Talk:George McGovern

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Contents

[edit] Did McGovern jinxed Mondale?

In 1972 McGovern was electorally slaughtered by Republican incumbent Richard M Nixon, carrying only one state. In 1984 McGovern decided to seek the Democratic presidential nomination again but dropped out after failing to win the Massachussetts primary the very state that voted for him in 1972. The eventual 1984 nominee former Vice President Walter F. Mondale ended up also to be electorally slaughtered by the Republican incumbent Ronald Reagan also carrying one state. So did McGovern jinxed Mondale just by being in the race for the Democratic nomination?

Ronald Reagan was a fairly popular president at the time of the reelection anyway. I don't really think McGovern had much to do with it. 68.106.47.42 23:00, 2 May 2005 (UTC) EDIT: Didn't realize I wasn't logged in. Kairos 23:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Well it was a remarkable coincidence.
Well the point I was trying to make out was not whether Mondale would have been defeated if McGovern wasn't on the scene but to the magnitude of the defeat. Would Mondale had at least gotten a respectable result if McGovern had not been in the race at all.
Nonsense -- Carter won in 1976. Nice man, I met him at the Young Democrats convention, and voted for him. Mondale lost because he was Mondale. Carter lost in 1980 because he screwed up in Iran, and was perceived as weak.
This is all irrelevant to the McGovern article, but a case can be made that the Dems have been the minority Presidential party ever since LBJ's civil rights stance and Nixon's 1968 Southern strategy broke the old Dem coalition. Since then the only Dem presidential wins have come in 1976 due to the fallout from Watergate, and in 1992 due to having a charismatic candidate benefitting from a peculiar three-way race, and the 1996 re-election of the same charismatic. Alternatively, a case can be made that McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry were all unappealing candidates that have underperformed relative to core Dem strengths. Wasted Time R 12:37, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, it would be relevant if someone were making the claim that McGovern's campaign ruined the Dem party for the next few decades, either by branding it as "liberal"/weak-on-defense, or by ending the role of party officials in the nomination process. But the former is silly (subsequent Dems had plenty of chances to take different positions) and the latter doesn't hold up, given that except perhaps for Carter the subsequent nomineees all won the nomination with good levels of Dem Party support. Wasted Time R 13:23, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is this page censored? Is propaganda acceptable?

I left a number of edits that reflected my experience as a Democratic Party activist in the 1970's -- I was an elected delegate to the McGovern "convention" in 1972.

Every edit was subsequently removed -- including a reference to Teddy White's seminal "Making of the President, 1972" and that Henry Wallace's campaign was outside the Democratic Party.

The reason is clearly censorhip. McGovernists simply don't like to be reminded of their hero's treason to his own party, and the tactics he used to grab the nomination for himself. Trust me, in 1972, George McGovern was the most detested person in America, and for good reason.

Does one ideological movement control Wikipedia? Does the authoritarian left own history?

Could you point us to the edits you made? Probably the problem was that it was phrased in a way that was POV. For instance, I think there should certainly be some discussion of the divisiveness of McGovern's campaign for the nomination. On the other hand, we shouldn't describe it as "treason to his own party." john k 23:32, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't see your name anywhere in the article history; were your previous edits under an IP address? Wasted Time R 23:34, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

It was probably under an IP address.

I've now looked at every IP-address-made change to this article, and I can't find any edits like you describe ever being made or reverted. Perhaps you are confused and are thinking of some other article you worked on, such as maybe U.S. presidential election, 1972 or something on the Democratic Party? Wasted Time R 02:18, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Look, it's hard to be neutral about this horrible man. Perhaps the term "treason to his own party" is not appropriate in an article, but I suggest that anyone who defends this propaganda version of McGovern's career go to a library and read contemporary news articles -- Time and Newsweek, for example. (McGovern owned the NYT pretty much.) You will be horrified: He werote campaign rules designed to to ensure his own nomination, but broke them when it suited his convenience (which is how my own seat was stolen). No delegation elected in opposition to McGovern was allowed to be seated. If McGovern didn't like you, your credentials would be "challenged" in a truly Leninist fashion, and his own delegates seated in your place -- He even threw out Democratic state governors.

