George McGovern's loss had nothing to do with "liberalism".

[Ken Burch]

Even on this board...a supposedly progressive board...the myth still exists that 1972 proves that we can't nominate a progressive (especially one who questions the idea that U.S. foreign policy must be relentlessly militarist and interventionist) and win-that we have to choose a ticket who agrees with the right more than half the time (and treats labor, the poor, and progressive activists as the enemy).

Those who believe this have forgotten what the '72 election was really like.

They've forgotten that the race was essentially decided by Teddy's Chappiquiddick scandal(Teddy's platform would have been pretty much the same as McGovern's), by the Nixon China trip and the "dirty tricks squad" that slandered Ed Muskie(a candidate just as antiwar as McGovern was), none of which were things that McGovern had anything to do with or any control over.

They've forgotten that Hubert Humphrey, even though he knew he was already totally out of contention for the nomination by the time the California primary campaign began, stabbed McGovern in the back by running ads viciously attacking McGovern on defense issues just to pander to the defense worker vote in that state.

They've forgotten that Thomas Eagleton, before accepting the number-two slot on the ticket, anonymously smeared Mcgovern as the candidate of "acid, amnesty and abortion" (McGovern favored decriiminalizing pot, not legalizing LSD, and thought abortion should be left to the states, the most moderate position anyone could possibly take on that issue) in a quote published in an Evans and Novak column that spring(Robert Novak confirmed this after Eagleton's death), and that two other Democratic senators sabotaged McGovern by publicly announcing their refusal to be his running mate.

And they've forgotten that no polls, in the spring of '72, showed any possible Democratic nominee running a stronger race against Nixon...even "Scoop" Jackson, a candidate who essentially ran on the exact same platform as Nixon.

All that the 1972 result demonstrated was that dirty politics usually work, and that a well-funded campaign usually beats a less well-funded one. It showed nothing at all about what sort of candidate we should nominate.

[onehandle]

1. In 1972 I couldn't vote, but I had a McGovern bumper sticker on my notebook.

I called the local Democratic Party headquarters and asked them to mail me one.

A dad of a fellow student cussed me out for being 'brainwashed' by that 'liberal' and threatened me physically. My dad was not amused and confronted the dad the next day.

Anyway, that was the day in elementary school that I became a life long Democrat.

[Ken Burch]

4. I was the only kid in sixth grade in my school (Brush College, Salem Oregon)who supported McGovern

the others(especially the bullies)were all for Nixon.

[onehandle]

6. Pretty much the same scenario here. nt

[tnlurker]

2. Thanks Ken

Good reminder.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. Don't forget Nixon's "October surprise"

In which he and Kissinger announced, just a couple of weeks before the election, that American involvement in the Vietnam War was about to end (thus winning tons of votes from newly-minted 18-to-20-year-old voters, as well as from parents of draft-age men).

And speaking of dirty tricks, there was that matter about some "plumbers" breaking into the national headquarters of the Democratic Party just a few months before the election.

[Ken Burch]

5. Oh that's just Water under the Gate...er, I mean the bridge...

Thanks for the post.

[AndreaCG]

7. I was 11 and that was my first campaign

I'd schlep a card table, buttons and stickers and maybe a few t shirts (they weren't big yet) and park on a NYC street and hawk them. Didn't get much flak from people. I suspect they were more amused than anything else.

[reddread]

8. those hypocrisies dont come from liberals

Last edited Tue May 26, 2015, 01:56 AM - Edit history (1)

but the same liars would misuse the term ratfucking,
without ever acknowledging the origin of the current usage.
and their two faced ignorance (aka conservative mindset)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking

[Paka]

9. I called my favorite aunt that I thought was liberal,

and during the conversation mentioned that I was working on the McGovern campaign. She blasted me before she hung up and didn't speak to me for several years thereafter. Not until Nixon went down in flames did she talk to me again, but never referred to that. I think she was embarrassed.

[whereisjustice]

10. Hillary supporters are uncomfortable with a relatively unknown senator given impossible odds...

I wonder why?

