Show of Hands, Who was Drawn to Politics by the George McGovern 1972 Campaign?

McCamy Taylor

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Fri Feb-01-08 01:56 AM
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Show of Hands, Who was Drawn to Politics by the George McGovern 1972 Campaign?

You can lose a political campaign, but still change the way that a generation sees politics. I realized that while reading Hunter S. Thompson�s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail �72 In the April chapter there is a description of the young men and women who crossed the country at their own expense to sleep on floors, eat what food they could scrounge up and work on �George�s� campaign. This was a bottom up campaign, one in which citizens took charge rather than corporate or political bosses. It answered to the needs and wishes of the citizens�average working citizens.

�I�ve always thought that the blue-collar vote had to be a source of his strength,� said Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern�s main strategist. �It always seemed to me that McGovern ---not as the antiwar candidate but as the �change� candidate---would appeal more to Middle America than he would to any other group. They�re the ones with the most to gain from change and they�re the ones who get screwed by the way we do business in this country.�

The election in November 1972 was lost, but I think a cultural battle was won. A lot of people who had been brought up to see politics as a business for the rich or well connected began to recognize it as something of the people , a fitting endeavor for citizens. I recall that election for the tremendous enthusiasm McGovern generated among his supporters. And the next year, when Watergate broke, those same supporters had no time for apathy, no patience for the old fashioned motto of �All politicians are corrupt.� In my high school, students discussed Watergate and the merits of impeachment the way that students in the Reagan era would discuss clothes and music.

History tells us that Pat Buchanan and Richard Nixon chose George McGovern to be the Democratic nominee, because he would be easy to beat. If so, they were thinking in the short term. A losing campaign can teach people a lot. This country is a better place for the John Edwards 2008 campaign. Sure, he could have buried his populist intentions under a lot of corporate talk that would have made him seem safe to the country's CEOs. Maybe they would have called off their media attack dogs if he had played it smart .

But playing it safe would not have forced the other Democrats to take stands on health care and poverty and a host of other issues that are more important to the day to day wellbeing of Middle America than when a candidate turned his or her nose up at the War in Iraq. Playing it smart would not have revealed to the country the active way that the corporate media meddles in our so called free elections. Playing it safe would not have revealed the futility of attempting to run for president without a hundred million dollars in the bank.

Now Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are squaring off, and it seems intolerable to their devoted supporters that either one of them could lose. However, both campaigns are important. You only have to look at the number of people who are turning out to vote in Democratic primaries to see that. Increased voter participation means more interest in the government, and an informed electorate means an electorate that is less likely to be caught unawares the next time some liar tries to sell them a yarn about WMDs.

There is no losing campaign if the campaign brings people into the political process, heart and soul, and if they discover that their government can represent their interests.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/15/2542/

Friday night, not far from the Capitol where debate over another war is an almost-daily occurrence, veterans of the McGovern campaign and others gathered at a reception to pay homage to him.

snip

Benjamin, who said that as a college student in Boston she volunteered for McGovern�s 1972 campaign against President Nixon, went on to help found Code Pink, a women-initiated group that opposes the Iraq war.

Said Benjamin: �We need another McGovern now more than ever.