1972 McGovern campaign, what would you have done ?

[UTUSN]

63. Ivoted for him(of course)but wrote him to drop out in primaries.A summary of the posts I agree with:

Wish I had kept his (campaign's) Reply. I said I admired him totally but that the most important thing was to BEAT NIXON and that I wished he would step aside and let whoever had the best chance to BEAT NIXON to be the nominee. He (campaign) answered (with the "I" pronoun) that he thought he had a good chance, hoped I would support him, and thanked. Maybe it was an auto-signature, but I wish I kept it.

That said, if we had been on DU, I would have been thoroughly chastised during the primaries. I'm glad to see that my reasons (no hindsight on my part) back then are so well reflected in this thread. I differ on the small point (below) that he was the weakest candidate we ever fielded since I think this would be DUKAKIS, whom I also voted for (OF COURSE).

And another thing: We still have some of the RULES CHANGES legacy of '68/'72 that work against us.

My thing is ELECTABILITY first and always, because even the worst Dem short of being treasonous and corrupt will accomplish more through appointments and finger-on-the-scale-of-policy by WINNING than the most NOBLE PURIST ever will by LOSING.

These are the posts that speak for me:



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# O.P. DUers “would have eagerly voted for him”

# 13 – he was too polite – a gentleman

# 17 - McG had already scared the crap out of the public and ruined his own credibility. He had doomed himself

# 6 - I started to realize such expenditures of energy were better spent on someone that can win even though I might not see eye to eye with the candidate in everything or the candidate wasn't perfect.

# 10 - McGovern doomed himself.

# 55 - long time Democratic pols. I told them that I was hopeful that we could win. I was rather shocked when they all doubled up with laughter.

# 14 - didn't use his war record well

# 31 - could have also used his bomber experience as an argument to end the war in Nam

# 27 - He didn't use it at ALL. And he wasn't just an excellent pilot! He was a war HERO

# 19 - 1968 rules committee to not change voting rules so drasticlly. come 1972 it would not have come off as a extremely far left

# 34 - Talk about his military record and not pull any punches. Wave the bloody flag over RFK and call Nixon a war criminal.

# 35 - McGovern was never going to win that election... botched the whole Eagleton saga.

# 36 – more than any election in the last 70 years, speaks to the issue of.......... “electability" versus "core principles".

# 37 - the weakest major party candidate in modern American history. Great guy - hero, really, but he just was never going to be president.

# 44 - if America knew about the prairie populist, war hero, Methodist minister and history teacher that he - really was - rather than a symbol of amnesty, acid and abortion - that he was not

# 58 - Hunter Thompson said that McGovern lacked a "streak of Mick Jagger in his soul..." (WHOLE POST) ...and I think that that was the deciding factor. For him to have won, he would have had to be somebody he wasn't. Somebody willing to go for the jugular against Nixon. Somebody willing to shamelessly utilize his war record. Somebody willing to go after Nixon, not just for Watergate--much was known before Novermber 1972; people just didn't care--but for the 1968 Treason regarding the Peace Talks. Somebody tough enough to discipline the Party during the convention, so that his acceptance speech didn't come at two in the morning. And of course, somebody who didn't pick Eagleton, for chrissakes. It *might* have come together for him, but the odds were against it. Essentially, he was too decent against a very indecent opponent.

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