home

George McGovern, R.I.P.

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics
Posted on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 08:16:12 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

George McGovern has passed away.

By all accounts, he was a good and decent man.

May he rest in peace after living a full life, filled with accomplishments and service.

< Sunday Morning Open Thread | 50 Years Ago Tomorrow: The Cuban Missile Crisis >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    George McGovern, R.I.P. | 25 comments (25 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

    Read the link, the NYT (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by oculus on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 08:58:34 AM EST
    obituary, which includes Sen. McGovern's reflections during a 2005 interview for this obit.  Fascinating.


    I don't believe this country really ever knew or (5.00 / 4) (#2)
    by Angel on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 09:06:27 AM EST
    understood what a truly decent man he was.  America's loss.

    I still cannot understand how (none / 0) (#3)
    by oculus on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 09:12:07 AM EST
    so many voters in 1072 chose Richard Nixon despite knowledge of Watergate and Nixon's character.   Makes me very afraid Mitt may be our next Pres.

    Parent
    (This was a rhetorical comment.) (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by oculus on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 12:06:54 PM EST


    Parent
    In 1972 (none / 0) (#8)
    by cal1942 on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 12:32:05 PM EST
    the average person hadn't heard of Watergate or at least didn't connect it with Nixon.

    McGovern had an uphill fight because he was pictured as a radical.  He wasn't, but that was the image.  I believe very few people knew that McGovern was a decorated war hero.

    Parent

    My perspective of 1972 is (none / 0) (#11)
    by oculus on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 02:04:13 PM EST
    shaped by having spent two years being a Navy wife, during the Vietnam War then living in Ann Arbor again for four years in the hotbed of protest protest against the Vietnam War.  

    Parent
    I sniffed a bit (none / 0) (#21)
    by cal1942 on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 09:39:14 AM EST
    a bit of tear gas myself, in East Lansing.

    Parent
    The Berkley of the Midwest! (none / 0) (#23)
    by DFLer on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 02:12:15 PM EST


    Parent
    oculus was in Ann Arbor (none / 0) (#24)
    by cal1942 on Tue Oct 23, 2012 at 10:42:32 PM EST
    the Berkley of the Midwest. East Lansing is the site of another major university 60 odd miles northwest but a bit of hell was raised in East Lansing as well.

    Parent
    We had Rennie Davis and company. (none / 0) (#25)
    by oculus on Tue Oct 23, 2012 at 11:07:29 PM EST
    How about you?

    Parent
    Dirty tricks. (5.00 / 8) (#7)
    by Towanda on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 12:10:00 PM EST
    Too many today do not understand the range -- and the depths to evil deviltry -- of Watergate, and even those of us who read closely everything that came out about the campaign and worked in the campaign do not yet know of all of the dirty tricks to subvert the process.

    The investigation went up, correctly, rather than down to discover all of the details.  But, working in the McGovern campaign, I well remember so many times when we were so puzzled by many things that went wrong -- orders cancelled, events cancelled, etc., all inexplicably.  I remain convinced that we do not know the extent of all that was done, and that the election results did not reflect the reality of the electorate's disgust with the war and more.

    Parent

    Yes, the constitutional crisis (5.00 / 2) (#9)
    by KeysDan on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 01:17:14 PM EST
    referred to in the Watergate scandal was the undermining of the election.  

    Parent
    In her first memoir, Madeleine (5.00 / 2) (#13)
    by oculus on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 05:25:57 PM EST
    Albright relates a similar attempt by GOP operatives to derail a big Dukakis event in D.C.  

    Parent
    How did that happen? (none / 0) (#4)
    by brodie on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 10:16:50 AM EST
    First, Watergate was only a small blip on the public radar, with few major media outlets covering it or doing so in a way the public could understand.  

    Second Nixon ran as the Peace with Honor president -- he wasn't going to hightail it out of VN head between legs cowardly style like McG and his peaceniks, but he showed how to responsibly disengage while holding back the communist aggressors--that was the campaign line anyway.

    Third, while people weren't warm or wild about Nixon they also worried about "acid, amnesty and abortion" McGovern, a cute but effective distortion slogan by the Nixon campaign.  Then the disastrous Eagleton pick suggested McG didn't have good judgment and alternatively didn't have the spine to stand by his guy.

    The MSM barely went after Nixon, much as 1968.  No Internet or cable.  The lib-left media for McG was only a small slice of the pie.  

