Fascinating find. Thanks for posting this, Fuzzy.
Imagine if this speech were heard in prime time. McGovern himself didn't finish up his speech until after 2 am. Yes, I was up for it; I remember which TV I was watching in my home.
Was this McGovern’s main speech of the convention? If so, why did they have the nominee speak so late?
The Democratic VP nomination process was basically a total cluster. The McGovern campaign (after being rebuffed by Ted Kennedy), essentially offered the position to anybody and everybody before alighting upon Eagleton at the last minute. The latter wasn’t a particularly big name and was not popular with a large bloc of the delegates, who insisted on throwing other names into contention, making for an arduous balloting process. The upshot of this was that by the time Eagleton had it in the bag, the vast majority of the country had gone to bed.
