1. Am pleased at the strong polling which the Independent candidates for Governor/Lt. Governor are showing. Of course, if the GOP nominee loses, there will be some who will blame the Independent ticket of taking votes who might otherwise have voted GOP.

   For those who love election history, I learned recently through one of Lyndon Johnson’s many tape recordings, that he had encouraged Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to consider the late Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye as his running mate in 1968.

   Johnson was adamant that Inouye, a honored WWII vet would be the best VP Humphrey could pick, rather than Edward Muskie. Humphrey can be heard telling Johnson something to the effect, that the conservative side of Humphrey would not let him do so.

   I believe that Humphrey might have won with Inouye had he selected him. This would have canceled out the appearance that Humphrey was too anti-war, by selecting a WWII hero as Inouye.

   Anyone else have the same or different opinion?

2. There was probably too much prejudice against Asian-Americans back then for LBJ to have been correct. But this is very interesting and thank you for mentioning it.

3. I thought the rub on Humphrey was that he didn’t come out strongly against the war fast enough?

4. Jed:

   I think Lyndon Johnson was one of the smartest politicians alive at his time. Doesn’t mean I agreed with him, but he understood the voters better than anyone.

   Richard seems to think there existed an “Asian-American” bigotry. I never recalled such, though we didn’t have many Asian-Americans in the South – at least where I lived.

   I always thought the problem for Humphrey was he was projected as a liberal anti-war Democrat, and he needed to soften this image to win in the border states if not the Deep South States which both he and Nixon had written off to Wallace.

   Senator Inouye, was a WWII veteran, having lost his right arm in battle, and would have come across as a better war hero than would have General Lemay – Wallace’s running mate.

   Johnson perceived, and I think history would have proved him right, that Inouye would have softened the anti-war liberal image of Humphrey. Instead, Humphrey added another liberal to his ticket, and I believe killed his chances of carrying two or three more states which could have make the difference.

5. U.S. prejudice against Asians was huge. In 1882 Congress passed a law saying no person of Chinese ancestry could ever become a citizen. In 1879 California voters voted for a state constitutional amendment saying no person of Chinese ancestry could ever vote. In 1942 the U.S. government put persons of Japanese ancestry in camps whether they were citizens or not (if they lived in certain states), but did not do that to Germans or Italians.

6. Richard:

   I was referring to bigotry around 1968.

   Yes, from the History classes which I taught as an adjunct, I well remember the prejudice against Asian-Americans during the late 1800’s and of course the signaling out of the Japanese right after Pearl Harbor.

   I realize there was and is a larger percentage of Asian-Americans living in your area of the country than mine. However, I do remember in my home town when I was about 10 years of age, my neighbor’s son who was stationed in the U.S. Army, met and brought home a young lady from South Korea. They were married in our local church, and as I recall, the church was full of well-wishers.

   I don’t recall anyone saying anything negative about this mixed-race marriage. However, had this young lady been from Africa, well…I think we both know what might have happened – or should I say – not happened.

   It is amazing how prejudices exist against one group in one part of the nation, and appears to be non-existent in other parts.

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