George McGovern (1922-2012)

By Michael J.W. Stickings and Mustang Bobby

MJWS:

I was born in 1972, after the U.S. presidential election of that year

As my own political views developed, in the '80s and '90s, it took me a long time to come around to George McGovern. I was a conservative back then, mostly, and for too long, even after becoming a Democrat, I bought into the idea of McGovern as the radical peacenik who represented what was wrong with the Democratic Party.

But as I matured, my views shifting leftward and appreciating and identifying with American liberalism (more accurately, progressive liberalism -- I term I use for my views now) more and more, I came to see McGovern as a hero.

Yes, he lost the '72 election, but that was also the year of Watergate, and Nixon's massive victory was hardly the great victory for the Republican Party, and for conservatism, that it seemed initially to be. It was, more than anything, a victory for head-up-the-ass jingoism. Besides, that was a crazy year, and the country was not about to send Nixon packing, not yet -- Watergate and the rest of the dirty tricks and "ratfucking" were hardly necessary.

Perhaps McGovern wasn't the best candidate the Democrats could have picked that year, but he stood firm for progressive values at a time when it seemed only the counter-cultural fringe cared. And while his name may subsequently have been dragged through the mud at the hands of a media establishment increasingly controlled by the Republican noise machine, and by conservatives propagandizing about a supposedly conservative country that rendered McGovern's views extremist as they pulled the country further and further to the right, I would say he was without question a man well ahead of his time.

It is simply wrong to judge him solely, and without context, on the basis of how he did against Nixon in '72. He was a war hero, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross during World War II. And he was a successful legislator, first a congressman (1957-61) and then a senator (1963-81), and he remained active in the Democratic Party and an effective advocate for progressive politics after he left office.

He was right about so much, even if it wasn't so apparent at the time, and history, I believe, has fully vindicated him.

A great liberal voice has gone silent, but his legacy will live on.

And we must continue the struggle for goodness and decency that he so valiantly led.

MB: 

From The New York Times:

George McGovern, the United States senator who won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972 as an opponent of the war in Vietnam and a champion of liberal causes, and who was then trounced by President Richard M. Nixon in the general election, died early Sunday in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was 90.

*****

To the liberal Democratic faithful, Mr. McGovern remained a standard-bearer well into his old age, writing and lecturing even as his name was routinely invoked by conservatives as synonymous with what they considered the failures of liberal politics.

He never retreated from those ideals, however, insisting on a strong, "progressive" federal government to protect the vulnerable and expand economic opportunity while asserting that history would prove him correct in his opposing not only what he called "the tragically mistaken American war in Vietnam" but also the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Forty years ago, I cast my first vote in a presidential election for George McGovern. I've never regretted it, and based on the behavior of the other party since then -- from Watergate to Romnesia -- it was the right thing to do.

The photo of Mr. McGovern was taken by me in August 1972 when he was campaigning near Washingtonville, New York, and I was there with my brother visiting our Aunt Emily. She was a huge supporter of the senator, so we went to see him, and I took my camera.

A sad day: George McGovern and the 2012 election

By Frank Moraes

It's a sad morning. First I get news that George McGovern died after only a couple of days in hospice. Then Michael reports that the new PPP poll of likely voters in Ohio gives Obama only a 1-point lead over Romney. It seems like liberalism has died today.

The 1972 election is the first one that I remember. And for years it seemed that he was a joke to most people. Americans love a winner and even after Nixon's ignoble departure from the White House, few rethought McGovern. Things only got worse during the "Reagan Revolution." But in recent years I was pleased to see McGovern going around proudly owning the label "liberal" and explaining what it meant.

I'm not quite certain what to make of the new polling out of Ohio. For one thing, Obama has polled consistently poorly with PPP in recent weeks. I know that PPP is a liberal group, but that doesn't mean they don't make mistakes; the whole "likely voter" calculation is difficult. What's more, polls have been all over the board. And most encouraging, Nate Silver (taking into account the newest PPP poll) still gives Obama a 70% chance of winning the state.

There are so many terrible things that will happen if Romney becomes president. But what I'm focused on are the long term consequences to our political system. If elected, he will dismantle our social safety net and cause inequality to go up even further. But in spite of this, the economy is set for recovery. Unless Romney really screws up, we will see about 9 million new jobs created in the next four years. This will be used by the right to claim that their policies are the reason. And the low-information voters who seem to determine each election will go right along as the United States' government becomes ever more conservative while its people remain relatively liberal.

Michael is right that we need to do all we can to win this election. And I have one more reason: let's win this one for McGovern!

Update

From the New York Times obituary:

"I always thought of myself as a good old South Dakota boy who grew up here on the prairie," he said in an interview for this obituary in 2005 in his home in Mitchell. "My dad was a Methodist minister. I went off to war. I have been married to the same woman forever. I'm what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like.

