History Pop Quiz. True or false.

The 2008 nomination contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is unprecedented in its length and ferocity. We have never had a race go this far into March before.

The above statements are positively erroneous. This is what happens when we turn history over to journalists and partisans.

Not so long ago.

A review of some recent political history:

Remember Bobby Kennedy's final public utterance before tragically falling to an assassin's bullet back in 1968?

"It's on to Chicago and let's win there."

Where was he? What was in Chicago? What was the date?

RFK spoke from a ballroom in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, celebrating a crucial victory in the just-concluded California primary, emerging with momentum in the midst of a tight three-way race for his party's nomination. He was alluding to the convention in Chicago (to be held later that year in August).

The Date?

Kennedy addressed his temporarily ecstatic supporters in the wee hours of June 5, 1968.

JUNE 5!!!

When was the last time a nomination campaign raged into June?

1976.

Eventual Democratic nominee and eventual general election winner, Jimmy Carter, faced fierce competition from serious (albeit late-entering) candidates Frank Church and Jerry Brown during May and June.

For the Republicans that year, incumbent president Jerry Ford did not secure his nomination until the GOP National Convention in Kansas City in AUGUST.

Were the above examples merely aberrations? Throughout the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, candidates fought tenaciously to secure their party's nominations, more often than not hammering away at one another during the dog days of August.

This idea that contested races for nomination are without precedent is convincing only as long as your grasp of history does not extend past last week.

A better question: is extended and vicious intra-party squabbling a precursor to disaster in the fall?

Short Answer: oftentimes--but not always. More on that in our next session...