What really happened to McGovern in 1972

[jeter]

I hear many people compare Dean to McGovern, Mondale or Dukakis. But you guys only give the 2003/4 version which is very different from what really happened when they were nominated.

Let's begin backwards and start with Dukakis.

Dukakis was nominated NOT by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, but by the centrists. Sure Dukakis was from Massachusettes and he opposed the death penalty. But he was seen as the "unity" candidate.

There were eight Democratic candidates in the 1988 primaries.

They were:

Senator Joseph Biden.

Congressman Dick Gephardt.

Governor Michael Dukakis.

Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Senator Al Gore.

Senator Paul Simon.

Governor Bruce Babbitt.

Senator Gary Hart.

Hart was the initial front runner. But his campaign imploded over the "Monkey Buisness" fiasco. He had come in a close second in 1984 and was the "anti-establishment" candidate in that election (more about that in a minute).

After he dropped out the race became wide open. Soon Biden dropped out after it was revealled that he plagerized some of his speeches.

Simon was seen as the "insider candidate" and like many such candidacy's it never took off.

Babbitt didn't do to well and he soon dropped out.

Gephardt won the Iowa caucus but not much else after that and he dropped out.

That left three candidates:

Gore, Jackson and Dukakis.

Gore was the John Edwards of that race. He was seen as moderate and the rest of it. But he was also viewed as too young and inexperienced. He was only 39 years old at the time. But he scored a couple of southern victories.

Jackson was the candidate the Democrats feared the most in that election. He won most of the southern super Tuesday Primaries and had solid support among African Americans which made up about 30% of the party. So if there was a stop-anyone movement, it was to stop Jackson.

Dukakis had won the New Hampshire Primary, being from next door Massachusettes, and he did best against then VP George Bush. So the party rallied behind him.

Dukakis won the nomination and actually held a 17% lead after the Democratic convention in 1988.

Gore wishing to be the anti-Jackson candidate, attacked Dukakis mercilessly. But to no avail. Dukakis still won the nomination.

But lost the Presidency.

In 1984, we nominated Walter Mondale. This was before the DLC and that stuff. Mondale was actually the "establishment candidate" of that race.

The dark horse was Senator Gary Hart. Who was young and had all these new and different ideas.

There were a couple of other well known Democrats running. The best known being Senator John Glenn of Ohio. But his candidacy went no where.

After Hart won the New Hampshire primary, it became a Hart vs. Mondale race.

Mondale had been a long time Senator from Minnesota. Had served as Vice President under Jimmy Carter. After losing NH, he argued that Hart could not win the south and made Georgia (his old boss' home state) the place he drew the line in the sand.

Mondale challenged many of Hart's promises and ideas by asking one stupid, but effective, question: "Where's the beef?" That popular slogan from an early 1980s Burger King commercial became Mondale's rallying cry and others followed suit.

Mondale won the Georgia primary and the nomination.

He lost in the general election to Ronald Reagan.

Now 1972.

1972 was a weird election. Again there were several candidates. At the end of 1971, Nixon was not doing very well. The leading contender was Senator Ed Muskie, who had been Hubert Humphries running mate in 1968. But Muskie's campaign imploded and again the race was seen as wide open.

The biggest danger in that election was the candidacy of George Wallace the racist governor of Alabama.

Wallace won many early primaries: like Florida, Maryland and even Michigan. But of course he was shot and that ended his candidacy.

That left McGovern and "Scoop" Jackson, who was a conservative hawk Democrat.

Jackson's candidacy was more or less a "stop-McGovern" candidacy, because of McGovern's position to end the Vietnam war (even though Nixon himself would end the war three days after being sworn in for a second term), but it was too little too late. McGovern won.

But initially McGovern wasn't doing too badly against Nixon. He trailed by about 3 to 5% in most polls.

But then Nixon scored a huge political victory with opening up China and the ABM Treaty with the Soviets. The Democrats had a very divisive nomination convention, where some backroomers still tried to deny McGovern the nomination. McGovern didn't deliver his acceptance speech until 3am in the morning. No bounce.

The Republicans had a love-fest nomination meeting and got another bump. At this point Nixon led by about 10 to 15%. Not huge or insurmountable.

Then came the Eagleton Affair. This is what killed the MCGovern candidacy. Senator Eagleton was from Missouri and admitted that he had had some electro-shock treatements when he was younger to treat depression. The GOP made Eagleton out to be a nut. McGovern initially refused to drop Eagleton from the ticket - even though many Republicans and some conservative "I told you so" Democrats demanded it. The pressure got so great and after about four weeks of this leading the news - every single day - McGovern flip flopped and dropped Eagleton.

It destroyed his candidacy. Since those who supported McGovern/Eagleton were angry over the flip flop. Those demanding that Eagleton be dropped were not - or never could have been - pleased.

McGovern sunk in the polls. He trailed Nixon by about 25% after this and never recovered.

The lesson of the 1972 (or even the 1988 and 1984) elections was that the defeats were not because of some insurgency candidate. It was because we committed self-inflicting wounds that we didn't recover from.

