Hubert Horatio Humphrey (1911-1992)
39th President of the United States (1977-1981)
Timeline: The Happy Warrior Returns
As soon as Hubert Humphrey received the news that he was cancer-free, he knew: he was running for President in 1976. When he announced in September 1975, the field was already full of liberals, but luckily for Humphrey, many were willing to coalesce around him. Mo Udall, Fred Harris, and Birch Bayh all endorsed Humphrey quickly. When the Iowa caucuses rolled around, the charismatic Humphrey, representing the more-or-less united liberal wing of the party, easily defeated Jimmy Carter. After a big win in New Hampshire for Humphrey, Carter was no longer seen as a viable candidate.
The Massachusetts primary was next. Humphrey won easily, while George Wallace finished a surprising second, with Scoop Jackson third. Though Wallace won Florida, Humphrey continued winning, importantly in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, at which point Jackson finally dropped out of the race. The Democratic nomination was his for the second time. Unlike eight years before, though, the convention was relatively without drama. Humphrey had been the clear victor, and the convention would be much more his coronation.
On the Republican side, things would not be so easy. Ronald Reagan's insurgent campaign received lots of support - and not just from the Goldwater-ites. Reagan's anti-Washington, "outsider" image resonated with many, as did his line about "Washington insiders like President Ford and Senator Humphrey". This got him narrow wins in the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary, along with the Florida and North Carolina primaries. Ford, the incumbent, did pull out wins in Massachusetts and Illinois. A lot depended on Wisconsin. On the night of the primary, none were sure who had won. Finally, the next morning, it became clear that Ford had won by just 4000 votes.
Reagan, however, was far from defeated. If anything, he had the upper hand. He went on to win (and fairly big, too) in four Southern and Midwestern primaries. Ford came back to win Maryland and his home state of Michigan, but Kentucky, Tennessee, and Oregon went narrowly to Reagan. Ohio was the last primary. If Reagan won, he would have the nomination locked up. If Ford won, there would be a brokered convention, though Reagan would easily have the upper hand. Both campaigns poured in resources. Reagan couldn't quite do it though - Ford won narrowly. The election would go to the convention.
Gerald Ford was not at all confident coming in - probably the right attitude, considering that if just 15 delegates switched to Reagan, he would lose the nomination. To help himself out, he called Howard Baker, who he thought was his ally, and asked him to place his own name in nomination at the convention, to hopefully split the Reagan vote. Baker was outraged, and the next day, he used his speaking time to reveal this. This was enough to give Reagan the nomination. For his running mate, Reagan chose Kansas Senator Bob Dole, which caused an outcry among Northern and Mid-Atlantic moderates who would have liked to see one of their own on the ticket.
Humphrey knew fairly early what type of person he wanted for his running mate - a Southerner, but not a very right-wing one. He wanted someone in the Terry Sanford mold (Sanford himself was considered and rejected as too progressive). The two main candidates ended up being Reubin Askew of Florida and Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. Though Bumpers was considered a worthy candidate, his relative lack of experience nationally meant that Askew was picked. The tickets were set: Humphrey/Askew against Reagan/Dole.
Though the general election campaign was brutal, Humphrey excelled in the debates and consistently polled ahead of Reagan. Though Humphrey was the "insider" - and really, who more deserved that label than Hubert Humphrey? - he had always appeared a man of integrity. Based on rumblings that Humphrey might win some Southern states, including Texas, Reagan stepped up his campaigning there - which unfortunately for him led to the airing of some of his views that were less in favor of racial equality. Though his opposition to busing and to the Fair Housing Act helped him in the deep South, it was anathema to much of the rest of the country. The Humphrey campaign didn't even really have to do much - Reagan was saying it himself. In truth, Humphrey never had much of a chance at the deep South (with the exceptions of Arkansas and Florida), but there is no doubt that the possibility that he did was one of the biggest factors in his win.
Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN)/Governor Reubin Askew (D-FL) - 358 EV, 51.2% PV
Fmr. Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA)/Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) - 180 EV, 46.3% PV
As a President, Humphrey's main successes were in the area of domestic policy. The first bill he signed was the Elected Officials Ethics Act (EOEA), which included both lobbying reform - members of Congress were not allowed to receive gifts worth greater than $20, or become lobbyists for four years after their tenure in elected office ended - and campaign finance reform - federal matching funds for Congressional candidates who took smaller donations and more stringent donation limits. It was passed with its sister bill, the Executive Branch Ethics Act (EBEA), which did the same with regards to gifts, but applied to members of the executive.
The first major initiative after this was labor law reform. The unoriginally-named Labor Law Reform Act repealed section 14(b) of Taft-Hartley, banned permanent replacement of strikers, gave collective bargaining rights to public sector employees, repealed the parts of Taft-Hartley and Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act dealing with secondary boycotts, and allowed a workplace to unionize if enough members signed cards that were given to the NLRB. The LLRA is considered the main force behind increasing union membership in the late 20th century, and is still the bane of Republicans. Humphrey also signed the OSHA Amendments Act, which gave the Occupational Safety and Health Administration more actual power to impose penalties.
