1000 percent is a catchphrase in common use in the U.S. in the mid-20th century meaning extreme action or highly enthusiastic support.[1] For example, novelist Truman Capote wrote, "Prison is where she belongs. And my husband agrees one thousand percent."[2] Playwright Loring Mandel wrote, "Those coal people, those pinball people. I want them behind us a thousand percent."[3]
It was most famously used by Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972. It backfired badly and became a byword for foolish and insincere exaggeration, and today is often used in irony or sarcasm.[4]
On July 25, 1972, just over two weeks after the 1972 Democratic Convention, McGovern's running mate, Thomas Eagleton, revealed that he had received electroshock therapy for clinical depression during the 1960s. McGovern had been running an emotional crusade against incumbent President Richard Nixon; the Republicans counterattacked by suggesting that McGovern was crazy, so the evidence that his running mate had secretly undergone psychiatric treatment three times for mental illness destroyed the McGovern strategy. Eagleton was hospitalized in 1960 for four weeks for "exhaustion and fatigue." He was hospitalized for four days at the Mayo Clinic in 1964, and for three weeks in 1966. He twice underwent electroshock therapy for depression.[5] Influential Democrats questioned Eagleton's ability to handle the office of Vice President, and McGovern's competence in choosing top officials. In response to initial, daily pressure from the media and party leaders that Eagleton be replaced, McGovern announced that he was "1000 percent behind Tom Eagleton, and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket."[6]
McGovern subsequently consulted confidentially with preeminent psychiatrists, including Eagleton's own doctors, who advised him that a recurrence of Eagleton's depression was possible and could endanger the country should Eagleton become president. Consequently, on July 31, McGovern announced that he had reversed his position "in the interest of the nation", and Eagleton announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy to prevent continued diversion from greater issues, and for the sake of party unity.[7][8][9][10][11]
Five prominent Democrats turned down McGovern's desperate pleas to replace Eagleton, leaving the party in disarray, prior to Sargent Shriver's appointment. McGovern lost by one of the largest landslides in history.