The comparison's between Dean and the others are impossible to make since 1st) they were all very different; 2nd) their defeats had nothing to do with ideology.

Only in retrospect do we say 'well they were all soundly defeated, therefore they must all be the same.' Then we fail to understand WHY they lost and repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Just something to think about.

[never cry wolf]

1. Don't forget...

It is widely taken for fact that Nixon and CREEP sabotaged Muskie's campaign and who knows what they did to McGovern.

[Bucky]

4. As Deep Throat pointed out...

They wanted to run against McGovern. Rove felt that same way about Dean eight months ago (before they started the "no, we really are concerned about Dean" buzz). He's probably not the pushover they think he is. But Dean's not the dynamo Dean thinks he is either.

Honestly, I'm scared.

[Bucky]

2. Wonderful history lesson

Good work. I still have questions about Dean's electability, but I always like to see substantive discussions of history put forth. I don't argue that Dean is McGovern. He's not. What I argue is that he's staked out positions on a couple of issues that will get him creamed by Bush's slander machine. Civil unions (despite Bush's verbal support for them four years ago), tax "increases," and his generally combative temperament are going to cost him millions of swing votes that I just don't see him making up for in new voters.

I know you feel differently and I love you all all the Dean supporters for it. I'll work my beautifully sculpted behind off for that man or whoever we pick. But my concerns won't go away. I really really really wish Mr. Trippi hadn't finessed the question tonight after the debate. When a reporter asked him if Dean supporters would back whoever was nominated, he didn't just say "yes". He gave one of those Clintonian/Limbaughesque carefully worded answer that was clearly avoiding saying "no." This contributes to an air of arrogance among the Dean campaign that is going to make it harder to reach out to the informed center after Boston.

We're on each other's side in this, but I'm still concerned as hell.


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[DuctapeFatwa]

3. he didn't raise very much money

[wyldwolf]

5. Someone explain to me who the "liberal wing of the Democratic Party" is...

..and how "they" are a separate entity from the rest of the democratic party.

Where are they based out of? Do they have a headquarters where they plot and plan who they will try to nominate?

[SheilaT]

6. You also cannot discount

the fact that in normal times an incumbent president has an enormous advantage over a challenger. That applies to 1972 and 1984, even though I personally (and many people on this board also) had a very low opinion of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was the original Teflon president and was given a free pass on all the many lies he told, rather like George W Bush today. Richard Nixon, ah yes, Richard Nixon. You absolutely cannot judge the election of 1972 with the foreknowledge of Watergate. Yes, the break-in occurred before the election, but the incident was nothing, nothing at all in the entire campaign and run-up to the election itself. Nixon's first term really was a wonder of bi-partisanship, genuine diplomatic breakthroughs with China, legislation such as the EPA. Yes, fellow DUers, especially those of you too young to recall, the Environmental Protection Agency owes its existence to the Nixon era. Also OSHA. What he did then would be condemned viciously by the right wing of the Republican Party today, and indeed, they are doing everything in their power to destroy those things.

Anyway, it's only slightly useful to look at previous elections and try to figure out a pattern which will apply to this year's election. Circumstances are always unique, and probably the most important thing of all is that we can't know what will happen between now and November 2nd.

[ima_sinnic]

7. for more, see these excellent articles

. . . one from DU this past July, by Mike McArdle:
Why Howard's Not George

and read this to get an even more complete understanding, particularly of the significance of the Republican goon squad in destroying Muskie's, Wallace's, and McGovern's campaigns:
1972--Muskie, Wallace and McGovern, from the book The Taking of America 1-2-3 by Richard Sprague, 1st published in 1976.

[unblock]

8. the beef is at wendy's

"where's the beef" was a slogan from a series of wendy's commercials, featuring the slightly curmudgeonly clara pell.

wendy's, not burger king.

[masshole]

12. The "slightly curmudgeonly"

lady's name was actually Clara Peller, not "Pell".

[Rowdyboy]

9. Interesting, but you're wrong on 1988 Super Tuesday

Jackson took Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and Virginia.

Gore won Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Dukakis won Maryland, Florida and Texas (Fl and TX the two biggest delegate states by far)

For an excellent analysis of the 1988 Democratic primaries, check out this site:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/retro/super_tuesday_88.html

Its very well done.

There was no serious "stop-Jackson" movement that I'm aware of. Democrats fell in line with Dukakis pretty easily. Believe me, in 1988 he was percieved as from the liberal wing of the party.

[Yupster]

16. I think Dukakis won it

with his excellant strategy Super Tuesday of just targetting Texas and Florida while Gore was expected to compete throughout the entire south.

Gore tried to make a final stand in New York with Ed Koch at his side (and the first Willie Horton ad though it didn't mention Horton by name), but Dukakis won NY and it was over.

[Rowdyboy]

17. Exactly...

Targeting Florida and Texas was an extremely smart move, in retrospect, that gave Dukakis the nomination. Can't say that I agreed with him at the time but history proved him right.

