McGovern Likes Democratic Contenders

[agates]

<snip>

As South Dakota's only presidential candidate, democrat George McGovern knows it's like to make a run for the White House. And when he looks at this year's crop of democratic contenders, he likes what he sees.

<snip>

McGovern says, "Frankly I haven't made up my mind which one I'm going to support and I hope I can remedy that before the South Dakota primaries next spring."

<snip>

http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail9.cfm?Id=22,26988

[LightTheMatch]

1. Oh, thank God

He didn't say "I love Howard Dean! He's my man! Go Dean!" LOL :P

[agates]

2. He did say Dean's

grassroots campaigning reminds him of his own race 30 years ago.

[Selwynn]

3. Yeah... and how well did that go for him ?

[UnapologeticLiberal]

4. It got him the nomination

and I think that is mostly what he was referring to.

[CMT]

5. negativity as usual

McGovern is a good and honorable man who ran a brilliant primary campaign and then went up against an incumbent who was preceived as de-escalating the war and beginning detente with the Soviet Union and China. It is doubtful that any Democrat would have beat Nixon in "72--for one thing we didn't know the whole story of Watergate. Dean can beat Bush. If anything the Dean campaign resembles the Carter campaign of 1976. By the way if you read the link he has kind words to say about Clark and the other candidates as well.

[PurityOfEssence]

18. Absolutely correct

Has anyone also pointed out that there have only been about 20 Presidential Elections since the advent of the electronic mass media? I'm calling this from the popularism of radio, incidentally. As a result, there just hasn't been enough of a sampling (to me at least) for supporting all the statements like "A Northerner can't win", "Senators never get elected President" and the like.

Many things can happen in this race, and hopefully they will; more than anything else, I want to see motion in the race. Politics is the only sport I follow, so I want a good game: I want reversals, overtime, replacements, head-to-head individual grudge-matches within the overall spectacle and all sorts of breathtaking stuff. This isn't just selfishness and voyeurism on my part; I want it driven home with a mallet that everything isn't pre-destined and hopeless, and that things change. This will keep more people informed and involved; that's almost always a good thing for the left.

The real parallel with Dean is Carter, and although the personalities are radically different, the unknown governor in time of strife is not to be denied.

I've said my piece on Dean, and undoubtedly will on many more occasions, but the groundswell bodes well for us all.

Sometimes it's a ludicrous cringefest around here, with many people contriving extreme and elaborate ways to justify paranoia and defeatism. Geez.

[jiacinto]

8. That's not a good omen

because McGovern's campaign ended up in a humiliating to defeat to Nixon.

[NashVegas]

14. It's Funny How We Forget/Ignore the Dirty Tricks Campaign

..

[jiacinto]

20. Even so

McGovern still was not going to win.

[tlb]

6. Kind of like if Hannibal Lechter loudly compliments your cooking.

You'd appreciate the thought but wish he had not said so out loud.

[Enraged_Ape]

7. So George McGovern = Hannibal Lecter?

Read a book, tlb. Get a fuckin' clue.

Regardless of how you feel about McGovern's leftist leanings, the man has integrity. He didn't waffle in his opinions or sway with the breezes of the polls, and he never has.

I won't mention that McGovern was a WWII hero. (Ok, I will.) Thirty-five missions piloting a B-24 Liberator bomber over Germany and the recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

The fact that he lost to Nixon in 1972 probably had more to do with Nixon than McGovern.

[Frances]

9. I voted for McGovern

I was living in Massachusetts and all of my friends voted for him too. He carried the state.

The Vietnam War was on everyone's mind. But McGovern chose a vice-presidential candidate who had consulted a psychiatrist. The Republicans protrayed both McGovern and the candidate being unstable. The vice-presidential candidate bowed out and McGovern replaced him. I think this fiasco cost McGovern a lot of votes.

Also, Nixon said he had a "secret plan" to end the war. So people thought they could have it both ways. They could end the war by voting for an anti-Communist crusader.

[Sean Reynolds]

11. I believe that is the reason McGovern lost.

If he didn't pick Eagleton, he probably would have gone on to beat Nixon - no doubt. Wasn't he leading in the polls at about the time all the electroshock therapy talks came out?

[DemDogs]

22. Read your history

If you didn't live it, at least read it. Eagleton was one of a series of mistakes not the least of which was thinking that the wave he was riding was a tsunami. There are lessons here.

