Fault Lines - Memories of Robert Kennedy

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POSTED May 8, 11:13 PM

As the grueling campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton grinds toward summer, the contest harkens back to another epic fight for the White House — a battle that took place in California.

It was exactly 40 years ago when Robert Kennedy made a late entrance into the presidential race, with the pivotal fight focused on the nation’s most populous state.
Kennedy faced off against two other senators, establishment candidate Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy, who vied for the anti-war vote against the former attorney general.

And if you think the rival camps were splitting Democrats now, you should have seen officials in California and particularly San Francisco back when the Vietnam War was raging.

California was like a Democratic jigsaw puzzle. Gov. Pat Brown was solidly in the Humphrey camp, as was San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto. McCarthy’s support was largely among college students and in the suburbs, and he marched into California after winning the Oregon primary. Kennedy had the backing of Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh, who helped the young senator tap numerous local Democrats to stage events and gather endorsements (which he got from George Moscone and supervisors such as Jack Ertola).

Kennedy’s campaign was more like a barnstorming tour here, with daily rallies at whistle-stops between San Francisco and Los Angeles. I remember going to one event at the shopping center formerly known as Gets on Sloat Boulevard (now Lakeshore Plaza) where Kennedy, at his mesmerizing best, attracted the largest gathering I had ever seen outside of a concert in Golden Gate Park.

Retired lawyer Joe Kelly said Unruh asked him and Ertola, both University of San Francisco graduates, if he could get the school to let Kennedy speak there after it originally turned him down.

“We went to talk to [USF President] Fr. Charles Dullea and we got permission,” Kelly said. “Kennedy gave one hell of a speech. It was a lot of fun.”

It all ended tragically when Kennedy was shot to death on election night in Los Angeles after winning California’s winner-take-all primary. His presidential run is the subject of at least two forthcoming books, one of which is excerpted in the current issue of Vanity Fair.

It’s worth a look, if only for the great photo of Kennedy and his wife riding on the trunk (literally) of a convertible in North Beach — the days of lost innocence.

This was the scene at KGO-TV station in San Francisco as Sen. Eugene McCarthy, fourth from left, and Robert Kennedy, second from right, were readied for their presidential debate on June 1, 1968.
(AP file photo)