Chuck Collins: George McGovern’s 1972- The People’s Campaign

Source:Chuck Collins– George McGovern for President, 1972.

Source:FreeState MD

I don’t exactly where and when this photo was shot, but I’m pretty sure it’s from Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign. Always thought he looked good on the campaign trail and looked real. Which made very special in the sense that most American politicians (especially especially in Congress) look so made up and fake.

Source: FreeState MD

The 1972 Democratic National Convention, was real Amateur Night at the Apollo. Or in this case Amateur Night at the Miami Convention Center. Just because Senator McGovern didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the 1972 presidential election because of how popular President Nixon was then and with his foreign policy success. Including ending the Vietnam War and opening Russia and China.

And with the state of the Democratic Party thanks to the emergence of the New-Left in it that became todays Green Party and Occupy Wall Street movement. It was as if what Democrats were saying with George McGovern:“We’re not going to win anyway. So we might as well nominate our heart and go down big, but swinging.”

Just because you probably aren’t going to win an election, it doesn’t mean you have to prove to the wold how unqualified you are to not just govern a huge divided country, but to even win the presidency. And go out-of-your-way to do what you can to make that happen for yourself. And not run the best campaign that you can. Otherwise you might as well not have bothered running for president in the first place. And stay in the Senate and continue be part of the loyal opposition in Congress instead.

But what happened with the McGovern Campaign is that they never gave themselves much of an opportunity to win this election. And neither did the Democratic Party with the division between the Center-Left and Far-Left in the party.

I have a lot of respect for how George McGovern as far as how he managed his life and career. He truly was a public servant and a people’s politician and always believed in doing what was in the public’s interest. Also as far as what he accomplished politically and moving the Democratic Party from being dependent on racists anti-minority Dixiecrats to win presidential elections. By bringing in ethnic and racial minorities, as well as women and men. And making the Democratic Party very competitive in the North.

But the McGovern presidential campaign represents what can happen to the Democratic Party when their leadership is weak. And they don’t have a strong Center-Left establishment. And as a result they become divided and their Far-Left takes over. And they nominate George McGovern as their leader in 1972.

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CBS News: Face The Nation With Bob Schieffer: ‘The Confident Defeat That Wasn’t’

Source:CBS News– U.S. Senator George McGovern (Democrat, South Dakota) appearing on CBS News Face The Nation, in 1972.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Democrats Sen. Hubert Humphrey and Rep. George McGovern appeared together on “Face the Nation” while they were campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. They both expressed confidence that President Richard Nixon was beatable. Of course, neither of them ultimately did.”

From CBS News

Senator George McGovern (Democrat, South Dakota) and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate talking to CBS News Face The Nation about Senator Hubert Humphrey and their presidential campaigns. The video that this photo is from, is not currently available online right now.

Source: CBS News

The fact is there wasn’t any Democrat who could even beat President Nixon in 1972, or even give him a tough race, because of the disarray in the Democratic Party between it’s Center-Left and Far-Left. Similar to how the Republican Party is today. And there wasn’t a Democrat who could bring those two sides together.

But even without the emergence of the McGovernites that put all of their support behind Senator George McGovern in 1972, I think they would have a hard time defeating President Nixon. Because of the emerging Southern base in the Republican Party and that the Democrats hadn’t locked down the Northeast and West Coast, as well as big Midwestern cities as far as their base. African-Americans and Latinos, were still voting Republican in 1972.

Compared with the late 1960s at least, 1972 looked like a fairly peaceful and establishment friendly year. And when that is the case the party in power and that is the party with the presidency, tends to do well. Even if the young Baby Boomers and the broader New-Left in the Democratic Party felt differently.

By 1972, the Vietnam War was ending, America was negotiating with Russia and China and opening up a relationship with the People’s Republic of China. The country by in-large felt pretty good. The Great Deflation of the 1970s that basically hammered the American economy from really 1973 on, hadn’t happen yet. So when the country is like this they tend to feel fairly good and aren’t looking for a change in leadership.

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ABC Evening News: ‘March 1972, Campaign News’

Source:ABC News– anchor Howard K. Smith.

Source:The Daily Journal

“In this rare clip, One of Nixon’s primary challengers drop out, the Republican accuse AT&T of not making the Democrats pay phone bills, African Americans have their own convention Jesse Jackson makes an apprentice, also news on Northern Ireland.”

From E-Fan

One way to sum up the 1972 Democratic presidential primaries, is to say it went to the guy who was damaged the least and not to the best candidate. Because there was really never any real danger to President Nixon losing reelection. But about how big of victory he would get and what he would do with it.