The other big Humphrey administration achievement of the first two years was the passage of the Full Employment Act, which, while not providing truly full employment, did employ many in public works programs, and had provisions to do so whenever there was high unemployment. All these things were denounced by Republicans as radical, but ordinary Americans were already beginning to see positive change in the economy. In the midterms, the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress were increased, though not by much.
Humphrey began 1979 with tax reform. A more progressive tax system that benefited the working class more was the main goal. The Tax Reform Act cut income taxes for the poor, and made up for the revenue loss by massively cutting loopholes and deductions for corporations and the rich. The bill also diminished the role of property tax in public school funding, so that richer neighborhoods couldn't get vastly better schools by virtue of being richer.
The other major domestic policy achievements of the Humphrey administration had to do with energy and the environment, and transportation. Humphrey protected a lot of wildlife from hunting and fishing, along with protecting land reserves, and greatly increased spending on renewable energy sources. He also invested in research into new energy sources and made a "Superfund" to clean up sites with great environmental devastation. Humphrey also recognized the role of public transportation in stopping pollution, and gave grants to cities looking to expand subways and bus lines. He also drew up plans for a nationwide high-speed rail program, which were implemented by his successor.
Though he was very successful on domestic policy, the Humphrey administration is considered mediocre on foreign policy. Humphrey's biggest achievement was the signing and ratification of the SALT II nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 1978, laying the foundation for actual weapon reduction and disarmament. On other issues, he did not do so well. Public pressure mounted for the President to host some kind of negotiations to address the Israeli-Arab conflict, and, while the President was able to get Menachem Begin and Yassir Arafat to sit down together at Camp David, talks fell through when Humphrey left to meet with members of Congress a day into the negotiations, leaving Jimmy Carter, who'd joined the administration as an adviser on the issue, to conduct them. Though both Arafat and Begin were impressed with Carter, they were also insulted that Humphrey apparently didn't want to spend time meeting with them, and left.
Humphrey also kept to a policy of containment regarding the Soviet Union, though he did also criticize traditionally US-backed governments if he thought they were committing human rights abuses. He also helped to move along normalization of relations with China. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, though he put in place embargoes on weapons and grain, he committed no troops. However, he did commit to arming the Mujahideen, giving significant amounts of both weapons and money, to fight off the Soviets.
In 1979, the Shah of Iran asked to be admitted to the United States to receive cancer treatment. The Humphrey administration knew that if they let him in, the results would be bad and would hugely increase anti-American sentiment. Officials worked through back channels to try to get another country willing to take him in. When none were willing, a furious debate raged inside the administration over whether to give him treatment or not. Eventually, the side arguing against letting the Shah in won out, and the Shah died in January 1980. This was an incredibly controversial decision to make. The right excoriated the President, who argued that the results of going the other way would have been even worse. He failed to convince the public of this, though, and was seen as letting a key American ally down - and even worse, as heartless. This was very, very bad, especially because this was an election year. Possibly luckily for the Democrats (some of whom had denounced the President's decision as well), Humphrey had already announced that he was not running for reelection.
Historians and political buffs still debate what would have happened if Humphrey had run for reelection. Maybe he would have defeated the Republican nominee on the strength of his economic policy. Maybe the Republicans would have been able to tar him as a radical and he would have lost because of that and because of the controversial decision about the Shah. But Hubert Humphrey declared as early as 1979 that he wasn't running because of his old age. Reubin Askew also declined, and that meant the Presidential election was wide open.
The 1980 Democratic primaries could have been a referendum on Humphrey, but Scoop Jackson made that not the case. Lloyd Bentsen and Ted Kennedy battled it out in a divisive campaign, but Jackson won the nomination by stressing both his moderate credentials and his connections to Humphrey - and the other two had destroyed their images so much that he was the clean one. Jackson picked Birch Bayh as his running mate. On the Republican side, Howard Baker similarly positioned himself well - capable of making deals, and not a Reagan-ite, but someone with connections to Reagan. Baker picked the Pennsylvania moderate Richard Schweiker as his running mate. Baker won the debates, coming across as calm and clear-headed - notably he actually was more positive about Humphrey than Jackson was. On election night, Baker/Schweiker narrowly defeated Jackson/Bayh.
Hubert Humphrey only served for four years as President of the United States. But he did more to transform the country - positively or negatively, depending on who you ask - than almost any other President. Those on the left see him as a later FDR, while those on the right see him as almost a socialist. But even they give him their grudging respect, sometimes even admiration, and recognize that he was one of the most important people of the twentieth century. Even though Hubert Humphrey is dead, his legacy lives on, and continues to shape our country today.