    And the Dem Party was badly divided between doves for George and hawks/social conservatives not for him/for
    Nixon.  The LBJ wing of the party as I call it -- hawks and social/economic cons -- gravitated to a noisy and effective group called Democrats for Nixon.  Lyndon himself gave George only the weakest endorsement possible and then refused to be seen with him publicly after McG personally paid a visit to the Ranch.  Labor union leaders didn't care for McG's social policies or were skeptical of his attitude towards unions.

    Parent

    Voters make lousy choices all the time. (none / 0) (#5)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 11:58:49 AM EST
    It's one of the given and accepted potential pitfalls of a republican style of democracy. In some cases, zigging when we should've zagged has subsequently proved very costly (see Bush v. Gore).

    That's why it's so important to have an informed electorate, because the low-information / poorly educated voter is our Achilles' heel.

    Parent

    When I was in grade school in 1972... (5.00 / 6) (#10)
    by Dadler on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 01:38:43 PM EST
    ...our teacher decided to have a little mock-presidential election in class. We were told to find out whom our parents were voting for, then we'd come back the next day and count up the votes. So, the next day, when the teacher went around the room asking each kid whom their parents were voting for, it went like this: "Nixon...Nixon...Nixon... Nixon...Nixon...Nixon...Nixon...Nixon..." After about 20 Nixons, there was a pause when the teacher came to me.  I was hesitant to answer, not wanting to stand out, but the teacher pressed me. So I finally said, kind of meekly, "McGovern."  Everyone in my class laughed and even my teacher kind of looked at me strangely.  "Did you say McGovern?" At that point, I'd had it with the reaction and just sat up and proclaimed a second time, much more loudly and clearly, "MCGOVERN!!!"

    It was probably the first moment in my life when I realized that whenever they polled the public on any issue, and then the results appear in a pie chart, that my opinions would largely reside in that slice of the pie that is so slim it's really just a straight black line. Often it sucks to think you'll probably spend your entire life living on that thin black line.  It's a sobering thought, but, well, I like it much better than thinking I'd just be following the mob.

    Thank you for your service to this nation, Senator. Rest in peace, but if the reincarnationists are right...maybe you're already back in diapers somewhere. We can hope.

    So much for the secret ballot (5.00 / 2) (#12)
    by Towanda on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 05:20:46 PM EST
    for the parents of kids in schools like that.

    Parent
    This was the same teacher... (none / 0) (#14)
    by Dadler on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 06:37:00 PM EST
    ...who would precede spanking you with three wooden rules stacked by saying, "You know, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you."  Sure, lady, just like I'm the heir to the throne of England. She was, in a word, nuts.

    Parent
    wooden RULERS, that is (none / 0) (#15)
    by Dadler on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 06:47:40 PM EST
    not rules, although hers were as wooden as you get.

    Parent
    Good Article (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by cal1942 on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 08:42:00 PM EST
    About McGovern by Joan Walsh in today's Salon.  About 2100 words.

    Thanks (none / 0) (#19)
    by Towanda on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 10:12:26 PM EST
    Very savvy on the past.  Falls apart in the last paragraph on the present, though, which is disappointing; I thought that she was smarter than that.  So, I reread and reread, and I wonder . . . as I sense an odd change of voice.  Interesting.

    Parent
    The Senator's son-in-law posts (none / 0) (#16)
    by Towanda on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 07:41:15 PM EST
    on his blog a photo from the '72 campaign sent to him today of the Big Dawg in the day -- with the big hair.

    Poor Bill (none / 0) (#17)
    by brodie on Sun Oct 21, 2012 at 08:08:26 PM EST
    He got the thankless job of organizing TX for McGovern in a year where the conservative incumbent was playing all the patriotism political tricks, in Nixon's special way of course.

    Dont recall the final numbers in that state, but they couldn't have been purdy.  But Bill probably learned a lot about politics in that time.

    Parent

    An op-ed in memory of Sen. (none / 0) (#20)
    by oculus on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 12:04:45 AM EST
    McGovern:

    "The Moral Clarity of George McGovern"  [NYT.]

    Great McGovern Quote (none / 0) (#22)
    by Slado on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 11:54:12 AM EST
    Government has become so vast and impersonal that its interests diverge more and more from the interests of ordinary citizens.  For a generation and more, the government has sought to meet our needs by multiplying its bureaucracy. Washington has taken too much in taxes from Main Street, and Main Street has received too little in return. It is not necessary to centralize power in order to solve our problems

    LINK

    George McGovern, R.I.P. | 25 comments (25 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment