Ten Years and Change

Michael P. Amram grew up during the Vietnam war and vividly remembers the political atmosphere of the period. The country convulsed repeatedly, spewing out new prototypes for democracy each time. Amid the assassinations and riots, one group challenged the hawkish path that the Johnson-Humphrey administration chose to follow. What the McCarthy Democrats did was quixotically rare in politics. It exemplified how a minority, beginning at the level of local government and working within the political structure, can ultimately affect the course of the federal government. Amram watched the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) dissent from within to support Senator Eugene McCarthy as an anti-war candidate, and watched the political process run its course from local to national levels.