HHH: What Manner Of Man

A Presidential campaign ad

"A work of genius."
-Joe McGinniss, author "The 1968 Presidential Campaign"
Directed and produced by Robert Richter

When this biography about Hubert H. Humphrey was telecast in the crucial 1968 campaign for President of the United States, it helped turn the tide, but not quite enough to result in victory, in what became the closest Presidential election in American history, up to that time.

Richter often thought that if he had somehow completed the production a few days sooner--although he worked 7 days a week, 16 or more hours a day, for six straight weeks--it might have helped push Humphrey over the top.
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The film includes riveting scenes of anti-Vietnam war demonstrators and hecklers at Humphrey's speeches, an unusual way to gain voter support for the candidate who was Lyndon Johnson's loyal Vice President. Because Pres. Johnson was so unpopular at the time, neither his name is heard nor his face shown.

One of the film's most moving scenes is when Humphrey responded to Richter's interview question, about the candidate's mentally challenged grand-daughter. Humphrey openly described his feelings while the camera discretely showed scenes of the child being hugged by him.

During the editing of the film Richter argued that this scene should be kept in, an argument he won with some of Humphrey's advisers and strategists who claimed it would be seen as too exploitive. Richter argued that it showed the genuine humanity of the candidate.
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In newspapers at the time HHH: What Manner of Man was advertised as "The Mind Changer." If you had made up your mind about Humphrey, then you were urged to see the film. It was telecast 300 times across the nation in the closing three weeks of the political race.

The biography reflected how Richter changed his own mind about Humphrey as the standard bearer for the Democratic Party in the race against Richard Nixon.

Later, Lawrence O'Brien, Democratic Party Chair, described the film as the "most important" element in the campaign that pushed Humphrey up in the polls, resulting in the narrow outcome of the election.
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Hubert Horatio Humphrey was born in a small South Dakota town and had been a pharmacist before moving to Minneapolis, where he was elected Mayor and then U.S. Senator. In 1948 he made an historic speech at the Democratic National Convention calling for his party to end its history of being in the "dark shadow of state's rights" and to move into the "bright sunshine of civil rights." Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, walked out of the convention and created the newly formed Dixiecrat Party, which unsuccessfully tried to defeat Harry Truman.

As President Lyndon Johnson's loyal Vice President, Humphrey was silent about his opposition to the Vietnam war until the closing weeks of his 1968 race for President. Some historians argue that if Humphrey had spoken out sooner he would have won.