[Selwynn]

10. Apologetics...

The fact that he lost to Nixon had more to do with Nixon than McGovern - that's basically what all people say when they lose. The bottom line is, he lost and lost horribly bad. It wasn't just that Nixon was unbeatable, it was that reguardless of how spectactular you think he was, he was the wrong person to nominate against Nixon. The Democratic Party has a very long history of nominating the absolute wrong person against the wrong opponent. Walter Mondale was the wrong person to run against Regan, Dukakis was the wrong person to run against Bush Sr. and I fear this trend will be continued if Dean is chosen as the nominee. Dean may be a great guy, but my personal opinion is starting to be that he is the wrong person to run against Bush.

By the way, how about you demonstrate just a tiny bit more sophistication than the average guy by not having to run down someone just because they have a different opinion about a sacred cow of yours than you do. Why don't you "get a fuckin' clue" about what it means to have intelligent dialogue and demonstrate that we are more open to civilized debate and a plurality of views than our opponents. Otherwise, you might look for a job in this White House. I think they're always looking for closed minded folks who refuse to speak respectfully of any view that isn't their own.

[PurityOfEssence]

13. However...

To a great degree, it's not necessarily the issue of tending to nominate the wrong person, it's an issue of not following through and attacking directly. If you're running an anti-war candidate, you'd better look the world in the face and make your case strongly, instead of shilly-shallying around. To a great degree, conservatives have us dead to rights on being too fractious and weak-willed.

Nixon was a dick and rather well hated. This could have been made a serious issue if Dems had used the same bare-knuckled onslaught of the typical Republican hatefest. To me, that's the real lesson of 1972.

I was too young to vote, but worked for the campaign anyway in my modest way. The state I lived in came within spitting distance of going for McGovern, and there was inherent support that either wasn't tapped or misused.

This is an ongoing failing of the Democratic party. If the Deanies lose the nomination and allow each other to drift off and be uninvolved or waste their vote on a third- fourth- or whatever-party candidate, they'll have done us all--and themselves--a huge disservice. Dean has said he'd support the nominee, but he's hinted that he just doesn't know if his legions will march along with him. Fine. I don't expect a candidate to say even that much at this early juncture, but there is a whiff of a threat there. Not a "threat" per se, but a passive-aggressive reminder that without me you will have lost a major group of supporters.

Dems can be great drama queens when thwarted by the primary, and the unwillingness to call out "popular presidents" on divisive issues is shameful. We should have no fear or wavering about waging battle against the right's Class Warfare, and it's an open question whether we will. We should have no compunction about depicting Junior as a sham, a tool of the megawealthy, a despicable greedy little nobody who's propped up by various evils, and a complete liar on the few occasions when he even knows what he's talking about. Will we?

[Enraged_Ape]

15. Selwynn, if you equated George McGovern to Hannibal Lecter...

I would respectfully tell you to get a clue too.

[stickdog]

16. Allow me to distill your post.

You think the Domocratic Party has made many mistakes in the past.

You think nominating Howard Dean would be a mistake.

Thank you for your unsupported and disconnected opinions.

[ozone_man]

19. We have a two party system (unfortunately).

The parties will moderate each other to be elected about 50% of the time. Call them Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. We have swung hard right with Bush after 8 years of Clinton. Now we see what a disaster this is and what a mess our economy is in and what the world opinion of us is. The pendulum will be swinging back this time. It will not be necessary, nor would it be appreciably different to run a Bush lite candidate like Lieberman or other DLC type candidate (Kerry, Clark) against Bush. It is now time for real change. Restore rights that have been taken away, stop alienating the world against us. Fix the economy and health care. Dean is the one that can do it.

[leesa]

17. Really. Isn't it sad that Americans do not recognise integrity.

McGovern is an intelligent, good, and honest man but in Amerika we call that weak. We want swaggering spittin', guns ablazin blowhards. We call them strong.

[agates]

21. Keillor on McGovern--Politics and Decency

<snip> Time magazine recently carried an essay by Garrison Keillor on the attempt in California to recall Gov. Gray Davis. Keillor talked about politics and decency, and that brought him to former Sen. George McGovern.

Keillor wrote: "Anger and loathing are losing hands in politics. George McGovern was a decorated war hero who got hit by more political garbage than anybody, but he is today the same good and thoughtful man he always was, and that's victory."

http://www.argusleader.com/news/Sundayarticle6.shtml

[On the Road]

12. I Like Headlines Like This

that x "likes the Democratic candidates." Seeing a few more of these lately. Much better than the "10 dwarves" references.

BTW, to get a little more insight on the 1972 election, I encourage everyone to read Hunter Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 1972." A brilliant picture of the trbulence of the campaign. He loved and respected McGovern while still being able to see what went wrong. And he has a very different reading of the Eagleton fiasco.