went for the anti-war candidates, Bobby and Gene.
I read White's books in grad school and did a literature review on the '68 and '72 elections. This is great stuff.
no thanks are necessary. thank you for the videos. keep them coming.
The first presidential election I remember. I was 6 years old. My dad and I watched it in suburban Chicago. It was a happy night; he voted for Nixon and hated both Wallace and Humphrey.
Didn't Nixon prolong the Vietnam war for electoral gain?
Yes I do, I hope to get to it eventually.
Not yet, I'm debating on putting it up next or doing the NBC coverage and waiting until the end.
Have you been able to get the earlier 30 minutes I sent you set up? Joe Benti's outline of the Vote Count vs Vote Estimate system is VERY neat, esp if you want to draw comparisons with 2000.
@marksteveb Well I am glad to hear you still won that contest! CBS was in to big of a rush in 1968, I guess they had not adopted the cautious pick strategy they use now. I don't guess you watched ABC's coverage did you?
@marksteveb There will be, I just have been busy as this is my off day from College during the week. Don't worry, there is more coming!
I got a question. This set was pretty different than previous sets they used. Are the cameras enclosed in plastic covers to shield the lighting out because the tote boards are so high?
do you have this in color its great to look back in time what it was like back then
Tim Babcock:
I think the bubbles covering the studio were as much for aesthetics as to prevent glare from studio lights from entering the camera lenses.
I remember seeing this live. The bubbles were installed to hide the cameras. Viewers started to call in asking about the purpose of the bubbles. Walter Cronkite had to explain to the viewers that the purpose of the bubbles was to hide the cameras. The bubbles defeated the whole purpose. Today it wouldn't even be an issue.
I have the earlier 5:30-6:00 CST portion of the CBS coverage, do you have that?
no abc upstairs because my father was big for hhh, and downstairs, and i'll date myself here, the t.v. reception on channel 7, wkbw, the abc affiliate was very very bad. still got the map.
Look at Dan Rather how young he was. He was a pretty cool dude back in the day.
any further videos today. not being pushy, just asking, although i would be very happy if there were.
Notably, this is the last election in which a 3rd-party candidate actually won electoral votes.
@efan2011 I'll see what I can do about uploading it, it is what Vanderbilt has listed as the "Evening News" for that day but it is really the 2nd half hour of CBS eleciton coverage, live reports from the Vice-Presidential HQs and an explination of how the returns are being made by Joe Benti. Also, another WLAC local update. The next half hour would have been WLAC's local coverage but that was not taped.
It was considered to be a mortal sin to show cameras back then so they put the cameras in those space age looking bubbles. People started calling in and asked what those bubbles were for. Walter Cronkite had to explain that the cameras were in there. It defeated the whole purpose.
"the American voter is terrified of throwing his vote away" - after I voted that nite, I came home and ate cereal and crashed hard
Stuart Metz was the opening announcer.
@marksteveb Oh okay! Thanks
@Radar19792006 Nope, I wish I did. The Vanderbilt Archive is very random at recording things.
Most of Indiana's sample precincts must have been in Gary.
@buckspa Unfortunately your right. They call my home state later on in the night way off and with Humphrey in second place, he finished in third at the end of the count.
CBS was competing with NBC for the ratings. NBC was way faster and a lot more accurate in the estimate of the vote. I have not seen ABC's coverage yet so I don't know about their methods.
my family was addicted to cbs and i remember very well the indiana nonsense. i was involved in a junior high contest and indiana was a key to my prediction. so, i moved my viewing to the basement while building revelle gemini space capsule model, I calmed-down listening to huntley-brinkley. don't mean to bore you, but but it brings back memories. by the way, nixon won the presidency and i won the contest. Nixon got impeached, i taught school, and we both were left
emotional wrecks.
in reviewing this, i noted a news reporter observed nixon was pale and isolated. they were not trying to resurrect memories of nixon's appearence during the 1960 debate, were they???
i remember that ground sirloin report, and my father, a rabbid democrat, said nixon must be nervous and was trying to avoid nausea, but he put it a little more crudely. it was no surprise he loved the cbs coverage.
