"What Democrats Still Don’t Get About George McGovern"

[CdnExtraNational]

An interesting read. My apologies if it has been posted before.

For the past 40 years, whenever a Democratic presidential hopeful has given off the slightest whiff of leftish anti-establishmentarianism, party leaders and mainstream pundits have invoked McGovern’s name. In 2004, Howard Dean was the new McGovern. In 2008, Barack Obama became the new McGovern. This year, it’s Bernie Sanders’s turn.

https://newrepublic.com/article/130737/democrats-still-dont-get-george-mcgovern
https://newrepublic.com/article/130737/democrats-still-dont-get-george-mcgovern

[brooklynite]

1. "He lost because he was facing a popular incumbent presiding over a booming economy"

No, he LOST 49 STATES. That calls for a lot more than a "popular incumbent".

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Booming economy?

I remember rampant inflation, gas lines etc.

[Adrahil]

9. Not in 1972...

The first oil embargo began in 1973

[TheBlackAdder]

12. He lost because he downplayed his VP pick's electroschock treatments for Bipolar Disorder!

.


Nixon was all over his ass for that, just weeks after his selection.

Nixon called McGovern 'crazy' for doing that, something that shows poor judgment and risks America!


Then, a couple days before the election, McGovern told a heckler, on tape, to kiss his ass!



Now, the VP's diagnosis wasn't identified until later, as bipolar disorder, he ws in a hospital and underwent regular medical care.


.

[treestar]

16. Nixon was popular?

I question that too.

[demwing]

2. Excellent piece, should be required reading for every Dem

Thanks for posting!

[Betty Karlson]

13. I second both sentiments expressed hereabove.

Required Reading.

Thanks for posting.

[Punkingal]

14. +1000

[hack89]

3. "Bernie will be crushed so the Democratic party should embrace his ideology"

just like the Republicans embraced Goldwater's brand of conservationism. Don't think so.

[EndElectoral]

4. The irony was that the American public was wrong and got Nixon who left the WH in disgrace

[HereSince1628]

5. Thanks for posting... I feel rather better about my memory of events

I think it may be light on account for the influence of the geopolitical shift that followed jobs 'gone South', but it generally fits within my memory.

[Hortensis]

7. I'm going to go a little "rogue" and agree that

we should be braver and push harder for what we believe in as a party. In practical terms I think we can get rid of a great deal of the institutional resistance to taking risks simply by making elective positions uncushy and unlucrative -- our representatives should not find putting principle ahead of reelection a great personal sacrifice.

[HereSince1628]

11. If there's going to be a movement after Sander's campaign

it's going to need to target elected officials who first serve themselves.

The People's Left needs to be running a lot of candidates in primaries.

Sanders has shown that the money needed can be raised to support such candidates, now what was coalition needs to show it can hang together and change the philosophical balance of dem delegations in Congress.

[Hortensis]

20. Great, but I would love a movement

going straight for truly comprehensive election reform. Don't waste time taking down whichever weak outcasts the various power blocks sacrifice to distract this movement while they work to take it down. Plus, they'd just slot in another bought-and-paid-for replacement.

If we can get comprehensive election reform, that alone will clean up most of the corruption. Hillary, if she gets elected and can appoint to SCOTUS, will accomplish much of what she says she can. However, the fight from the right and from within our ranks to genuinely get all money out of politics and to get rid of election tampering will be enormous.

Then, in tandem or as a continuation, insist our representatives serve their districts/electorate and insist on reform and strict application of ethics codes. At that point, the problems could be weeded out one by one.

We can do this. I'm pretty sure we could arrange for Charles Koch and many others who have operated "above" the law for decades, to grow old, and in many cases die, in prison if we put our minds to it.

[ConsiderThis_2016]

8. HRC will win you the SCOTUS you deserve

After all, Trump and Hillary have much in common... no need to worry.

