| October 21 |  |
Editor says, what if Watergate had broken before the general election? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the November 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
| Share this Article on: |  Facebook |  Twitter |
In 2012, on this day the thirty-eighth President of the United States George Stanley McGovern died in Sioux Falls, South Dakota aged ninety.
Death of Former President McGovern
Icon of modern American liberalismMcGovern grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, where he was a renowned debater. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country's entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe. Among the medals awarded him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his damaged plane and saving his crew. After the war he gained degrees from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University, culminating in a Ph.D., and was a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was elected there in 1962.
As a senator, McGovern was an exemplar of modern American liberalism. He became most known for his outspoken opposition to the growing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He staged a brief nomination run in the 1968 presidential election as a stand-in for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. The subsequent McGovern-Fraser Commission fundamentally altered the Democratic presidential nominating process, by greatly increasing the number of caucuses and primaries and reducing the influence of party insiders. The McGovern-Hatfield Amendment sought to end the Vietnam War by legislative means but was defeated in 1970 and 1971.
McGovern's long-shot, grassroots-based 1972 presidential campaign found triumph due to two totally unrelated events. Firstly, the deft selection of Walter Cronkite as running mate. Secondly, the shocking exposure of a wire-tapping operation in the DNC Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. Ironically, McGovern who had been defeated as a stand-in candidate, now defeated an RNC stand-in candidate when the discredited Richard Nixon was forced out of the race.
"Mr President, the fires you lit then still burn in countless hearts" - campaign worker Bill ClintonHe will be long respected (if grudgingly honoured) for having the moral courage to grasp the nettle by bringing the Vietnam Tragedy to a messy and dishonorable ending that was perhaps the inevitable outcome of his predecessor's policies. But less fortunately for McGovern, too much time had been lost and 1968 would have been a far better year for his election than 1972 because there were very Democrat centrists on the Hill, and he struggled to implement his legislative agenda. And so a third event precipitated his downfall - the re-emergence of the GOP under the reinvigorated leadership of the hugely popular Governor of California Ronald Reagan. With the mood of the country turning sour, he offered a compelling "change of direction appeal" in the face of a dysfunctional Democratic party.
After his one-term Presidency, McGovern pursued a rewarding career over twenty-five years. He publicized the problem of hunger within the United States and issued the "McGovern Report" that led to a new set of nutritional guidelines for Americans. McGovern later served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture from 1998-2001 and was appointed the first UN Global Ambassador on World Hunger by the World Food Programme in 2001. The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program has provided school meals for millions of children in dozens of countries since 2000 and resulted in McGovern being named World Food Prize co-laureate in 2008.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: George McGovern, Watergate, Seventies, Presidency, America. Editor says, in this post we re-examine related posts on this site and also repurpose content from Wikipedia.
~ One could rewrite the history of the Vietnam War -- shorter U.S. involvement -- and possibly see some strengthening of first amendment rights with Uncle Walter as VP. Cronkite could have eventually become president? That possibility opens other pipe dreams up.
~ This is a very touching tribute and I am glad you made it for us.
~ Never. McGovern belonged in prison. I was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami, but my seat was stolen by the McGovernites. (The Bolshevist trickery the McGovernists used to steal that nomination was described in detail at the time, but has since been written out of history.) By the time the convention was over, most Democrats hated Red George so utterly that Nixon could have been a bank robber and he would have won.
~ @ Stan - what state? That said I agree with you. The road to McGovern as President is Nixon dieing in office and then the Agnew kickback scandal breaking in September of 1972.
~ Come on, Stan. "Bolshevist trickery"? The reality is that there were perfectly legitimate challenges to the seating of, in particular, Richard Daley's hand-picked delegation, resultuing in the seating of other delegates who (unlike Daley's) weren't in the bag for Hubert Humphrey. McGovern's side won out, again p[erfectly legitimately, under rules both sides had agreed to. Humphrey's the one who tried to change the rules after the fact, whining about California's winner-take-all primary after he lost.
As for "most Democrats" hating McGovern by the time the convention was over, again, not so. (Unless, of course, one redefines "Democrats" to mean only the partyy's more conservative members.) What most Democrats (including myself) felt was a sense of impending doom after the Eagleton debacle--which was less McGoivern's fault than Eagleton's, since McGovern had asked him directly whether there was anything in his past which might be a problem and Eagleton had said no. McGovern's only mistake was in taking his fellow senator at his word in this matter.
~ McGovern's mistake was making a major decision dead on his feet after the credentials fights with no prior staff vetting.
~ Exposing "Watergate" earlier might have led to the exposure of the fact that what the evil RNC and CREEP had done was, and had been for decades, SOP in DC. And that might have knocked the halos of St. JFK and St. RFK askew, or at least taken some of the shine off them. And we can't have THAT, now can we? *sarcasm*
~ Eric, those haloes remained intact in 1972. RFK had been killed only four years earlier, remember.
~ Would've been total disaster as President,even more then as candidate-a post he'd never have got with a national primary.
~ Without Nixon to normalize relations with China, there'd be a lot of economic shift in this TL. It might still be more of a regional power than a world one.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
