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: ‘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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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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