Reviews of McGovern candidacy

[Ebowed]

While doing a Google search for something or other I came across this website.

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I think this is a pretty interesting idea, reviewing the candidacies of the losers from modern presidential elections.  The reviews on the McGovern page are pretty funny if you ask me, especially the one I quoted.

Do you agree with them?

[dazzleman]

Yes, I pretty much agree with those critical reviews, except for the first one.  The first one is the person who thought McGovern would win because Nixon was pure evil, etc.

The reviewers hit on some good things.  The party convention was totally out of control.  1972 was the year that the loony left took control of the Democratic Party, and nobody wanted to rein them in.  They allowed anybody to nominate VP candidates, and delegates were up most of one night nominating such people as Martha Mitchell and Mao Zedong for VP.  This supposedly delayed McGovern's acceptance speech until the middle of the night, when of course nobody was watching.

Then there was the Eagleton fiasco.  When it was first revealed that Eagleton had received electric shock treatments for depression, McGovern said he was behind him 1000%.  But shortly after, he kicked him off the ticket.  The problem was, he couldn't get another running mate.  He was in the humiliating position of having to practically beg people to run with him, and Sargent Shriver finally agreed.

The funny thing is that some of what Nixon had advocated and ended up carrying out was not far from what McGovern campaigned on.  Nixon had advocated a Family Assistance Package of welfare reform that would have guaranteed a certain level of income for welfare recipients, but would have required working for it.  It was defeated mainly by Republicans who didn't like the income floor idea.  McGovern pushed for an income floor, and Nixon attacked the idea as socialistic (which it was).

On Vietnam, Nixon covered our withdrawal there with ever so slight a fig leaf.  McGovern advocated simply pulling out of Vietnam, and asking nicely for our POWs to come back.  By late 1972, our combat role in Vietnam had all but ended in any case, though our air power was still involved.  Nixon negotiated a ceasefire in place (allowing North Vietnamese occupation troops to effectively remain in place in the south) and withdrew our troops in return for the release of the POWs.  Among other reasons, our failure to maintain adequate aid to South Vietnam led to its collapse little more than 2 years after Nixon's agreement supposedly brought "peace with honor."

Still, McGovern was a horrible candidate and would have been a horrible president.  We were much better off with a corrupt Nixon for part of the term, and Gerald Ford for the rest.  Even Jimmy Carter was light years ahead of McGovern in competence.

[Akno21]

The Washington Post Magazine had a good article on him a few weeks ago.

He was basically doomed from the start, and he only dug his hole deeper through the things you described.

[dazzleman]

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that McGovern was- by far- the worst major party candidate of all time. He was the candidate of the far left, which proceeded to flush the Democratic Party down the toilet. The stigma of radical liberalism that the McGovern campaign carried haunts the Democrats to this day.

Very true.  As I said earlier, 1972 represented a seismic shift in the Democratic party.  Between 1968 and 1972, the Democrats abandoned their previous support for a strong national defense, and a prosecution of the Cold War.  On the Cold War, it could be fairly said that they practically went over to the other side.  They certainly did that on Vietnam, a war in which they gave birth American involvement.

Since 1972, there have been two Democratic presidents, both perceived (at least initially) as moderate to conservative, and from the south.  Clinton succeeded in holding together a moderate-liberal coalition and was able to keep the liberals under control, but Carter's attempt to maintain a similar electoral coalition failed, in many respects because he could not satisfy liberals.  But all liberal candidates who have run for office since LBJ have failed.

[Lincoln Republican]

I have to agree.  Dazzleman's analysis is right on.
The Democratic Party in 1972 was taken over by
the far left.  George McGovern was probably the worst
presidential candidate in U.S. history.  The running mate
situation was a complete fiasco. 

One commentator stated that this was the first time in
history that a presidential candidate was chosen by a
broadway musical, the cast of "Hair".

No wonder McGovern spent the next two presidential campaigns in futile attempts running for the Democratic nomination, in an effort to rehabilitate his name.   
 

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Yeah, I know, which is why McGovern carried such radical, left-wing strongholds as Carroll County, KY.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He may have ran a terrible campaign, but he was right. The US should've completely pulled out of Vietnam. That was the only right thing to do. That's why he's my favorite losing candidate. He lost but he was trying to do what was right.

[WalterMitty]

george mcgovern one of the more decent men to ever run for president.

[Rob]

george mcgovern one of the more decent men to ever run for president.

He was a pathetic puppet of the left.

[Nation]

You can tell how left he was by the fact that my dad, who voted for Carter BOTH times, in addition to Mondale and Dukakis --- voted for Nixon in 1972. Dayum.

[A18]

He was a terrible candidate. I can't believe 35% of the voting population actually supported that guy.

[??????????]

He was a terrible candidate. I can't believe 35% of the voting population actually supported that guy.

He certainly was a pacifist weenie. Just what America didn't need in 1972.

[dazzleman]

He was a terrible candidate. I can't believe 35% of the voting population actually supported that guy.

He certainly was a pacifist weenie. Just what America didn't need in 1972.

....or ever.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

He was a terrible candidate. I can't believe 35% of the voting population actually supported that guy.

He certainly was a pacifist weenie. Just what America didn't need in 1972.

Damn pacificist war hero who dropped a ton of bombs on Nazi Germany.