Regarding McGovern and Henry Wallace, the current article does make clear that neither McGovern nor Wallace was a Democrat in 1948, so I'm not sure what your objection is. Wasted Time R 23:47, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
"It's hard to be neutral about his horrible man" pretty much disqualifies yourself as an editor of this article.
That said, I agree that more needs to be written about the 1972 campgaign. What's there is pretty threadbare; this is one of WP's major faults, anything that happens after the Internet era gets lavish treatment, most things that happen before it get minimal treatment. Wasted Time R 23:49, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the floor seat battles, yes there were battles over control of several state delegations. This was pretty much par for the course back then in American politics, before the advent of primaries everywhere. Yes, McGovern's team played hardball on this, but so had HHH in 1968 and so on before then. Your side just lost the floor battles. It happens. Wasted Time R 23:52, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
In any case, the Teddy White books are generally reliable, so if you add some material sourced from them, I'll support it staying in the article. If you just keep ranting about censorship and Lenin and treason, forget it. Wasted Time R 23:59, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

No, the type of credential dictatorship that went on in 72 were never seen before nor since, which pretty much disqualifies YOU as an editor. For example, McGovern himself abolished the winner-take-all primary in favor of proportional representation, which guaranteed my seat. But after he won the plurality in California (with about 40 percent), he decided that winner-take-all was a good idea after all, and grabbed every one of the seats. In modern times the only other mass disqualifications of state delegations were during the Civil Rights era, when black delegations successfully challenged the credentials of entirely white delegates from Southern states on the entirely legitimate grounds that black voters were disenfranchised.

I will do some research on the various floor fights when I get a chance, I don't want to debate this from my memory, which may be unreliable.

My favorite quote from the campaign was what the governor of Rhode Island said to McGovern when the latter visited him seeking support --after throwing him out of the convention. "Sure, I'll support you, George, one thousand percent." (McGovern had promised to support Sen. Eagleton "one thousand percent," then abruptly dropped him.)

McGovern was the first and last Democratic nominee whose campaign failed to win the backing of other candidates or the party's elected public officials. Joe McCarthy was a horrible man, Richard Nixon was a horrible man, and George McGovern IS a horrible man.

There's no question that McGovern waged an outsider campaign against the Democratic establishment, and no question that he irreparably annoyed said establishment, and no question that this helped him get totally clobbered in the general election. The popular and electoral votes make this clear. McGovern supporters would say that even so, this was a valiant and morally just effort to break the corrupt Dem political machine and open it up to mass participation among Dem citizens, and to end US involvement in the war and the useless sacrifice of American lives for a bogus "peace with honor". Obviously others (a majority) would vehemently disagree. None of this makes McGovern a "horrible man" in any objective sense. Joe McCarthy and Nixon are charged with using demagoguery and abuse of political position to ruin peoples' lives; I don't think McGovern has been charged with anything similar, although he obviously ruined your summer of 1972. Wasted Time R 12:52, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

(I do apologize about the Progressive Party text, I misread it.)

[edit] What The Making of the President 1972 says

OK Scott Adler, I have White's The Making of the President 1972 next to me now, which you above seem to acknowledge is a fair (indeed "seminal") reference. (And yes, the book is often quite critical of McGovern, both in terms of policy and political strategy.)

Regarding the California winner-take-all debate, his account is exactly opposite of yours. On page 136 (hardcover Book Club edition) he says McGovern won the primary 44% to Humphrey's 39% with others getting the rest, and by the winner-take-all rules of the Calif. primary, McGovern got all 271 delegates. On p. 171 he says that the panicked "anybody but McGovern" (ABM) coalition, led by labor groups, had packed the Credentials Committee for the convention (in a swap for McGovern packing the Platform Committee), and an AFL/CIO operative named Sigmund Arywitz came up with the idea of challenging the Calif. winner-take-all rule. On p. 173 White reiterates that

"McGovern has cleanly and fairly won the whole California delegation, for the law of California unequivocally states that whoever wins its primary wins all 271 delegates. Now the ABM coalition insists that the law of the sovereign state of California contradicts the new reform rules of the Democratic Party ... McGovern's people insist that you can't change the rules of the game once the game is over ... But appeals to reason are meaningless.... [The vote on the Credentials Committee is] by 72 to 66 McGovern is to be deprived of 151 of the delegates fairly won in California, because the reform rules had, somehow, implied that a delegation bound by a unit rule can no longer sit in a Democratic convention. It is dirty; it is cold politics; a handful of people, manipulating a committee of 150 individuals, has denied the validity of the law and voting of California, a state of 20,000,000 people."