It's interesting that there is little talk of "swing" states vs. non-swing states.
Most states seem to be considered up for grabs.
(I wonder when the red/blue stuff started...)
was only 6mos old!
i was only 6mos old :(
Was this a mistake? 16:28
Cronkite: "Humphrey with a substantial lead in Vermont."
Final VT total:
Richard Nixon: 53%
Hubert Humphrey: 44%
George Wallace: 3%
I am finding this VERY interesting to watch. I am feeling huge bias toward the Democrats in this coverage.
Jacob Todd It's possible that the early returns from Vermont were from Democratic strongholds there, hence the early substantial Humphrey lead.
The whole Indiana vote is interesting...at 6:35pm...CBS has Nixon in trouble in Indiana and maybe the whole Midwest but by 7:15pm, NBC calls Indiana for Nixon.......quite a difference
That crisis commercial is creepy.
@Radar19792006 If you want to you can, or I can pay you for a DVD copy if I can get the money. Let me know in a PM! Thanks!
Do you happen to have or can get the 1968 DNC and RNC conventions all 4 days
If Wallace does not get in the race, Nixon would have won comfortable in the '68 General Elections. However with Wallace winning a couple of what is not solid Red states for the GOP in the Deep South, it opened the door for Humphrey. Thus Wallace's plan to deadlock the 2 main candidates here in not getting enough electoral college votes and force this race to a final vote by the US House of Reps aka Congress almost worked. This would indeed one of the closest presidential races of all time and possibly having Humphrey pull off a Truman type upset. Especially after the riots and fiasco at the DNC in Chicago all but assured Nixon would win the election at the start of the general election campaign in late summer.
The states that Wallace won leaned Democrat historically at the time
Crazy to think how even for the shortest period of time, George Wallace, a THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE was in the lead. Yes, he was a horrible racist. But he has done something that was and still is unheard of and almost impossible to do. And that was lead at one point. And that does deserve SOME recognition
And yes, I am talking Electoral College.
Their sample precincts were way off - Nixon won Indiana 50%-38%.
third parties can win states
Wallace was running on a literal Segregation platform
I can't see it now on November 8th. Hillary Clinton is Hubert Humphrey, Donald Trump is Richard Nixon and Gary Johnson is George Wallace. And boy that will be a thrill. #Trump2016
Only Gary Johnson won't do nearly as well as Wallace did.
Don't you mean can and not can't?
Great win by Nixon
It was an amazing political comeback on the part of a guy that kept counter punching. I detested Nixon, but do give him props for having a good geopolitical sense and for a never-give-up philosophy. His personal life was haunted and it scarred him. I have compassion for him, however, he became a deluded paranoid man, and was extremely devious. Read former defense secretary Clark Clifford's assessment of him in "Counsel to the President".
Who I would've voted
1788-1792 George Washington
1796-1804 Thomas Jefferson
1808-1812 James Madison
1816-1820 James Monroe
1824 Henry Clay
1828 John Quincy Adams
1832 Henry Clay
1836 William Henry Harrison/Hugh Lawson White (Whichever Whig they ran in KY)
1840 William Henry Harrison
1844 Henry Clay
1848 Zachary Taylor
1852 Winfield Scott
1856 John C. Frémont
1860-1864 Abraham Lincoln
1868-1872 Ulysses S. Grant
1876 Samuel Tilden
1880 James Garfield
1884-1892 Grover Cleveland
1896-1900 William McKinley
1904 Theodore Roosevelt
1908-1912 William Howard Taft
1916 Charles Evans Hughes
1920 Warren G. Harding
1924 Calvin Coolidge
1928 Herbert Hoover
1932-1944 Stay home
1948 Harry Truman
1952-1956 Dwight Eisenhower
1960 Richard Nixon
1964 Barry Goldwater
1968-1972 Richard Nixon
1976 Ronald Reagan (write-in)
1980-1984 Ronald Reagan
1988-1992 George H. W. Bush
1996 Bob Dole
2000-2004 George W. Bush
2008 Stay home
2012 Mitt Romney
2016 Donald Trump