[Cleita]

10. Thanks for the historical reminder.

Although I was around and of voting age during those elections, you prodded my memory a few things I had forgotten. Good post.

[kentuck]

11. He permitted himself to be portrayed as allied with the long-haired ...

hippies and many people were very wary of kids with long hair back in those days. Many thought they were somehow connected to Manson. He scared a lot of the electorate with this alliance, I have always thought.

[bluestateguy]

13. Good analysis

You might also add that Dukakis lost because he did not fight back when attacked, a lesson the Clinton team damn well learned. Nobody was going to beat Reagan in 1984, but '88 was winnable, had Dukakis actually defended himself and then gone on the offensive.

[stickdog]

14. "Where's the beef?" has now taken on a whole new meaning ... (nt)

[Yupster]

15. If you like these old elections,

go to www.old-games.com.

There's a game called President Elect where you can rerun a race from 1960 - 1988 and decide where to campaign and where to spend your money and see how you an do, or

you can run RFK against Nixon in 68 and see how you do, or Carter against Reagan in 76, or take Mondale in 84 and see if you can do better than Minnesota.

A simple little game, but fun for the politically addicted. It went out of business before 1992, so 88 is the last election it has.

[tedoll78]

18. One lesson I learn from this:

STOP THE BOUNCE.

We have protestors who'll be there. How can we stop the bounce?

[jeter]

19. I know, and it's pretty easy

Accuse Bush and the Republicans of trying to score political points on the dead from September 11th. This is exactly what they are trying to do.

I remember a local candidate once campaigned at our Santa Claus Parade and there was so much outrage. He had to apologize and lost the election.

People don't like that. Imagine how tacky that is, trying to win votes because 3,000 people died.

[tedoll78]

20. I've been waiting..

for one of the candidates to say that aloud for a long time now. Bush has been milking those 3000 deaths for every political drop he can get out of them, and I find it sickening. I wish someone up on the stage would say this aloud. Can you imagine the media reaction?

[YNGW]

24. Question

>I wish someone up on the stage would say this aloud (Bush has been milking those 3000 deaths for every political drop he can get out of them). Can you imagine the media reaction?

What do you believe the media reaction would be?

[RobinA]

25. Although I Agree

that the Bushistas are milking 9/11 for all it is worth and then some, I don't think that it would be effective for any Dem condidate to bring this up. I can't imagine how it would work in any way but to earn Bush points. Here's the evil liberal attacking Everyman Bush for sticking up for the 9/11 martyrs who were cruelly murdered by fanatic Islamics. I don't think that most people are open to the idea that Bush is milking it, and any candidate bringing this up would be crucified. If this message is to be brought out, it needs to come from someone other than a candidate.

[Iverson]

21. don't forget Democrats for Nixon

Some conservative Democrats formally organized under this name and bought television ad time. I recall seeing some of their ads and feeling outraged, since at the time I believed that unity to stop Nixon was important.

So much for that, eh?

[Silverhair]

22. Poor analysis of 72. The general public understood very

well what McG stood for and rejected it.

I find it interesting that so many that seeks to analyze the reasons why McG lost fail to look at his positions, especially the campaign promise of $1,000 a year to everybody in the USA. That promise alone was enough to brand McG as a nutcase.

Why does every McG apologist forget about that particular promise?

And McG wanted to do more than get out of Vietnam. He wanted to reduce defense by one third, during the cold war. Yeah, the communists were just misunderstood nice guys - (sarcasm).

And anybody running on a weak foreign policy/defense after 9-11 is going down the tubes too.

[Iverson]

23. I bet you remember Democrats for Nixon.

Your post put me in mind of them once again.

Yes, the public did reject the idea of cutting the bloated military budget, with plenty of help from the conservative Dems.

However, the VietNam war was the single major issue that election. Everything else was secondary.

"And anybody running on a weak foreign policy/defense after 9-11 is going down the tubes too."

I'm curious as to what this means. Is it necessary to advocate preventive invasion so as not to appear weak?

[Silverhair]

26. OK, I'll restate. If you are preceived as a "Peace at any price"...

type who is unwilling to ever defend the nation, you will lose. In the Vietnam War the arguement that America had not been attacked could be made. It can't now. America has been attacked. And the public demands a stronger response than calling a UN conference and getting a resolution condemning the attack.

Like it or not, if you want to WIN IN ELECTIONS, that means you are going to have to go after the ones who have hit us.

Now if you want to lose elections, and then sit around with others and console yourself that you had the moral high ground - then tell the public that it's wrong to attack them in their countries - and YOU WILL LOSE.

Winners of elections, not the losers, are the ones that make the laws and policies.

63% of the public supports the war in Iraq - still. Go against that and YOU LOSE THE ELECTION. Fact of life.

The general public doesn't care much about legal nicities. They don't care about whether Saddam didn't or didn't have WMD. They know that he was one of the usual suspects and that it's time to do something.

Once again, I would like to see a Mcg apologist address McG's $1,000 to everybody pledge.