Democrats holding their quadrennial convention in Chicago have nominated a candidate who did not run in the primaries, as protests against a divisive war fill the streets.

In those ways, the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris this week echoes the contentious 1968 convention in the same city, an event that split the Democratic Party and ultimately led to Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s loss in November to Richard M. Nixon.

Roll Call covered that 1968 convention, including the violence inside and outside the hall and the political maneuvering that delivered Humphrey the nomination. That coverage illustrates how the party has changed, and the role the unpredictable has to play in politics.

Staffing the convention 56 years ago was a young Nina Totenberg, now a longtime reporter covering the Supreme Court for NPR.

“It was pretty lawless both on the convention floor and outside of the convention hall,” Totenberg said in an interview this week.

But that lawlessness wasn’t something the Capitol Hill newspaper had predicted. Coverage leading up to the convention focused on fights over delegate credentials, many of which originated in accusations of lack of representation for Black and Hispanic voters. Those disputes became proxy fights for supporters of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who opposed the war in Vietnam, and Humphrey, who did not.

“By forcing the convention to take roll call votes [on credentials] before the presidential nominations, the McCarthy forces hope to divide the delegates and win support for the Senator’s cause,” Roll Call reported on Aug. 22, 1968.

‘I got hit on the head’

Totenberg also couldn’t have anticipated the violent clashes between police and anti-war protesters, though she said she was worried about her younger sister who was also in Chicago, and opposed the war.

When covering the protests, Totenberg tried to dress in a way to distinguish herself from protesters, but it didn’t always help.

“I got hit on the head when I was outside — wearing high heels, looking my most professional. Fortunately I had a bun on the top of my head,” she said.

Coverage in the leadup to the convention also focused on how the party platform would talk about the war in Vietnam. Totenberg reported that most members of Congress had worked to stay off the platform committee for fear of controversy.

Today, the party platform is, as Totenberg put it, a “fait accompli.” The Democratic Party has learned the cost of messy floor fights, both on the issues and on choosing a candidate.

This week’s made-for-TV event, with music for each state’s roll call vote selected by an on-stage DJ and with an actor and an NBA coach delivering speeches along with political leaders and “everyday people,” seeks to present a united party that’s celebrating its nominee. 

Abolish conventions?

In 1968, there were questions about the utility and representation of the party conventions and Roll Call even polled a handful of officials about whether they should be abolished.

Paul A. Theis, public relations director for the Republican Congressional Committee, said that the convention process needed reform but has proven effective.

“Of the alternatives proposed, the one that makes the most sense is the national primary — but it, too, has its drawbacks. One is cost. A presidential contender would have to conduct two costly nationwide campaigns — one to win the primary and one the general election,” Theis said. 

Edna Judge, executive secretary for Sen. Carl Hayden, R-Ariz., also cited the time and cost of a primary process as a drawback, considering the public wants to reduce the time presidential campaigns take.

“A candidate would be required to have his war chest filled and his organization ready as early as January of the election year,” she said.

After the convention and the riots outside, Roll Call’s coverage carried a tone of shock and grief. One columnist argued with the characterization of protesters as children. The paper’s editor and publisher, Sid Yudain, argued with himself in print over what kind of editorial could possibly be appropriate in the wake of the violence.

“If I listen to the anti-police, I’ll have to compare Chicago to the Hungarian uprising,” Yudain wrote. “If I listen to the other side, I’ll have to compare the protesters with filth-drenched Commies trying to take over by force and violence.”

More control for voters

In the end, 1968 marked not just the last floor fight over a presidential nominee, but the last candidate truly chosen at a convention at all. The current system, suggested by the 1971 McGovern-Fraser Commission in part because of the intra-party drag-out fight between Humphrey and McCarthy, has for 48 years given more voice to voters through state primaries.

In 2024, that streak became more complicated. For months, every expectation was that President Joe Biden would run for, and win, his party’s nod. When he dropped out of the race last month, his party was quick to coalesce around Harris, perhaps remembering what the a drawn-out fight can do.

Totenberg pointed to the 1968 nominating fight, as well as violence between police and anti-war protesters, as damaging. She said that protests against the war in Gaza this year don’t represent the same fundamental divide seen in 1968.

“The protest is a policy protest, and that is, it’s a very significant thing to have a policy protest,” she said. “But it’s not the same thing as an intra-party political fight over who you want to be president. It’s different.”

She also suggested that attempts to avoid those kinds of fights, and to move power away from men in “smoke-filled rooms” through a primary system may have given rise to Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump.

“I can’t imagine a Trump of 2016 candidate emerging at a political convention in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, or even ’70s because it was a political process, but it was a far more insider political process…” she said. “To have an outsider come in and sweep to victory like that is a fairly new phenomenon.”