Some aspects of this election year resemble the year that I cast my first ballot: 1968. Some, but, not all.

In the fall of 1967, the South Vietnamese cast their votes. American officials breathed more easily. President Lyndon Johnson worried whether the American strategy would prove effective, while Gen. William Westmoreland wondered when the dead and the captured would outweigh their replacements. Vice President Hubert Humphrey spoke of American progress.

In November, Westmoreland assured the National Press Club that a communist offensive was not possible. Then, Hanoi’s Tet Offensive proved the general wrong in January 1968. The offensive would drag on for nine months.

I was a student at a women’s Catholic college, where I was among the few who followed the war. When the winter shook itself off, I left the campus and walked to Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s headquarters. I was placed on the leadership committee, among other college students, who were writing press releases and making decisions. To us, the senator embodied the anti-war movement and we cheerfully “kept clean for Gene.” Older adults feared we would lead a youth uprising.

Four years earlier, Lyndon Baines Johnson beat Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater. Johnson, as might be expected of a Democratic president, established The Great Society, as his domestic programs were known, as well as strong civil rights legislation.

Most of the rising generation wanted nothing to do with the war. As 1967 closed, more than a half-million Americans were in arms in Vietnam. One thousand Americans fell each month. The Black Power, the counterculture, the anti-war movements grew.

During that eventful January, Republican Richard Nixon began his race for the White House. He urged people to vote for him by saying, “I have a plan.” While the plan was never revealed, Nixon gathered 78% of the New Hampshire primary vote on March 12. On the last day of March, Johnson addressed the nation with a brilliant, information-filled speech.

I stood in the living room, watching and listening. When these words were said, I called to my family out of the dining room. “Johnson said, ‘I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.’”

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Let’s talk about what is the same between the current contest and the 1968 election.

Both featured an incumbent who decided not to run for a second term. Both Joe Biden and Lyndon Johnson saw (or it was pointed out to him) that he would lose. Biden seems to have failing health, but so did Johnson, who grasped that his heart might not survive a second term.

Both elections were fought by vice presidents.

Those of us who are a certain age might remember, “I am not a crook.” Well, yes, you were. However, the current candidate also refuses to acknowledge who he is, despite 88 criminal offenses. In that, both elections feature two candidates cut from the same cloth.

There is a similarity between the chosen Republican vice presidential candidates. Nixon’s Spiro T. Agnew was the recently elected governor of Maryland. Agnew was instantly disliked. I was surprised to learn through my research that Agnew “attended” Johns Hopkins University. He then graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law. He never seemed like an educated person.

J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, was also immediately disliked for his attachment to Trump after some time spent insulting Trump. Like Agnew, he fails to present an educated demeanor. Nixon appointed Agnew to insult people. While Trump largely reserves the task of insulting people for himself, J.D. Vance is the watchdog, barking at those who do not live the life Vance wants them to live.

On my first Election Day, I walked out of the kitchen door and down our dead-end street. Where the sidewalk ended, I walked through a copse of leafless trees and into the polling place, the brick school building where I went to kindergarten.

The room was full of people older than me in their winter coats. One woman struck up a conversation. “Is this your first election?” “Yes, it is.” She then wished that I would be pleased with the outcome. I am hoping to be pleased with this year’s outcome.

Susan Wozniak has been a caseworker, a college professor and journalist. She is a mother and grandmother.