George McGovern 1972 presidential campaign
The George McGovern 1972 presidential campaign began when United States Senator George McGovern from South Dakota launched his second candidacy for the Presidency of the United States in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to win the 1972 presidential election against incumbent president Richard Nixon, winning only in the District of Columbia and the state of Massachusetts. McGovern vied to become the first South Dakota native to become president.[2]
George McGovern for President
George McGovern
U.S. Senator from South Dakota
(1963–1981)
Sargent Shriver
U.S. Ambassador to France
(1968–1970)
Announced: January 18, 1971
Official nominee: July 13, 1972
Lost election: November 7, 1972
Come Home, America
McGovern. Democrat. For the People[1]
Leading up to the announcement[edit]
McGovern had run a short presidential campaign in 1968, acting as a stand-in for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy leading up to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. McGovern then spent the remainder of the general election campaign ensuring his own re-election to the Senate.
But following the 1968 convention, he had planned on running for president again, a decision he solidified in January 1969.[3] He began hiring legislative aides who could double as campaign policy staff, press secretaries, and the like.[3] McGovern hired an agent to book speaking engagements, and in early 1969 began doing an average of three appearances a week.[3]
During 1969, McGovern headed the Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, often later referred to as the "McGovern commission," which was chartered to redesign the Democratic nomination system after the messy and confused nomination struggle and convention of the 1968 election.[4] Due to the former influence of Eugene McCarthy and Kennedy supporters on the staff, the commission significantly reduced the role of party officials and insiders in the nomination process, increased the role of caucuses and primaries, and mandated quotas for proportional black, women, and youth delegate representation. McGovern's staff may have been influenced by the model of John Kennedy's 1952 campaign for the Senate, where his acting campaign manager Robert Kennedy had created an organizational structure that had 286 campaign "secretaries" function as "shadow units" to the regular Democratic Party machinery, ensuring their loyalty lay first with the Candidate and not exclusively to the Party.[5][6]
Senate Majority Whip Ted Kennedy, the younger brother of Robert and John, had been the early favorite to win the 1972 nomination, but his hopes were derailed by his role in the July 1969 Chappaquiddick incident.[7]
McGovern's early efforts were beset by organizational problems and much activity without plan or result in polls.[8] He began replacing most of the campaign staff. In March 1970, he met Gary Hart in Denver, and soon hired him to be his Western political affairs coordinator; a couple of months later, he became McGovern's national campaign director.[8] Shortly thereafter he opened a New York office and hired the first woman as executive director, Phyllis Holtzer, a former Robert Kennedy staffer. At a July 25, 1970, get-together at McGovern's farm in St. Michael's, Maryland, the McGovern campaign was restarted.[8]
The favorite for the Democratic nomination by then was Edmund Muskie,[9][10] the 1968 vice-presidential nominee, who had especially benefited from a speech on the eve of the congressional elections in November 1970 that made a calm but effective response to statements by President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew impugning the patriotism of Democrats.[11]
Campaign staff and policy team[edit]
Future Senator Gary Hart (who subsequently sought the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination and emerged as the frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination before his campaign was prematurely thwarted by an extramarital liaison) was McGovern's campaign manager. Future President Bill Clinton (with assistance from his wife and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham) managed the McGovern campaign's operations in Texas.
Taking their cue from the McGovern–Fraser Commission, Hart and future United States District Judge Rick Stearns (an expert on the new system) devised a strategy to focus on the 28 states holding caucuses instead of primary elections. They felt the nature of the caucuses made them easier (and less costly) to win if they targeted their efforts.[15] Recruited as a Harvard University senior by Hart, 22-year-old pollster Pat Caddell also played an integral role in paving McGovern's route to the nomination by encouraging him "to increase his populist rhetoric and tour factories instead of obsessing about the Vietnam War."
