[RJCogburn]

McGovern was a horrible choice for President.

Of course, with Nixon we got OSHA, EPA, Title IX, OEO, and the antithesis of a free society, wage and price controls.

[samtheman]

Exactly. Nixon was a dedicated socialist. And he didn't handle Vietnam very well, either. There's not much good to say about Nixon, except that McGovern would have been about a thousand times worse.

[PaulJ]

And to think,I voted, in my very first Presidential election, for George McGovern. I was so shattered he lost, I wore his campaign button for a year after. Ah, youth

[G.Mason]

"It seemed worthwhile to interview the two men, both retired from politics and in their 80's, to see what they thought of the current race."

Like the N.Y. Times, David E. Rosenbaum's idea of what is "worthwhile", and the general public's idea of what is "worthwhile", are separated by a difference of about the distance from the earth to the moon.

[Graybeard58]

"I don't see that this war has any more to commend it than Vietnam did," he said". (McGovern)

...Nor does this crop of dem candidates have any more to commend them that McGovern did.

[laredo44]

"If he's having second thoughts now, as he seems to be," Mr. McGovern said, "he should say straight out that he was deceived."

Or, better yet, like Muskie of Maine he could say he was "brainwashed," then bawl like a baby.

[randita]

Next year, he believes, Democratic voters will insist on a nominee who is outspoken against the war, just as they did then.

And the Democrat candidate will lose just as decisively as McGovern did. They haven't learned a thing in 30 years.

[Jim Noble]

McGovern was a horrible choice for President. Of course, with Nixon we got OSHA, EPA, Title IX, OEO, and the antithesis of a free society, wage and price controls.

Nixon and McGovern were both socialist internationalists.

the elections of 1968 and 1972 were a civil war within the (then) Leftist ruling class.

In retrospect, their high-water mark in electoral politics was the mid-term elections of 1974. Their power with the people has been declining ever since.

And they're pretty angry about it.

[wai-ming]

Eugene J. McCarthy, who is 87 . . .

Is this the same McCarthy who was accusing people of being Communists back in the 1950s? Or a relative, perhaps?

[Brandon]

"If he's having second thoughts now, as he seems to be," Mr. McGovern said, "he should say straight out that he was deceived."

In other words, "Vote for me -- I'm easily fooled!" (Not that I think the administration was lying, just that that's the logic of what McGovern is suggesting.)

As for the rest -- either Jackson or Humphrey would have been stronger candidates than McGovern -- in fact, of all the available candidates in 1972, McGovern was undoubtedly the worst choice, in terms of electability, and he went on to prove it in one of the most inept presidential campaigns in living memory.

That business about Wallace is eyewash. I don't believe he would have run as a third party candidate in 1972; he tried it in 1968, and it didn't work. But he was having significant success in the Democratic primaries, and might have had enough delegates to force the nominee to kiss his ring if he hadn't been shot. That would have been quite a spectacle.

[LadyDoc]

the blood of ten million Cambodians rests on his head...

and the misery of half a million vietnamese who suffered (and 50 thousand died) in "reeducation camps", and the half million who fled as refugees to other countries...

he also forced his teenaged daughter to have an abortion; she became a drug addict and killed herself as a result...

by their fruits you will know them...

[prairiebreeze]

McGovern is becoming senile if he thinks Weasley Clark is a good choice for the leader of the free world.

Prairie

[NYCVirago]

In his own case, Mr. McGovern said, "no Democrat could have beaten Nixon" in 1972. But he said his showing would have been much stronger had George C. Wallace not been forced from the campaign, badly wounded in a shooting. Mr. Nixon carried every state that year except Massachusetts. Had Mr. Wallace remained in the race, he would have carried all the Southern states as a third-party candidate, Mr. McGovern said, and taken enough votes away from Mr. Nixon in other states that Mr. McGovern might have carried 10 or 12.

10 or 12 states was his best-case scenario? Whoop-de-do!

[Fledermaus]

And under Bush 41 we got "cable bill acts" and the Americans with Disability Act and inroads into Family Leave.

And now his son is shoving up pork spending, prescription drugs at $40 billion a year that is so low it's not funny, and backing away from all his principles by caving in on school vouchers, free market reform of Soc Sec and Medicare, a farm bill that defies belief, etc.