Senator Robert F. Kennedy would have been the Democratic
presidential nominee in 1968 had he not been killed in June of
that year. Possible, but not very likely. The differences in the
nominating processes of 1968 and the present are substantial and
owe a lot to what happened inside the convention hall in 1968.
Even as RFK won the California primary and declared his
intention to secure the nomination in Chicago, Vice-president
Hubert H. Humphrey had commitments for about 1,000 of the 1,312
votes needed for the nomination, while RFK had garnered only
about 700. Neither RFK nor his rival peace candidate Senator
Eugene McCarthy could win the nomination on the first ballot;
Humphrey would have had at least a plurality of first ballot
delegates. Ultimately, the contest between Kennedy and McCarthy
in 1968 would have come down to which candidate was in a
stronger position to claim the peace vote after the first ballot
was cast. No political convention had gone to a second ballot to
select the presidential nominee s