The Democratic race for president between Senator’s George McGovern, Ed Muskie, Hubert Humphrey and others, was great TV and very interesting. And a very good look inside of the Democratic Party was between its establishment Center-Left, that Senator Muskie and Senator Humphrey represented and the more social democratic New-Left that Senator McGovern represented in 1972.

The story about the Black Panthers (a New-Left socialist and communist group interested in the state of the African-American community) was interesting. They were in and outside of the Democratic Party back then and much further left of the NAACP which is more of a progressive Center-Left civil rights organization who are definitely tied to the Democratic Party as their supporters are.

The word militant is perfect for the Black Panthers, because that is what they were. And at the very least were linked and associated with known terrorists and criminals. And were accused of being part of terrorists acts in the 1970s. They were looking for a much more radical direction for the African-American community than the NAACP.

Apparently big business’s and other special interests on the Democratic Party and Republican Party was also a big issue in 1972. Of course it was which is why I still don’t know why Congress has never passed a full-disclosure law on all federal candidates and incumbents. Actually I do, because neither Democrats, or Republicans want to disclose who contributes to their campaigns. Because a lot of those contributors are controversial and Democrats and Republicans don’t want to officially be associated with groups like that. But that along with ending gerrymandering completely is the only way you weed out corruption in American politics. Because of how liberal our First Amendment is.

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ABC Evening News: ‘Ted Kennedy’s Potential Run For President in 1972’

Source:ABC News– if you are one of the 3 people who don’t recognize these cars: (ha, ha) those are d-model Citroens, which are French luxury cars.

Source:The Daily Journal

“In this clip, ABC goes over the rumors of Ted Kennedy’s possible run in 1972, It did not happen. Also discussed is the Vietnam peace treaty and action and Vietnam.”

From E-Fan

Senator Ted Kennedy was still way too controversial to run for president in 1972. He wasn’t ready to run for president and was happy in the Senate being a Senator and being one of the largest voices in Congress, (at least in the Democratic Party) gaining seniority and influence in what happens in the Senate and Congress as a whole, where he had a lot of friends in both the Senate and House.

I sort of see Ted Kennedy as his generation’s Paul Ryan, as someone who could have done more things outside of Congress, but was happy in Congress. Paul Ryan, now Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ted Kennedy, long time Chairman and Ranking Member of the Labor Committee. Plus, he had personal issues he was still dealing with in his family, including his wife.

There was never much reason for Ted Kennedy to really ever run for president. He never actually wanted the job, again because of how successful and happy he was in Congress being such a powerful Senator who had so much to do with so much important legislation that came out of Congress.

Senator Kennedy’s 1979-80 presidential run showed that being president was not something he wanted, when he couldn’t even answered the point-blank question from CBS News’s Roger Mudd: “Why do you want to be president?’

Senator Kennedy wouldn’t have won in 72 even if he did run and win the nomination, because of how divided the Democratic Party was between their mainstream Progressives and their New-Left that George McGovern represented. Ted Kennedy, made the right decision not running in 72 and he shouldn’t have run in 1979-80 either.

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ABC Evening News: ‘1972 VP Drama’

Source:ABC News– the ABC Evening News with Howard K. Smith, in 1972.

Source:The Daily Journal 

“This is a rare color clip of the 8-28-72 Edition, of the ABC Evening News. This is about the struggles of 1972 Democratic Nominee Thomas Eagleton, who was the VP nominee until he was dropped for mental health issues.

This is the first of a series of Videos, ending with Election Night 1972 from ABC News, which I will upload sometime.”

From Efan

George McGovern did a lot to bring in new voters to the Democratic Party by reaching to African, Latin, Asian, and Jewish Americans. As well as women and suburban voters, after the civil rights movement of the 1960s with a large number of Southern Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans heading to the GOP because of civil rights. And you could credit Senator McGovern with even saving the Democratic Party because without these new voters, all of these new people would’ve ended up Republicans, or not voting at all.

Without George McGovern we would’ve seen Republican Congress’s, not just a Republican Senate, but the GOP would’ve won back the House and Senate well before 1994. Perhaps even by 1980 with the Reagan Revolution, because the Democratic Party would’ve been left with a large hole to fill. With all of those Southern voters heading to the GOP, without other voters heading to the Democratic Party. So by bringing in all of these new voters to the Democratic Party, Senator McGovern deserves credit for saving the Democratic Party. From future losses in Congress and the White House after 1972.Democrats added to their majorities in Congress in 1974. And they won back the White House while holding both the House and Senate in 1976.

The Democratic Party paid such a heavy price for it in 1972, yes President Nixon was pretty popular, but they were a very divided party between establishment Progressives who wanted a united party to face the Republicans in the fall and the anti-war New-Left Socialists that wanted to take over the party and return it to where it was in the 1960s and build on the New Deal and Great Society. And George McGovern also deserves credit for running the most disorganize convention in the TV era.

Even if Senator Tom Eagleton didn’t have the pass mental health controversy going on, George McGovern not just loses, but loses going away. The Eagleton Affair (as it was called) was just another reminder of how disorganized the Democratic Party was in the early 1970s. And it’s until 1975 or so after the Watergate affair that the Democratic Party finally recovered at the presidential level, from what went on in the late 1960s.

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ABC Evening News: ‘A Few Days Before The 1972 Democratic Convention’

Source:ABC News– covering the 1972 Democratic National Convention.

Source:The Daily Journal 

“In this rare clip from 1972, George Wallace campaigns for the first time since he was shot, Ed Muskie was considered a mystery, and the National Guard is called in to stop riots.

Also talked about is the trial of the man who shot Wallace, and some Vietnam news.”

From Efan

Here’s a reason to watch ABC Now if you are a political junky.

There was simply no way that the Democratic Party was going to win the 1972 presidential election. Even if you could get past the facts that President Richard Nixon was ending the Vietnam War, that his policies to talk too and work with Russia and China were paying off and that the American economy was still relatively healthy. But the state of the Democratic Party was the main issues for Democrats in 72.

The emerging that I at least would call Socialist New-Left that backed Senator George McGovern for president who went out his way to have this fringe political faction behind him, combined with what was left of the Southern right-wing base in the party that backed Governor George Wallace, and the traditional New Deal/Great Society progressive coalition that was behind Senator Hubert Humphrey, gave the Democratic Party that was only willing to vote for their preferred candidate for President and no one else.

Democrats and Senator George McGovern were so desperate to get attention and support behind their campaign that they tried to make Watergate an issue in the summer and fall of 72. Even though most of the country hadn’t even heard of the Watergate Hotel yet, let alone the burglary there.

Landslides tend to happen at least at the presidential level when you have a fairly popular president which is what Richard Nixon was for most of 1972, with a large percentage of the country believing things are going well, facing a divided opposition party like the Democratic Party in 72. That couldn’t decide who their presidential nominee was going to be and which faction of the party would get it until they got to the convention itself. Opposition parties need to be united behind a leader in order to defeat the President of the United States. Which is not what the Democrats were in 72.

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Sommer 57: The Candidate (1972) Robert Redford: ‘Social Warfare Speech’

Source:Sommer 57– Robert Redford, as Bill McKay, in The Candidate (1972)

“This 1972 film starred Robert Redford and Peter Boyle, and is the property of Warner Bros. This brief speech is from the middle of the film. The talking points still seem relevant today.”

From Sommer 57

The movie The Candidate from 1972 where Robert Redford plays a young idealistic Progressive Senate candidate, who gets the Democratic nomination for this California Senate seat, running up against a three-term incumbent Republican Senator, the Washington insider of Washington insiders, to me represents what Progressive grassroots politics looks like.

The main character in the movie played by Bob Redford, plays someone from the Progressive movement. Not someone who graduates from law school and then gets a job on Capital Hill, or the Justice Department. But someone who’s from and worked in the Progressive movement. And has success in that, organizing workers so they can collectively bargain.

Bill McKay played by Redford, essentially gets recruited as well as his name, by the Peter Boyle character. Another big shot Washington insider in the Democratic Party who runs political campaigns for a living, to run for the U.S. Senate. Because the Washington insider played by Peter Boyle believes he represents what voters at least in California are looking for. And because of who McKay’s father is, might be the guy who can beat the Republican in the election.

For Progressives who are interested in politics, The Candidate represents how to run for public office. By not starting off as a Washington insider, but working in the private sector at the grassroots level. And know exactly what that is like and then running for public office. By picking up some quality experience in your own movement and using that once you get in public office.

Bill McKay in many ways represents what American voters, well let’s say they say they look for in politicians. Someone who speaks straight, is honest, tells the truth at least almost all the time. Tells people what they believe and what they want to do with a sound, clear consistent message. Who doesn’t believe they are better than, let’s say average people because they are running for office and have had a very good education.

Bill McKay is not Joe Average who is just happy fixing cars or building houses and retiring and collecting a small pension and Social Security, with enough money to support his family. But he is someone who can communicate with those people because he has worked with them and helped them do better in life. Not someone who talks up to people, or talks down to people. But speaks in a straightforward lets say working class way that everyone can understand. But does it intelligently.

