1968 United States Presidential Election (Empire of Liberty)

The 1968 United States Presidential Election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election in the United States, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. In a major electoral upset, the Federalist ticket of General Augusto Pinochet defeated the Bucktail ticket of incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey in a three-way-race also challenged by third party candidate Eugene McCarthy.

Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson was initially seen as the front-runner in the Bucktail primaries, but he eventually withdrew from the race. John F. Kennedy, the Bucktail nominee in 1960, was also considered, but he declined to run due to his fight with Addison's Disease. His brother, Robert, was also an early front runner until his assassination, leaving Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy as front-runners. Humphrey edged out McCarthy, who was against the Vietnam War, causing McCarthy to defect from the Bucktails and raise the "Progressive Party" banner once more in a run to Humphrey's left.

In the Federalist primaries the main front-runners were Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Vice President under Richard Nixon. However, neither the liberal Rockefeller or moderate Lodge attracted support from the party's conservative wing, which had been energized by the Presidency of Douglas MacArthur and Barry Goldwater's failed run in 1964. Instead, conservatives gravitated towards Governor Ronald Reagan of California and General Augusto Pinochet from Illinois. Reagan himself eventually dropped out in support of Pinochet, who overtook the deadlocked convention to his own surprise.

Pinochet, a staunch anti-communist, planned to continue the "Southern Strategy" that MacArthur and Goldwater had started, and made a deal with George Wallace and other disaffected southern Bucktails who opposed Humphrey's liberalism. To the shock of the convention, Pinochet gained their support, and eventually chose Wallace as his running mate.

The race was widely characterized by race riots in many cities, as Humphrey and McCarthy both attacked Pinochet as an extremist while also fighting each other. Pinochet campaigned on law and order and attacked Johnson's Great Society programs as wasteful. He lambasted communist sympathizers and hippies, with Wallace being used extensively as an attack dog. He also attacked Humphrey as a weakling and McCarthy as a communist, bringing Senator Joseph McCarthy himself from retirement to attack the other McCarthy (no relation).

On election day, Pinochet won in a landslide, not harmed by the significant vote splitting betwixt Humphrey and McCarthy. He took 40 states and won a majority in the popular vote, and swept the south. Pinochet took office as the first Hispanic President and first President of Spanish descent.