Eventually, in the convention proper, this decision would be overturned and the full McGovern delegation seated, leading to McGovern's win on the first ballot. So Mr Adler, your California seat was not stolen at all. Wasted Time R 23:38, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I should add that there had indeed been a debate about whether the winner-take-all rule ("unit rule") should be used in the party in general, when the Democratic Reform Committee (chaired by McGovern) met in 1969, having been authorized to do so at the end of the chaotic 1968 convention. Many former Eugene McCarthy supporters wanted to abolish the winner-take-all rule everywhere, since his candidacy against LBJ and later RFK had been hurt by it, but in the end due to the influence of Californian and eventual McGovern supporter Fred Dutton, winner-take-all was abolished for state convention states and caucus states but left in for primary states that wanted it, subject to states being non-forcingly "urged" to give consideration to minority representation in their delegations, and to winner-take-all possibly being abolished in some future-beyond-1972 year (all of this on White p. 26). So whatever the merits of winner-take-all in some states, it had been established in 1969 with the influence of a McGovern person, and the McGovern committee never abolished it, as you erroneously claimed above. Wasted Time R 23:58, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm Adler, re-reading your remarks above it's possible that you weren't from California at all, but from some other delegation that lost its seat. White p. 172 describes a challenge to the South Carolina delegation by the Woman's Caucus, on the grounds of too few women; the McGovern team deliberately lost this challenge as part of a famous parliamentary gambit (p. 179 - 184). There were also black caucus challenges on Alabama and Georgia which were "compromised and swept from the agenda."

Then there was Illinois. Here, you would be right. Partly as revenge for the Credentials Committee action on California the day before (p. 173), the McGovern supporters in the Committee were able to get the Mayor Daley-led Illinois delegation, elected in a primary, thrown out on the grounds of insufficient minorities/women, and replaced by an alternate reform delegation that had the proper balance but hadn't been elected by anybody (and some had lost in the primary). (The result went the other way from the California result due to intracacies of who could vote on delegate challenges in the committee.) On p. 174-175, White points out the wrongness of this move, and concludes:

"But no appeals to reason would prevail ... The [Anybody but McGovern] coalition had brutalized McGovern on California and had voted absurdlity on Thursday night. On Friday, virtue outraged, the McGovern people turned and brutalized the Illinois delegation."

White does say (p. 174 and 175) that top McGovern aide Frank Mankiewicz tried to prevent this action, on the grounds that kicking Daley out of the convention would risk losing Illinois in November and do damage in general. But the McGovern supporters wouldn't listen; what McGovern himself thought isn't said. Unlike California, the original Illinois slate was not restored in the convention proper (p. 255), and McGovern had to work to get Daley to support him, which he eventually did.

So, if you were an original Illinois delegate, yes you did get screwed, but after an attempted screwing in the other direction, and more by McGovern supporters than McGovern himself. Wasted Time R 00:33, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

--

Scott Adler responds:

Yes California law mandated a winner-takes-all primary, but the national party's rules trumped that law, and McGovern wrote those rules. I spent hundreds of hours working for a candidate that didn't stand a chance in hell of acheiving a plurality -- None of us expected the winner-take-all law to be inforced. Trust me, we would never have stayed in the race because our presence helped guarantee McGovern's plurality -- but between the primary and the convention, it all changed.

White contradicts you on both these points. As I stated above, on p. 26 he describes how the Reform Commission left winner-take-all primaries in for 1972, due to the influence of "Fred Dutton, one of the most persuasive reformers on the commission, [who] was, however, a Californian—he cherished his state's tradition, custom, and power. Under his influence, the commission was persuaded that winner-take-all should be outlawed in caucus-and-convention states, but not in primary states—of which California was, incomparably, the most important."
Then, on pp. 128-129, White describes how Humphrey was well behind McGovern in delegates (311 to 560) going into the California primary, and knew he needed to win its 271 delegates to have a chance at the nomination: "'California is the ballgame,' said Humphrey flatly, when asked what his chances were." So Humphrey at least was happy that California would be winner-take-all, and certainly at that time expected the winner-take-all law to be enforced; White says he ran an effective campaign against McGovern and only lost by 5 points of getting all those delegates. I don't know if you were working for Humphrey or somebody else ... Scoop Jackson? But nothing in White's account supports your notion that California was perceived to be proportional at the time. If you have a reference that indicates that it was, please let us know. Wasted Time R 11:51, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I haven't read Teddy White's account in 30 years. You may be right about his account. But I'm glad that he is now among the references.

I'm also glad that the entry now states that McGovern wrote the rules that ensured his own victory, but it was hardly necessary for the Republicans to "paint" McGovern as antything -- he was very good at painting himself -- one thousand percent.