[kennetha]

10. Decent but radically incomplete analysis

Last edited Thu Mar 3, 2016, 11:37 AM - Edit history (1)

Too driven by a hidden agenda, which prevents it from being sufficiently objective.

The give away is this:

The 1992 campaign run by Clinton and fellow DLCer Al Gore contained an odd mélange of neoliberal pieties and populist economics. At the same time that Clinton-Gore campaign commercials claimed they rejected “the old tax-and-spend politics,” Clinton and Gore were running on a platform promising tens of billions of dollars in new infrastructure and education spending, national health insurance, and a tax overhaul that not only called for redistributing the burden from the poor and middle-class to the rich but was sold in Clinton-Gore campaign materials using an echo of McGovern’s anti-inequality rhetoric.

what it calls "an odd mélange" was really a "brilliant and effective" synthesis, that enable Clinton to wrap a bunch of progressive priorities in a more appealing, less divisive package.

Also, "Al Gore followed in Clinton’s footsteps in 2000, but this time the neoliberal playbook failed." -- really? I thought Al Gore won that election, fair and square, but had it stolen by the Supreme Court in Bush v Gore.

And this:

Obama’s coalition looked a lot like McGovern’s and that the GOP’s attempts to turn Obama into a McGovernesque, weak-on-defense socialist failed.

Obama campaigned as pretty much a 21st Century version of Bill Clinton, just with a different rhetorical twist, more suited to the moment. His health care plan -- the one on which he campaigned --was to the right of Bill Clinton's, hell it was to the right of the one that eventually got adopted, because he ran AGAINST the individual mandate (which Hillary by the way, supported).

So Obama did basically what Clinton did, reassembled the old democratic coalition, and expanded, while making it less apparently threatening to the "success" oriented and not just an assemblage of the grievance oriented.

We cannot go back to McGovern. We have to build a progressive coalition in the much the same way that the only successful two term Democratic presidents since Harry Truman did it -- through synthesis and expansion. That's precisely what Clinton is proposing to do.

And as to taking the Goldwater Revolution as a model -- which did indeed reach it's high water mark with Reagan. Ask yourself how many times they have won the presidency since 1992 -- exactly once. George II's re-election.

[Betty Karlson]

15. A "brilliant and effective synthesis"? Clinton's terms brought:

The result, to no one’s surprise, was a series of legislative accomplishments that looked as if they had been ripped from the GOP’s legislative wish list, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, “the end of welfare as we know it,” the Defense of Marriage Act, financial deregulation, and yet another top-heavy capital gains tax cut.

And don't forget about DADT and the furthering of the prison industry, which heavily disfavoured People of Colour.

[kennetha]

18. Not defending Clinton's actually poilcies

just Clinton's frame of the election in 1992. It wasn't an odd melange. It was an extraordinarily well thought out and effective framing that enabled Clinton to reassemble the democrats.

[Betty Karlson]

21. No. As Clinton said at the time: "It's the economy, stupid"

And coincidentally: that is what Sanders is trying to tell Clinton now.

[treestar]

17. I may be on the left but I recognize most voters aren't

now even less so than in 1972.

The vast majority of the middle class is happy and has no interest in taking down the Establishment as it is doing OK by them.

Even working class people aren't interested - hell the ones in my family are right wing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Ironically, the Left is always accused of being too weak. But, is blamed as too powerful

when the Centrists lose again.

[andym]

22. A very interesting take on McGovern

The themes of equality, fairness, and opposition to corporate greed have been marginalized or worse since McGovern's time, especially since Reagan's time.

Bernie's very successful campaign, win or lose, presents a great opportunity to recapture these themes for the mainstream.

[andym]

23. McGovern was the most liberal mainstream candidate for President ever

Bernie is very close the McGovern in his proposed policies. The difference is that Bernie has an actual chance to be President going against a weak GOP field, unlike McGovern going against Nixon who was actually popular in 1972 among everyone but the young.

[CdnExtraNational]

24. Thank you for your insights!

Nice to see some constructive conversation.