[Senator McGovern died today, Oct. 21. Hail and farewell. Our best wishes go out to all who loved him. -- GAD]
George McGovern — former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee, whose political career was ushered out in the election that made Ronald Reagan a President but who has stayed a conscience of the party and the nation — is dying. He has entered hospice care.
“He’s coming to the end of his life,” his daughter, Ann McGovern, told The Associated Press. She declined to elaborate but noted that her 90-year-old father has suffered several health problems in the last year.
George McGovern, who became a leader of the Democrats’ liberal wing during his three decades in Congress, lost his 1972 challenge to Nixon, who later resigned amid the Watergate scandal. McGovern has turned his focus in recent years to world hunger.
A recent (ahem) drawing of me contained a number of humorous inaccuracies, such as that I have a sad-looking stuffed toy donkey on a shelf above my desk (if I had one, it wouldn’t look sad) and that I have hammer and sickle-patterned curtains (which I consider tacky) beside my desk. One nice touch, I thought, was that part of the slam on me is that I have a “McGovern ’72″ poster on my wall. I wish! If I had one, I’d certainly display it.
Democrats, as a party, have spent the past 40 years running away from the specter of George McGovern’s loss, just like they spent the 1972 running away from giving him the support he’d need to compete. That is, unfortunately, what we tend to do at our worst — but not all of us. It may well be that McGovern may have pushed for some proposals at that time that I’d have considered excessive — but I also have presumed that the social forces amassed against progressive reforms, starting with the Southern Democrats who still dominated much of the party’s hierarchy on Congressional committees, would have kept him from doing anything too extreme. (I do not have that same confidence about, for example, Mitt Romney.) I think that he would have made a wonderful President — although probably, as with Obama, one who would have been constrained by political circumstances. And Nixon surely could stand to have been beaten; the Watergate burglaries and witness payoffs had already occurred, after all.
One reason that McGovern has been considered safe for centrist and conservative Democrats (as well as some liberals intent on hiding their lights under a bushel) to scorn is that he lost so badly. On that score, I’d like to share something from an interview I read with him once that I think few people know. People remember that Southern Democratic racist George Wallace ran for President in 1968 and won several states. They don’t remember as well that George Wallace also ran for President in 1972. McGovern did have a potentially winning strategy in 1972 — but it depended on Governor Wallace being able to split the conservative and right-wing populist vote with then-President Nixon.
George Wallace was shot in Laurel, Maryland (suburban metro Baltimore) on May 15, 1972. The would-be assassin was a man named Arthur Bremer. His bullet left Wallace paralyzed and out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination — from which, after losing, he was expected to bolt to run again with the American Independent Party. (Bremer is, I was surprised to learn, a free man of age 62 today, he was a messed-up 21-year-old janitor at the time of the shooting.)
Had Wallace not been shot, Nixon would not have been considered to be a shoo-in for the Presidency. Wallace would have likely have taken the Southern states again, as he’d done in 1968, and perhaps more. Watergate, which few knew about in 1972 unless they read the Washington Post, might have been picked up by more journalists who weren’t resigned to a Nixon victory (and concerned about retaliation.) McGovern would likely have raised a lot more money.
It’s possible that no one may have won the Electoral College. The election may well have gone to the Democratic-dominated House and the Senate. There, McGovern would have had to wheel and deal — but he was capable of that. He’d probably have been able to get a stronger VP candidate than Thomas Eagleton or Sargent Shriver — one who could unite the party in case the election did go to Congress.
That was the idea, anyway — but Wallace was shot, McGovern was abandoned by much of his party, and Nixon did – using dirty tricks, of course — win in an Electoral College landslide. Still, at the end of one’s life, would one prefer to be like Nixon or McGovern? I think that when McGovern dies — and I hope that it comes late enough for him to savor an Obama re-election victory — he’ll look back at his life without shame. That’s a pretty good thing to be able to say.
Too bad.
I wish we had more commited canidates, like him in California.
Thank you for writing about something that rarely gets discussed in history classes.
*Wrongo again…Dr. D., Please, Wallace called both Nixon and McGovern…”twiddle dee and twiddle dum”. “There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them!” screamed Wallace. Nixon was a big spending Republican with the German Reichsfurher as his lead dog. McGovern, was a simp – “Anti-War” when it best suited him and finally at the end of the campaign trail…..he had to fall on his sword. No doubt, a very nice man….but hardly Presidential in the historic sense. Looking at the wide view of his liberal cronies….out rights would have gone right out the window with any and all of his Supreme Court appointments. His kiss your sister attachments to various social programs like food stamps were never going to be earth shattering. That was year…1972 that it was choice between Lyndon Larouche and the Libertarian
Party Candidate….we voted for Wallace in spite of his infirmity. Then we voted for the 14% Candidate Bo Gritz – American Independent in 1976! he wanted to bring home our POW/MIAs… Sorry to hear that George may be moving on shortly, however!
Slate’s take on these same issues is worth reading:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_spectator/2012/10/george_mcgovern_his_presidential_campaign_may_have_been_a_complete_failure.single.html
I write only to call people’s attention to the update at the top of the story. George McGovern died this morning in South Dakota.
One nice paragraph from the LA Times obituary:
“In 1984, he ran again for president, preaching a resolutely liberal message. Instead of soldiers, he said, send envoys into hot spots. Be more even-handed in the Middle East. Use defense savings to build a new railroad system, create jobs, save fuel and cut pollution. Offer cheap loans to first-time home buyers. Give surplus food to the hungry.”
That’s my kind of “political extremism” — sane and humane.
from San Juan Capistrano single-payer activist Dr. Don McCanne’s “Quote of the Day” this morning:
Blue Rider Press, Penguin Group
2011
What It Means to Be a Democrat
By George McGovern
Universal Health Care
In 2010, Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress did an outstanding job in passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to make health insurance available for every American. The bill passed without a single Republican vote.
The law is being phased in over five years, but it already has eliminated some of the major shortcomings of the private insurance system. It has made health care coverage available to more children and young adults, ended lifetime limits on coverage, made more preventive services available at no cost, improved pharmaceutical coverage for seniors on Medicare, and provided tax credits to small businesses that insure their employees. The law also prohibits insurers from the heinous practice of denying coverage to children who have preexisting conditions, a provision that later will be extended to adults. It offers much-needed discipline to the insurance companies, which have called the shots for far too long.
But I think we should go further.
We should replace the 906-page bill, which I’m sure many lawmakers and most citizens haven’t read, with a seven word sentence that reads: “Congress hereby extends Medicare to all Americans.”
My firsthand experience with Medicare has convinced me that a Medicare-like plan, or single-payer system such as Canada enjoys, should apply to everyone, not just to old duffers like me.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Means-Democrat-George-McGovern/dp/B007F7QA5K
Comment:
Electoral votes, 1972 Presidential election:
17 – George McGovern
520 – Richard Nixon
McGovern tried, and he never quit. We are all the better for it.
*George was a spry 90 years old. Not bad. Our deepest condolences to his family
and close friends.