You make it seem like McGovern wrote the rules himself as part of some secret action to guarantee the nomination to himself. Not so; White pp. 22-23 describes the Reform Commission membership proper as balanced between the old guard and new guard in the Dem party, but members slacked off and the commission staff who did all the work were full of ex-Eugene McCarthy and RFK supporters who wanted to open the party up. Only later did some/many of these staff join the McGovern campaign. And McGovern was still a dark horse as 1972 began; Ed Muskie was considered the favorite, before he self-destructed. And none of the rules "ensured" anybody of anything! Candidates still had to win primaries and win delegates, which McGovern did better than any of the other candidates. Wasted Time R 11:51, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

My father was a prominent McGovern supporter, and believed that he would have an important position in a McGovern White House. Yet throughout the campaign for the nomination, I asked him, over and over again, "Do you really think that McGovern has any chance of winning in November?" The answer was always the same. "That's not the point."

Precisely. It was never the point, which is why Nixon won in 1972.

Whether McGovern could have possibly beaten Nixon had the campaign gone better is speculation. But even if he couldn't have, that doesn't make him a "horrible man", nor does it make Walter Mondale or Barry Goldwater or Alf Landon horrible men. Wasted Time R 11:51, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Archive Horrible Talk

I propose to archive all of the above because

  1. Repeated weakly sourced descriptions of a named living person as a horrible man contravenes Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy (which might not have been in effect at the time of the contributions)
  2. It's an old discussion of little relevance to the article; in particular the questions of California's winner-take-all rules (which I recall VERY well) is not controversial as to what DID happen; and what SHOULD happen is not proper subject matter for this biographical article
  3. You'll still be able to access the discussion on the archive page, linked to from this talk page, so there's no loss of information

Speak up if you think this should not be done; otherwise I'll proceed after a decent interval. rewinn 04:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

You know...I was just visting this page for the first time...and whoever the chickensh*t was (I can't figure it out...it's late) that repeatedly called McGovern a "horrible man" has to be one of the most clueless people to ever walk this planet - there's a job waiting for you in Dick Cheney's office, or maybe G. Gordon Liddy's. Absolutely unbelievable.Tvccs 05:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC) And my congratulations to Wasted Time for his/her work on this page, and to the other sane contributors.

[edit] Further reading and references

It's a shame there's so much further reading and yet so little references (zero, until I chucked in Bill Clinton's autobiography, which I'm still reading). Can anyone confirm that the further reading books describe the incidents in this article so we can cite them as references? Johnleemk | Talk 18:25, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I've combined the two sections and called it "References and further reading". Given that most of this article, like most of Wikipedia, doesn't do item-by-item footnoting, the distinction between the two sections is blurred. I've used the Ambrose and White books for material included in this article, and I've read the Thompson book; I suspect the others are reasonably consistent with the article as well. Wasted Time R 19:11, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Birthplace

Why delete the name of the town (Avon, South Dakota) that he was born in? TMS63112 22:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC) (forgot to sign)

Dunno. I've restored that and also added Mitchell, South Dakota where he was also raised. Wasted Time R 00:36, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Legacy section needs much more development and a separate section

I made a few changes here, and some adds, especially on the Multimedia side, but the McGovern legacy section needs far more work and a separate section than the tiny one here. I hope to get back to it as well Tvccs 06:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

From the following part:
He remains a symbol of the political left during the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s when the country was torn by U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the corruption and abuse of power of the Nixon Administration.
I removed the sentence "the corruption and abuse of power of the Nixon Administration" and replaced it with "the Nixon administration's policies" [1]. Mainly because it makes the chronology of what happened a little blurry, Nixon of course was caught in WaterGate after the '72 campaign so it can't be said that this was on the minds of people during this period (or else Nixon wouldn't have been elected in '72) but I don't think this is made clear in the sentence. Also, if it is returned back in some form to make this clear, I think that the wording of it has to be changed aswell to words that sound less politically charged.--Jersey Devil 04:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the following contribution [2] because it was unsourced just stating that Karl Rove was "reportedly" involved in Watergate. If this information is to be included it definately needs to be sourced. I also removed references to "dirty tricks" in that section because of the way it sounds to the reader and replaced it with "illegal tactics".--Jersey Devil 13:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted your edits - the adds on dirty tricks and Karl Rove are well documented in multiple sources including the Wikipedia pages on each. Again, read the Wikipedia article on dirty tricks, and there are dozens of other historical sources. The article you reverted stated Karl Rove was involved in dirty tricks during the 1972 presidential campaign, which he was and is documented in many sources including Wikipedia, it never stated, and there is no evidence to suggest, that he was specifically involved in Watergate. Watergate was simply the ultimate of many dirty tricks carried out by many people on behalf of Richard Nixon. Tvccs 04:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
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