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In 1839, Marcus Morton was elected Governor of Massachusetts by one vote out of 102,066. In the 1916 presidential election, Charles Evans Hughes seemed a certain winner until returns from California two days later gave Woodrow Wilson the state by some 4,000 votes out of the nearly 1,000,000 cast. Less than one vote per precinct could have swung the election to Hughes. In 1960, John Kennedy beat Nixon by only 112,803 popular votes out of 68.8 million. Less than one vote per precinct would have given Nixon a popular victory.
The 1968 election now promises to be extremely close in many states with sizable electoral votes, including Massachusetts (14), Michigan (21), Minnesota (10), Ohio (26), Pennsylvania (29) and Texas (25). The candidate who wins any of those states by only one popular vote will take all of the state's electoral votes in the Electoral College, where a 270-vote majority will make him President. As Wallace keeps telling his supporters: "All we need is a popular plurality in this state—34%."
For all its symbolism, a U.S. presidential election is not a contest between good and evil, a referendum on war, or a race between philosopher-kings that dissidents can safely ignore because party leaders have rejected the loftiest candidates. Viewing the election in such terms is no more realistic than the dreams of McCarthyites who expect to take over the Democratic Party after Humphrey loses. That hope is likely to be foiled by party professionals who, unlike the McCarthy amateurs, work at politics full time; much the same happened on the Republican side, when the pros shut out the Rockefeller forces who refused to support Goldwater in 1964. Equally unrealistic is the dissident-Democrat hope that a President Nixon could easily be defeated for reelection in 1972.
The fact is that Americans are rarely presented with ideal presidential candidates. The very nature of party politics dictates compromise candidates, and the voter can do no more—or less-than to choose at the time he is given a choice. Perhaps unfairly, many voters regard the alternatives in 1968 as a choice between the lesser of two (or three) evils. Even so, making a choice is imperative; obviously if one rejects a lesser evil, the greater may prevail. Thus the nonvoter is morally just as responsible for the result as if he had voted for the candidate he abhors. Edmund Burke put it well: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Actually, the voter's dilemma tends to be exaggerated by the current hunger for a presidential hero, an exciting idealist (or at least simplifier), who could strip down the era's complexities and articulate a national vision. What frustrated voters may overlook is the fact that great Presidents have generally been more pragmatic than idealistic. Lincoln stayed aloof from the moral absolutes of the abolitionists—and he, not they, abolished slavery. In this sense, an undecided voter might well focus on the candidate who seems most capable of putting together a viable political coalition, working with Congress, mobilizing interest groups and making the country move.