[MaggieD]

13. I think that's a figment of your imagination

[murielm99]

14. How many campaigns have you worked,

in real life, on the ground? Are you a precinct committeeman, an election judge? Have you phone banked or walked any precincts with literature? Have you done any tabling, walked in any parades? I am talking about any campaign, even for a local mayor or school board member.

Have you ever attended a governor's day, or Democrat's day, in your state capital? Do you go to picnics or fundraising dinners for your party, at the county level?

If you had, you would know that Obama was the favored one, the projected nominee, even before he gave his rousing speech at the convention in 2004. He was only a candidate for the Senate at that point. The party was going to see that he got the nomination, come hell or high water. We all knew it, even before the primary.

Not all primary seasons are like that. Sometimes there are several strong contenders. It was Obama, even before 2008. Now it is Hillary Clinton.

She will win because she is the strongest candidate and the best qualified in terms of ideas and experience.

[Blue_In_AK]

11. McGovern was my first presidential vote.

I could have voted in 1968, but I was so disgusted by the Chicago convention that I boycotted the whole thing. Probably a mistake, but I had decided to "turn on, tune in and drop out." By 1972 I had dropped back in a little, enough to vote for McGovern, whom I admired deeply.

[MaggieD]

12. But it had EVERYTHING to do with disunity....

Lots of infighting within the party. The "acid, amnesty, and abortion" BS didn't help.

[Ken Burch]

15. No, it did not. I regard Thomas Eagleton as one of the great villains of '72

He smeared McGovern, did so without having the guts to publicly identify himself when he did, then had the chutzpah to accept the position as McGovern's running mate, knowing full well his own mental health issues would leak and force McGovern to either kick him off of the ticket and look like an asshole, or campaign with a vice-presidential candidate who would be constantly be labeled as unfit to assume the presidency.

[MaggieD]

16. How can you claim that....

When every known name in the party turned him down as his VP? How do you think he ended up with Eagleton in the first place?

1972 is an historic example of party disunity.

[Ken Burch]

18. Agreed that party disunity played a major role, but McGovern's campaign didn't cause that.

It was caused by the hacks who refused to accept that the contest was basically over by early April, and who kept on fighting for Humphrey to the bitter end even though they knew he had no chance and wasn't really wanted.

Eagleton was a symbol of the disunity. I think the other Dems turned McGovern down just to force him to pick Eagleton, knowing Eagleton's personal issues were certain to leak (it wouldn't surprise me if Eagleton leaked them himself, just to ratfuck McGovern for not being implacably anti-choice on abortion).

[Art_from_Ark]

21. He should have chosen Sargent Shriver at the beginning

Shriver was a good man with a good background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargent_Shriver

[Warren DeMontague]

17. I think the fact that people here still use '72 as a yardstick for any sort of political calculus,

only shows how vastly old and, frankly, out of touch this place is, demographically speaking.

Boomers still fighting Vietnam and Nixon when the people reaching voting age in the next election were born the year google came online.

[treestar]

19. His loss was illustrative

of how the silly idea that the candidate is not liberal enough is not an answer. Likewise with right wingers who claim Rmoney lost due to his "liberalness." the Presidency goes to the center by its very nature.

[Ken Burch]

20. It didn't with Coolidge, Reagan and Lil' Dubbikins.

And McGovern beat the non-progressive Dems totally fair and square, so their "we wuz robbed" act in Miami was totally unjustified.

Muskie and Scoop Jackson would have gone down in flames against Nixon, too.

[eridani]

22. And don't forget "Democrats for Nixon"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrats_for_Nixon

See also

http://www.thewholeamericanhog.com/index.php?modulo=woods

The McGovern campaign in 1972 was another complete disaster for the Democrats ($hrummy was on board.) The noble and honest George McGovern was humiliated in a 49-state landslide by Nixon and Company. The Democrats for Nixon spots were brilliant and devastating-- an ominous foreshadowing of what was to come. This was the year that the Nixon-Segretti-Ailes-Atwater-Rove-Bush tradition became the norm in Republican campaigns: Lie. Distort. Fabricate. Imply. Impugn. Destroy. Take no prisoners. Have no shame.

[LWolf]

23. I haven't forgotten.

Thank you for reminding those that have.