1972 presidential campaign
McGovern announced his candidacy on January 18, 1971, during a televised speech from the studios of KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.[165] At the time of his announcement, McGovern ranked fifth among Democrats in a presidential preference Gallup Poll.[166] The earliest such entry since Andrew Jackson[167] was designed to give him time to overcome the large lead of the frontrunner, Maine senator Edmund Muskie.[168] Nevertheless, by January 1972, McGovern had only 3 percent national support among Democrats in the Gallup Poll and had not attracted significant press coverage.[169] McGovern's campaign manager, Gary Hart, decided on a guerrilla-like insurgency strategy of battling Muskie in only selected primaries, not everywhere, so as to focus the campaign's organizational strength and resources.[170]
Muskie fell victim to inferior organizing, an over-reliance on party endorsements, and Nixon's "dirty tricks" operatives,[171][172][173] and in the March 7, 1972, New Hampshire primary, did worse than expected with McGovern coming in a close second.[174] As Muskie's campaign funding and support dried up, Hubert Humphrey, who had rejoined the Senate, became McGovern's primary rival for the nomination,[175] with Alabama governor George Wallace also in the mix after dominating the March 14 primary in Florida.[171] McGovern won a key breakthrough victory over Humphrey and Wallace on April 4 in Wisconsin,[171] where he added blue-collar economic populism to his appeal.[176] He followed that by dominating the April 25 primary in Massachusetts.[177] At that point, McGovern had become the frontrunner.[177] A late decision to enter the May 2 Ohio primary, considered a Humphrey stronghold, paid dividends when McGovern managed a very close second there amid charges of election fraud by pro-Humphrey forces.[8][178] The other two leading candidates for the nomination also won primaries, but Wallace's campaign in effect ended when he was seriously wounded in a May assassination attempt,[179] and McGovern's operation was effective in garnering delegates in caucus states.[180] The climactic contest took place in California, with Humphrey attacking McGovern in several televised debates; in the June 6 vote, McGovern defeated him by five percentage points and claimed all the delegates due to the state's winner-take-all rules.[181] He then appeared to clinch the nomination with delegates won in the New York primary on June 20.[179] However, Humphrey's attacks on McGovern as being too radical began a downward slide in the latter's poll standing against Nixon.[182] McGovern became tagged with the label "amnesty, abortion, and acid," supposedly reflecting his positions.[nb 11]
During his primary victories, McGovern used an approach that stressed grassroots-level organization while bypassing conventional campaign techniques and traditional party power centers.[8][175] He capitalized on support from antiwar activists and reform liberals;[171] thousands of students engaged in door-to-door campaigning for him.[185] He benefited by the eight primaries he won being those the press focused on the most; he showed electoral weakness in the South and industrial Midwest, and actually received fewer primary votes overall than Humphrey and had only a modest edge over Wallace.[186]
McGovern ran on a platform that advocated withdrawal from the Vietnam War in exchange for the return of American prisoners of war[187] and amnesty for draft evaders who had left the country.[188] McGovern's platform also included an across-the-board 37-percent reduction in defense spending over three years.[189] He proposed a "demogrant" program that would give a $1,000 payment to every citizen in America.[190] Based around existing ideas such as the negative income tax and intended to replace the welfare bureaucracy and complicated maze of existing public-assistance programs, it nonetheless garnered considerable derision as a poorly thought-out "liberal giveaway" and was dropped from the platform in August.[171][190][191][nb 12]
An "Anybody But McGovern" coalition, led by southern Democrats and organized labor, formed in the weeks following the final primaries.[192] McGovern's nomination did not become ensured until the first night of the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, where, following intricate parliamentary maneuverings led by campaign staffer Rick Stearns, a Humphrey credentials challenge regarding the California winner-take-all rules was defeated.[193][194] Divisive arguments over the party platform then followed; what resulted was arguably the most liberal one of any major U.S. party.[195] On July 12, 1972, McGovern officially won the Democratic nomination. In doing so and in taking over the party's processes and platform, McGovern produced what The New York Times termed "a stunning sweep."[175] The convention distractions led to a hurried process to pick a vice presidential running mate.[196] Turned down by his first choice, Ted Kennedy, as well as by several others, McGovern selected – with virtually no vetting – Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton.[197] On the final night of the convention, procedural arguments over matters such as a new party charter, and a prolonged vice presidential nomination process that descended into farce, delayed the nominee's acceptance speech.[198] As a result, McGovern delivered his speech, "Come home America!", at three o'clock in the morning, reducing his television audience from about 70 million people to about 15 million.[199]
