1968 Democratic National Convention 
covered by ABC News, August 28, 1968.
"The Vietnam Plank"
The Vietnam War was the issue in 1968. In 1964, LBJ had been elected by saying things like "our boys won't be stuck in a land war in Asia" and had beaten Senator Barry Goldwater in a landslide (64%). However, the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred within 6 months of the election. Supposedly a US Destroyer had been attacked by a Vietnamese gunboat, and there were at least two bullet holes to prove it. This led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed by Congress, which gave the Administration a blank check to put troops into Vietnam in large numbers, to bomb the North, and more. In the Senate, only two votes were cast against the resolution, one of them by Senator Wayne Morse By 1968, 25,000 Americans had been killed, and a country that had largely been 'for the war' because of the fear that Red China or the Soviet Union would dominate Southeast Asia, was beginning to worry when this would end. Since there was an active draft, college age men were beginning to protest the war, using some of the demonstration tactics that had been effectively employed by Rev. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement.
In this speech, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, who would the next day be nominated for Vice President, methodically explained why the "Majority Proposal" for the Vietnam plank (policy) in the Democratic platform was almost the same as the "Minority Proposal". Key differences between the two proposals were:
(a) stop bombing the North or continue bombing to minimize North Vietnam's ability to attack US troops. Muskie refers to Khe Sanh as a key reason why we needed to continue to bomb North Vietnam.
(b) change policy so that the Vietnamese would be able to choose their own government rather than have one dictated by the U.S.
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