"But we probably didn't work enough on cultivating that image," he added, referring to his campaign organization. "We were more interested in ending the war in Vietnam and getting people out of poverty and being fair to women and minorities and saving the environment.


"It was an issue-oriented campaign, and we should have paid more attention to image."

*****

Mr. McGovern offered his own assessment of the campaign. "I don’t think the American people had a clear picture of either Nixon or me," he said in the 2005 interview. "I think they thought that Nixon was a strong, decisive, tough-minded guy and that I was an idealist and antiwar guy who might not attach enough significance to the security of the country.

"The truth is, I was the guy with the war record, and my opposition to Vietnam was because I was interested in the nation's well-being."

McGovern received the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Godspeed, Senator

By Carl

George McGovern, former Senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee, is dying.

He was the last of the liberal breed, a dyed-in-the-wool group of mostly Democrats who fought hard for the rights of minorities and women (which are actually a majority in this country) and for the poor and hungry. This last was largely motivated by an incident during his tenure in the Air Force, where he saw first hand the devastation war can bring to a people. After World War II, he flew supply missions to northern Italy where he saw people dying of hunger in one of the most fertile regions of the world.

Indeed, President Kennedy saw fit to name McGovern the first Food For Peace director of his administration.

Odd that program no longer gets the kind of attention it used to, eh? Must have been the victim of budget cuts.¹

McGovern ran against Nixon in his re-election bid and was hampered form the outset by two things: his choice for vice president, Senator Tom Eagleton, had been given electroshock therapy for depression, which forced McGovern to replace him with Sargent Shriver, and of course the whole Watergate era, when Nixon decided to not only illegally influence the outcome of the Democratic primaries but to illegally influence the outcome of his re-election.

You youngs can Google it.

Anyway, he came up with some novel and creative proposals in the course of that campaign, like fighting bad economic times by giving everyone in the country a $1,000 tax credit. Oddly, this was badly received by conservatives, who have little problem doling out money now when things are tough.

Indeed, it was Milton Friedman himself who proposed it, and Richard Nixon even included a similar proposal in his Family Assistance Program (yes, that's FAP).

McGovern, in large part, solidified my liberal viewpoint, which was largely formed by the Kennedys. He made it cool to care about people and cool to think that the government could do more, much more, to help those trampled underfoot in a horrific economic machine.

I will miss your voice, Senator. 

¹ The program does still exist and was re-authorized under the 1996 Farm Bill. 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Morning Joe on yet another embarrassing Romney moment: "Sweet Jesus."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mustang Bobby put this up at his place yesterday. If you missed it, it's well worth watching, not just for the pathetic Romney embarrassing himself yet again but for Joe Scarborough's telling reaction of incredulity and resignation.

Which raises the question: Romney is the worst major-party presidential candidate since _______ ?

Is it Dukakis? (I think Romney's worse, but it's close.) Mondale? (At least he had some gravitas.) McGovern? (Maybe, but at least he had a ton of progressive credibility.)

So how far back do we have to go?

After all, the only thing keeping this race even somewhat close is the struggling economy, and that has nothing to do with Romney. Imagine how far ahead Obama would be if the economy were even just a tiny bit stronger at the moment.

So maybe Willkie in 1940, a business-oriented moderate who had to secure the support of right-wing isolationists in the GOP (yup, sounds a bit like Romney). But no. He, at least, was respectable out on the campaign trail, even if he stood little chance against FDR.

I'll go with Landon in 1936, another business-oriented type and by all accounts a terrible campaigner and generally inept politician. But even then, he didn't constantly embarrass himself, unlike Romney. He just didn't campaign for long stretches at a time, including for two months after he won the Republican nomination, and FDR crushed him in the election. He won only Maine and Vermont, losing the Electoral College vote 523 to 8.

Perhaps he was worse than Romney. Perhaps.

More like a thud

By Mustang Bobby

Most candidates get some kind of bounce up in the polls after a convention no matter what the eventual outcome is. Walter Mondale did in 1984 and so did George McGovern in 1972 and both of them got walloped in the election the following November. So a bounce is, in the words of the brokerage house disclaimer, not a predictor of future earnings.

Still, it must be disheartening to the Republicans when, after their big blow-out in Tampa, they see that Gallup shows that Mitt Romney got bupkus:

Last week's Republican National Convention had a minimal impact on Americans' self-reported voting intentions, with just about as many saying the convention made them less likely to vote for Mitt Romney as say it made them more likely to vote for him.

One theory for this lackluster response that I see rattling through the tubes is that thanks to Twitter, Facebook, texting, blogging, and the constant feed from the cable channels and YouTube, all of the anticipation and surprise has been taken out of the conventions. Voters who are paying attention have already made up their collective mind about the candidates. Nothing they hear coming out of Tampa or Charlotte is going to move the needle.

That puts the pressure on the Democrats to really come up with something that they think will move the electorate, and I'm sure they're going to try. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)