Independent for RFK Retro Campaign T-Shirt
By 1967 social turmoil and the mishandling of the Vietnam War were making a second full term for LBJ more and more inoperable for Democrats. Baby boomer students and hard New Left radical elements created a fissure so deep with Souther Democrats, working-class democrats, and the party establishment that it made the internecine division in the Republican party seem quaint. Violence had exploded across the nation. The anti-war protests along with New Left Marxian opportunists strategically embedded in the movement were turning off a growing number of Americans. The country seemed to be spinning out of control and the Democrat party was right at the center of the disarray.The last straw for LBJ was the announcement that Robert Kennedy was running. Within two weeks, a politically savvy President Johnson understood the writing on the wall. After already barely beating Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primaries, he famously announced he would neither seek nor accept the nomination o