Happy 90th Birthday, George McGovern
There’s a lot to like about this man whom Bobby Kennedy once called the most decent man in the Senate.
While I am recovering from surgery, I picked up a new edition of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972 (the new foreword by Matt Taibbi is terrific and really puts the book and the good Doctor in perspective, which is no simple task), and I am reminded once again of what a different world we could have had.
I am also reminded of how little things have changed. The ugly face of centrism shows up in the book, media packaging; uninvolved electorate, the entire sitting out of the process; spineless Dims selling out the party and being afraid of their own positions; both sides co-opted by money’ed interests, and so on.
And of course, all of this happens before St. Ronnie really screws things up.
I’ve gotten off track of wishing Senator McGovern a happy birthday. I hope that he is enjoying himself today. It’s worth noting that so many of the people who went up against him are not hear to see this. That’s gotta be worth an extra slice of cake.
Heh. I just pulled my old copy of that book off the shelf and put it in my “to read’ pile. Gotta keep reminding myself that American politics has always been a stinkhole.
Happy B’day George. As a Masshole, I say you can still have our electoral votes!
McGovern got my first vote for President and I’d vote for him again.
He is the reason there Dakotas exist…once spent an afternoon at the Corn Palace in Mitchell with him…g’day George!
I met him when I was a little girl. One of my parents introduced me to him when we found ourselves on the same plane back in the Seventies. I could tell they thought he was one of the good guys!
I couldn’t vote until 1976, but as a wee lad I worked for Gene McCarthy for president in 1968. Silly boy that I was, I considered McGovern a Johnny come-lately to the anti-war movement. In my later days, I was glad to find out that McCarthy and McGovern were very close friends.
I like it when people I admire are pals. For instance, it made me happy when I found out that the two best anti-war novelists of the WW II generation, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Joseph Heller, were best of friends. Good for them.
I remember standing in line at the polling place for my first presidential vote with my mom. Some asshole standing with us looked me up and down(hippie), and said, “Looks like we got one McGovern voter here.” My mom turned around and said, “Maybe more than you think.” He looked dumbfounded.
can we retroactively vote the 1972 election – knowing the nixon was a paranoid crook
Months after the election, as Watergate was building, the networks used to run polls that eventually showed McGovern more popular than Nixon. This, of course, was way before the news operations got turned into profit centers.
Hey Bruce and Eggs,
My first presidential election, too.
Also my first bumpersticker- bold black print on neo-glo orange: “Don’t Blame Me. I Voted For George”.