Denver 2008 = Chicago 1968?

Mike Tippitt suggests that this year's Democratic convention in Denver might be a replay of the infamous Chicago 1968 convention, when anti-war protesters clashed with police.

I don't think so, mainly because the parallels don't work. In 1968, you had a Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson, who was chiefly responsible for "escalating" the war in Vietnam. LBJ's vice-president, Hubert Humphrey, had become the Democratic presidential nominee almost by accident. The early anti-war candidate, Eugene McCarthy, had faded after Robert F. Kennedy jumped into the race. Then RFK had been assassinated, leaving the pro-war candidate Humphrey to claim the nomination despite a strong anti-war presence among the delegates.

None of those political conditions is duplicated for the Democrats who will gather at Denver this year. Most importantly, there is no military draft, which was the basic factor that made the anti-war movement of the 1960s as strong as it was.

Finally, the protests at Chicago turned violent because of a hard core of SDS/Yippie radicals who actively provoked confrontations with police. Today's protesters don't have the numbers, don't have the leadership, and don't have the discipline necessary to pull off anything remotely like what happened in 1968.

I've seen these latter-day protesters in DC at anti-globalization rallies in 1999-2000 and at anti-war demonstrations held regularly since 2001. The protesters come in two varieties: Over-the-hill hippies out for a little nostalgia, and spineless young punks.

These young protest punks do a lot of radical yapping, but they really don't mean anything. They're not about to actually get into a face-to-face showdown with the cops. They might turn over some mailboxes or break a few windows, but as soon as the cops show up, the punks run like scared little girls.

So even if a bunch of protesters show up in Denver, there's no chance of a really serious clash between the protesters and the cops, and thus no chance of Chicago-style mayhem.