 After cementing their position during the Party crackdown , the militants sped up planning for a major conventional offensive to break the military deadlock . They concluded that the Saigon government and the U.S. presence were so unpopular with the population of the South that a broad @-@ based attack would spark a spontaneous uprising of the population , which , if the offensive was successful , would enable the North Vietnamese to sweep to a quick , decisive victory . Their basis for this conclusion included : a belief that the South Vietnamese military was no longer combat @-@ effective ; the results of the September 1967 South Vietnamese presidential election ( in which the Nguyễn Văn Thiệu / Nguyễn Cao Kỳ ticket had only received 24 percent of the popular vote ) ; the Buddhist crises of 1963 and 1966 ; well @-@ publicized anti @-@ war demonstrations in Saigon ; and continuous criticism of the Thiệu government in the southern press . Launching such an offensive would also finally put an end to what have been described as " <unk> calls for talks , criticism of military strategy , Chinese diatribes of Soviet perfidy , and Soviet pressure to negotiate — all of which needed to be silenced . " 