MIT Sloan School of Management professor Edwin Kuh headed McGovern's economic advisory panel, for which he recruited Lester Thurow and other academic economists.[16]
Abner "Abby" Levine served as Vice Chairman of Finance. Levine and former Robert Kennedy staffer Phyllis Holtzer established the New York office, helped to organize at least five big events, and met regularly with the senator. They assisted Warren Beatty with his production of Together for McGovern, which filled Madison Square Garden and reunited Nichols and May, Simon and Garfunkel, and Peter, Paul and Mary. Singer Dionne Warwick also performed.[17]
Political positions[edit]
In the 1972 election, McGovern ran on a platform that advocated withdrawal from the Vietnam War in exchange for the return of American prisoners of war[18] and amnesty for draft evaders who had left the country,[19] an anti-war platform that was anticipated by McGovern's sponsorship of the 1970 McGovern-Hatfield amendment that sought to end U.S. participation in the war by congressional action. However, during a meeting with Democratic Governors conference, Nevada Governor Mike O'Callaghan asked McGovern what he would do if the North Vietnamese refused to release American POW's after a withdrawal. McGovern responded, "Under such circumstances, we'd have to take action," although he did not say what action.[20]
McGovern's platform also included an across-the-board, 37% reduction in defense spending over three years;[21] and a "demogrant" program that would replace the personal income tax exemption with a $1,000 tax credit as a minimum-income floor for every citizen in America,[22] to replace the welfare bureaucracy and complicated maze of existing public-assistance programs. Its concept was similar to the negative income tax long advocated by economist Milton Friedman, and by the Nixon administration in the form of Counselor to the President Daniel Patrick Moynihan's Family Assistance Plan, which called for a minimum family grant of $1,600 per year (later raised to $2,400). The personal income tax exemption later became $1,000 under President Reagan. (As Senator, McGovern had previously sponsored a bill, submitted by the National Welfare Rights Organization, for $6,500 guaranteed minimum income per year to families, based on need.)[23] In addition, McGovern supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Campaign developments 1971[edit]
The establishment favorite for the Democratic nomination was Ed Muskie,[9] the moderate who acquitted himself well as the 1968 Democratic vice-presidential candidate. In August 1971 Harris polling amid a growing economic crisis, Muskie came out on top of incumbent Nixon if the election had been held that day.[9]
Established Washington press figures such as Walter Lippman and Jack Germond did not think McGovern had a chance of winning, proclaiming him "too decent" a man, not strong enough for a combative campaign, and too reflexively liberal.[24] Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder gave 200–1 odds against McGovern winning.[14]
1972 Democratic presidential primaries[61]
1972 Democratic National Convention (presidential tally):[62]
1972 Liberal Party Convention (presidential tally):[63]
1972 United States presidential election:
Legacy[edit]
After the resignation of Nixon following the Watergate scandal, a bumper sticker became popular: "Don't blame me – I'm from Massachusetts".[74]
McGovern recognized the mixed results of the changes that he made to the Democratic nominating convention, saying, "I opened the doors of the Democratic Party and 20 million people walked out."[75] Despite McGovern's landslide defeat, the Democratic Party did have a more socially and culturally liberal voter base than in the past due in large part to the efforts of McGovern's campaign. In their 2002 book The Emerging Democratic Majority, political scientist Ruy Teixeira and journalist John Judis referred to demographic trends favoring the Democratic Party, such as the party's advantage with women and racial minorities, as "George McGovern's Revenge," as many of those trends had their roots in McGovern's 1972 campaign.[76]
Robert Novak was accused of manufacturing the quote that led to the "amnesty, abortion and acid" label.[30] To rebut the criticism, Novak took Senator Thomas Eagleton to lunch after the campaign and asked whether he could identify Eagleton as the source.[30] The senator said he would not allow his identity to be revealed.[30] "Oh, he had to run for re-election... the McGovernites would kill him if they knew he had said that," Novak said.[29]
On July 15, 2007, after the source's death, Novak said on Meet the Press that the unnamed senator was Thomas Eagleton.[29] Political analyst Bob Shrum says that Eagleton would never have been selected as McGovern's running mate if it had been known at the time that Eagleton was the source of the quote:[29] "Boy, do I wish he would have let you publish his name. Then he never would have been picked as vice president.[29] Because the two things, the two things that happened to George McGovern—two of the things that happened to him—were the label you put on him, number one, and number two, the Eagleton disaster. We had a messy convention, but he could have, I think in the end, carried eight or 10 states, remained politically viable. And Eagleton was one of the great train wrecks of all time."[29]