George McGovern is Not Dead Yet

Posted on July 16, 2003 in Campaign 2004 Courage & Activism Liberals & Progressives

George McGovern is alive and he has something to say about being held up as “a bad example”:

These days, my name is back in the news. I’m being held up as some kind of sober warning to Democratic candidates. Don’t be another George McGovern, the warning goes. Don’t be too liberal. Don’t be too outspoken. Watch what you say and play to the middle, so that you don’t end up losing 49 states, too.

It may not surprise you that I regard this as political baloney. I said exactly what I believed in 1972. I told the truth while my opponent betrayed the American public and violated the law repeatedly, engaging in campaign finance dishonesty and illegal wiretapping, invading the confidential files of a doctor, urging the CIA to halt an FBI investigation — to say nothing of running unethical and unlimited campaign advertising that distorted my positions on major issues. These kinds of tactics got him elected — but they also made him the only president in our history forced to resign in disgrace….

With the 2004 race about to begin in earnest, I would only add: Give me a presidential candidate who speaks the truth as he sees it and I’ll show you a candidate whose campaign, win or lose, will be good for the nation.

Amen, Brother George.

I worked for McGovern in 1972 as a teenager. This was the one political campaign in which I didn’t feel that I was selling my soul.
It was also when I started to realize how full of hot air the press was and how petty the mushy middle could be when it came to small mistakes. It’s the first time when I heard the vacuum phrase “presidential character” as a criteria for evaluating the good of a candidate. I met people who didn’t like McGovern because he was “too good” to be president. Excuse me? “Too good?” What’s that supposed to mean? That you want a liar and a cheat working for you? (Which is what the American people got with their 1972 vote.)

Clearly we weren’t much concerned about character.

Conservatives had Goldwater. In 1964, he lost disastrously to Lyndon B. Johnson. Goldwater is the man who said “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” The choice we had in 1964 wasn’t a terribly good one: we were to choose between a man who enjoyed the support of retired and discredited Communist-Hunters and a liberal who knew all about pork barrel and very little about spending money wisely. Vietnam was his hugest mistake, though LBJ did good things such as using his bully pulpit to champion the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

People pointed to Goldwater and said ‘Look. You cannot elect a reactionary to the presidency.'” Ronald Reagan, who first simpered his way into the hearts of Republicans by raising money for Goldwater’s campaign, proved this wrong in 1980. Of course, to pull the feat of bumping Jimmy Carter, he, too, pulled political shenanigans. His whoppers were astounding: that trees cause pollution (“Chop me down before I kill another!” is what appeared on one sign when he appeared at my alma mater Pomona College) and welfare queens who drove expensive Cadillacs. Reagan pioneered the simple-minded lie. He never backed his wild stories up with any facts. He just said them and because he was president, they had to be accepted as the Truth.

From his first campaign to his last, Ronald Reagan never gave a hoot for polls. He made issues up as he went and kept repeating them until the press could not help but echo him. Reagan, who lied on his Security Clearance application in 1967 — among other things — never measured up on the character issue either.

If reactionary conservatives can follow Goldwater’s disaster up with Reagan and both Bushes, then progressive leftists can propel one of their own into the White House. I dare say that what we will get is a kinder, gentler nation which will make the sadists who are actually enjoying the disastrous fall of the economy very unhappy indeed. Do we really want to satisfy people who say “Let’s line up all the liberals and shoot them” or who sing the praises of the good old days when drunken Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon drove men to suicide and hounded them out of jobs?

Back in 1972, we had the slogan “McGovern to Govern the Land”. I always read the verb in that as a positive: the president must keep a light hand, guiding us towards the best in our natures, not appealing to a mob mentality. What the nation needs is a real man of integrity in the White House, one who is willing to undo the big mess that we are in. In 1993, Democrats in the Congress put their head in the noose by passing the tax hikes that eliminated the deficit under Bill Clinton. For their courage, they were drummed out of office. Now we’re facing the effective bankruptcy of the Federal government, we’re seeing our schools cutting back on classes and teachers, we’re seeing the institutions that allow us to educate ourselves and better ourselves dwindle — all in the name of lining the pockets of a few. We’re no closer to national health insurance either.

George McGovern said “What is Right has been called radical by those with a stake in things that are wrong.” That’s still happening today. But I have hope that the people will start to see the necessity of pulling together, of isolating and ostracizing those who have stupidly divided up our national properties and heritages like thieves. Many people have a deep sense that things are getting out of kilter, that a minority special interest consisting of an oddball union of Fundamentalist Christians and atheist “I don’t want any rules governing my behavior” liebertarians has seized control of the country and is killing it as we watch. It’s like seeing your children hung on meat hooks and having their throats slit for many of us. In effect, the measures we are taking today are guaranteeing that tomorrow our children will not enjoy as good a life as we do now. It’s time to jerk left, back to the center or maybe a little farther until things get fixed and stabilized again. There’s a precipice on the Right and the present leadership is about to ride us into it.

Gratefully lifted from Jimlog.

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Here’s a thought for all those who dump on the Green defectees from the Democratic Party and blame them for the “loss” of the 2000 election: In 1972, McGovern was plagued by Democrats who sat out or voted for Nixon rather than support their party’s own candidate. Yet when we talk about that election, we put the blame on George McGovern, not on the sell-outs and deadbeats who failed to line up behind him.

The big question is this: if the candidate turns out to be Dean or Kucinich, are you going to ensure the win for George W. Bush by sitting this one out, by being lukewarm in your support? (I know, Ratch. This isn’t you. But there are others who bash Dean and Kucinich in favor of the party hacks.) Where will you be if Dean or Kucinich are the candidates? Will you lose the election for the Democrats like you did in 1972, 1984, and 1988?

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In the course of my life, I’ve watched the decline of American integrity and courage as piloted by the Right. I’d like to be around for the reversal of this, the point where we leave the Inferno and all its sinners and begin the climb through Purgatory and into Heaven.