Bill McKay a Progressive Democrat coming from the Center-Left, not someone with a new government program and tax to solve everyone’s problems for them. But what he does is talk to people to see what they are thinking and to figure out how they are doing. And tells them what he believes should and can be done about those issues so those people can help themselves.

And if you look at Bill McKay for Senate in 1972 and Bill Clinton for President in 1992, they aren’t that different in how they approach, politics and communication.

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Richard Nixon Library: Oral History- Tim Naftali Interviewing George McGovern

Source:Richard Nixon Library– Former U.S. Senator and 1972 Democratic Party presidential nominee George McGovern, talking to presidential historian Tim Naftali, in 2009.

Source:FreeState MD 

“George McGovern recorded interview by Timothy Naftali, 26 August 2009, the Richard
Nixon Oral History Project of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.”

From the Richard Nixon Library 

“George Stanley McGovern, who rose from small-town roots in Avon and Mitchell to the highest heights of American politics, died Sunday morning at a Sioux Falls hospice facility from a combination of medical conditions associated with his age. He was 90.

Though he was known mostly for his unsuccessful 1972 presidential campaign, McGovern was more than that. He was an accomplished student and debater during his school days in Mitchell; a World War II bomber pilot decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross; a doctorate-level scholar; a history professor; the rebuilder of the South Dakota Democratic Party; a U.S. representative; director of the Food for Peace program in the Kennedy administration; a U.S. senator; an icon of the anti-Vietnam War effort; a lifelong crusader against the scourge of hunger; a United Nations delegate and ambassador; the author of 14 books; and, in his later years, an elder statesman who remained a sought-after speaker and commenter on issues of the day.”

Source:The Mitchell Republic– U.S. Senator George McGovern (Democrat, South Dakota) running for President in 1972.

“Sen. George McGovern gives the victory sign to throng of about 20,000 persons assembled at Madison Square garden, June 14, 1972 in New York for rally in support to his attempt to win the democratic presidential candidacy. (AP Photo/Dave Pickoff)”

From The Mitchell Republic

George McGovern was someone with one hell of a political and professional resume, who represented South Dakota in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate as a Leftist Democrat in one of the reddest states in the union. And yet he represented South Dakota in Congress for twenty-two years.

Mr. McGovern served as Director of the U.S. Food For Peace Program, who won the Democratic Party nomination for President in 1972, who rebuilt the Democratic Party almost on his own, by bringing in so many new Democrats, who thought the Democratic Party was still the Dixiecrat Party that didn’t welcome ethnic or racial minorities or women, and so-forth.

Senator McGovern benefited the Democratic Party by 1976 with Jimmy Carter being elected President in 1976, who was a Progressive Democrat from the South and not as far to the left as the national Democratic Party. George McGovern was a man who truly believed in public service, that it was about representing the public and not furthering your career financially.

George McGovern grew up in the New Deal era in the Democratic Party era, the Progressive Era of Franklin Roosevelt and thought this was the politics of the future. And something that he believed in and was the dominant political philosophy up until the late 1960s or so.

The problem that Senator McGovern had was that by the time he was a national Democrat and becoming a major contender For President of the United States, Senator McGovern was not a New Deal Progressive Democrat, but more of a Henry Wallace Democratic Socialist, during a time when the country was moving to the right on economic policy and when high taxes, Welfare, big government were becoming unpopular.Yet

When the country was moving right economically, the George McGovern and the Democratic Party was moving left, thanks to the New-Left and Baby Boomers of the 1960s and 70s. Which made it almost impossible for a McGovernite like a McGovern to win nationally and win statewide perhaps in most states.

The main difference between Barry Goldwater and George McGovern’s landslide presidential losses, is that Senator Goldwater was ahead of his time and the country wasn’t quite ready for his let’s call it conservative-libertarianism in 1964. At the heart of the Great Society era in the country.

But in Senator McGovern’s case, the country moved past his and LBJ’s progressivism and Wallace/McGovern democratic socialism. And instead we’re looking for fewer taxes and more economic development and growth in America.

What I call the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party, that’s different from the FDR or LBJ wing, was forming, but hasn’t had the power to nominate another McGovern Socialist to run for President in the Democratic Party.

The Far-Left of the Democratic Party tried with McGovern again in 1984, Jesse Jackson in 84 and 88, Dennis Kucinich in 2004 and 2008. But none of these Far-Leftist Democrats, have come even close to being a major contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. And we are now seeing McGovern-Democrats running for President in social democratic third-parties.

George McGovern’s legacy for the Democratic Party, is that he expanded it. Taken it away from the right-wing Religious-Right of the South and giving the Republican Party a Christmas gift from hell. And turning the Democratic Party into more of a Northern and West Coast party. That relies on minorities and women, to be successful politically.

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