Muskie ran one of the \u201cexemplary national campaigns of modern times.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Democrats also were fighting a rearguard action against independent George Wallace of Alabama. Polling at 18 percent, Wallace was courting blue-collar voters with his populist and racist rhetoric.<\/p>\n
The Democratic ticket looked doomed.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/12\/681103-Muskie-Kennedy-Park-181205112819.jpg\")
<\/a>Democratic vice presidential candidate Edmund Muskie ’36 speaks to supporters in Kennedy Park in Lewiston on Nov. 3, 1968, two days before the election. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/p><\/div>\n
But the Democrats closed the gap, with Muskie running one of the \u201cexemplary national campaigns of modern times,\u201d said Muskie scholar Joel Goldstein during the discussion at the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.<\/p>\n
\n\t+<\/span>Panelists for the 1968 Muskie Campaign Event <\/a>\n\t<\/h5><\/p>\nParticipating in the Nov. 29, 2018, panel discussion at the Muskie Archives recalling Edmund S. Muskie’s 1968 vice presidential campaign:<\/p>\n
\n- Jane Fenderson Cabot\u00a0<\/a>was a campaign intern in 1968 and later a Muskie Senate staffer and assistant to Roslyn Carter.<\/li>\n
- Eliot Cutler<\/a> was Muskie’s assistant press secretary during the campaign before embarking on a law career. He ran for Maine governor in 2010 and 2014.<\/li>\n
- Joel Goldstein<\/a> is a scholar of the U.S. vice presidency and the Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law.<\/li>\n
- John Martin<\/a>\u00a0was comptroller for the Muskie campaign and is a longtime member of the Maine Legislature.<\/li>\n
- Charles Micoleau<\/a> was a policy and campaign director for the Democratic State Committee in 1968 and is now a Maine lawyer whose practice focuses on the public sector.<\/li>\n
- Don Nicoll <\/a>managed Muskie’s 1968 campaign and had a long career as a program and policy planner.<\/li>\n
- Harold Pachios<\/a> supervised advance operations for the Muskie campaign and became a prominent Maine attorney and member of the Democratic National Committee<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cHe outperformed not only the other candidates for national office that year but virtually every other national candidate in my lifetime and, I suspect, in most lifetimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are eight takeaways from the panel, which featured former Muskie staffers and confidants\u00a0as well as Goldstein.<\/p>\n
1. On the campaign trail, Muskie was more a preacher, less a debater.<\/h5>\n
Muskie is often framed as a fierce rhetorical combatant. And why not: He was a great debater at Bates and a legend in the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Muskie legend is that he was a great debater who had a superb legal mind. He was and he did,\u201d said Eliot Cutler, an assistant press secretary during the campaign who was on Muskie\u2019s Senate staff for six years. \u201cBut a political campaign is more about the pulpit than the rostrum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Participating in the Nov. 29, 2018, panel discussion at the Muskie Archives recalling Edmund S. Muskie’s 1968 vice presidential campaign:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Jane Fenderson Cabot\u00a0<\/a>was a campaign intern in 1968 and later a Muskie Senate staffer and assistant to Roslyn Carter.<\/li>\n
- Eliot Cutler<\/a> was Muskie’s assistant press secretary during the campaign before embarking on a law career. He ran for Maine governor in 2010 and 2014.<\/li>\n
- Joel Goldstein<\/a> is a scholar of the U.S. vice presidency and the Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law.<\/li>\n
- John Martin<\/a>\u00a0was comptroller for the Muskie campaign and is a longtime member of the Maine Legislature.<\/li>\n
- Charles Micoleau<\/a> was a policy and campaign director for the Democratic State Committee in 1968 and is now a Maine lawyer whose practice focuses on the public sector.<\/li>\n
- Don Nicoll <\/a>managed Muskie’s 1968 campaign and had a long career as a program and policy planner.<\/li>\n
- Harold Pachios<\/a> supervised advance operations for the Muskie campaign and became a prominent Maine attorney and member of the Democratic National Committee<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cHe outperformed not only the other candidates for national office that year but virtually every other national candidate in my lifetime and, I suspect, in most lifetimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are eight takeaways from the panel, which featured former Muskie staffers and confidants\u00a0as well as Goldstein.<\/p>\n
1. On the campaign trail, Muskie was more a preacher, less a debater.<\/h5>\n
Muskie is often framed as a fierce rhetorical combatant. And why not: He was a great debater at Bates and a legend in the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Muskie legend is that he was a great debater who had a superb legal mind. He was and he did,\u201d said Eliot Cutler, an assistant press secretary during the campaign who was on Muskie\u2019s Senate staff for six years. \u201cBut a political campaign is more about the pulpit than the rostrum.\u201d<\/p>\n
- Eliot Cutler<\/a> was Muskie’s assistant press secretary during the campaign before embarking on a law career. He ran for Maine governor in 2010 and 2014.<\/li>\n