Just over two weeks after the convention, it was revealed that Eagleton had been hospitalized and received electroshock therapy for "nervous exhaustion" and "depression" several times during the early to mid-1960s[200] (years later, Eagleton's diagnosis was refined to bipolar II disorder).[201] McGovern initially supported Eagleton, in part because he saw parallels with his daughter Terry's battles with mental illness,[202][203] and on the following day, July 26, stated publicly, "I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and have no intention of dropping him from the ticket."[204] Though many people still supported Eagleton's candidacy, an increasing number of influential politicians and newspapers questioned his ability to handle the office of vice president and, potentially, president[205] or questioned the McGovern campaign's ability to survive the distraction.[206] The resulting negative attention – combined with McGovern's consultation with preeminent psychiatrists, including Karl Menninger, as well as doctors who had treated Eagleton – prompted McGovern to accept, and announce on August 1, Eagleton's offer to withdraw from the ticket.[206][207] It remains the only time a major party vice presidential nominee has been forced off the ticket.[208] Five prominent Democrats then publicly turned down McGovern's offer of the vice presidential slot: in sequence, Kennedy again, Abraham Ribicoff, Humphrey, Reubin Askew, and Muskie (Larry O'Brien was also approached but no offer made).[209] Finally, he named United States ambassador to France Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy.[209] McGovern's 1,000 percent statement and subsequent reneging made him look both indecisive and an opportunist, and has since been considered one of the worst gaffes in presidential campaign history.[205] McGovern himself would long view the Eagleton affair as having been "catastrophic" for his campaign.[203]
The general election campaign did not go well for McGovern. Nixon did little campaigning;[210] he was buoyed by the success of his visit to China and arms-control-signing summit meeting in the Soviet Union earlier that year and, shortly before the election, Henry Kissinger's somewhat premature statement that "peace is at hand" in Vietnam.[211] Top Republican figures attacked McGovern for being weak on defense issues and "encouraging the enemy";[212] Nixon asserted that McGovern was for "peace at any price" in Vietnam, rather than the "peace with honor" that Nixon said he would bring about.[213] McGovern chose to not emphasize his own war record during the campaign.[nb 13] The McGovern Commission changes to the convention rules marginalized the influence of establishment Democratic Party figures, and McGovern struggled to get endorsements from figures such as former President Johnson and Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley.[215] The AFL–CIO remained neutral, after having always endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in the past.[216] Some southern Democrats, led by former Texas governor John Connally, switched their support to the Republican incumbent through a campaign effort called Democrats for Nixon.[217] Nixon outspent McGovern by more than two-to-one.[218]
Nixon directly requested that his aides use government records to try to dig up dirt on McGovern and his top contributors.[219] McGovern was publicly attacked by Nixon surrogates[220] and was the target of various operations of the Nixon "dirty tricks" campaign.[221] The infamous Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in June 1972 was an alternate target after bugging McGovern's headquarters was explored.[221] The full dimensions of the subsequent Watergate scandal did not emerge during the election, however;[221] the vast majority of the press focused on McGovern's difficulties and other news, rather than the break-in or who was behind it, and a majority of voters were unaware of Watergate.[222] In the end, Nixon's covert operations had little effect in either direction on the election outcome.[221][223]
By the final week of the campaign, McGovern knew he was going to lose.[224] While he was appearing in Battle Creek, Michigan, on November 2, a Nixon admirer heckled him. McGovern told the heckler, "I've got a secret for you," then said softly into his ear, "Kiss my ass."[225] The incident was overheard and reported in the press, and became part of the tale of the campaign.[nb 14]
In the general election on November 7, 1972, the McGovern–Shriver ticket suffered a 61 percent to 37 percent defeat to Nixon – at the time, the second biggest landslide in American history, with an Electoral College total of 520 to 17. McGovern's two electoral vote victories came in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and he failed to win his home state of South Dakota (which, however, had gone Democratic in only three of the previous eighteen presidential elections, and which would continue to go Republican in presidential elections to come).[228] Over the nation as a whole he carried a mere 135 counties.[nb 15] At just over four percent of the nation's counties, McGovern's county wins remain the fewest by almost a factor of three for any major-party nominee.[229]
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