Sarah Palin Is No Tom Eagleton

Pajamas Media ^ | September 6, 2008 | Robert Stacy McCain

[JayNorth]

A man with two brain aneurisms is more likely to be mentally unfit than this vibrant young woman.

In Tom Eagleton's defence, I don't see how having mental instability should hurt your chances as a RAT candidate. It would seem to be a prerequisite.

[Carley]

In those early dark ages the fact that Eagleton had undergone electric shock treatment was a disqualifier.

Sadly, McGovern didn’t have the courage to have a national conversation of mental health issues.

[engrpat]

If Biden doesn’t steamroll Palin in the debate look for him to want to spend more time with his family. If anyone leaves the race it will Biden.

[RichInOC]

As I said before...if you’re a Dem, and your party’s vice-presidential nominee is Joe Biden, getting in an argument about whose VP nominee is more mentally squirrelly is not in your best interest.

[gandalftb]

Let's be fair about Eagleton, he was never crazy or stupid. He was brilliant and hard-working and would have been a better VP than Shriver.

He was wrong about Viet Nam and was a key player in stopping the bombing and ground assaults into Cambodia. That gave sanctuary to the NVA and VC that we could never overcome. He and Fulbright and Morse and Johnson are the reason we ultimately lost and wasted so many American troops.

McGovern failed, as will Obama, because of indecisiveness. McGovern said that he backed Eagleton 1,000%, then dumped him without a replacement. Six Dems then publicly refused to be VP and Shriver was seen as a desperate choice. Also, the Dems were badly divided, there were 15 Dems in the primary.

There are many parallels to this years Dem campaign.

Obama is tagged as flakey and evasive and in a bunker mentality.

BTW, Eagleton produced a written evaluation from his psychiatrist that said he was sane. Can any of us, the media, candidates, say the same?????

[Verginius Rufus]

McGovern seems to have convinced himself that Teddy Kennedy would agree to be his running mate. When Teddy turned him down, he had to scramble for someone to put on the ticket, and came up with Eagleton.

It didn't make a whole lot of difference. McGovern would have lost in a landslide anyway. If not for the Eagleton fiasco, maybe he would have carried Rhode Island as well as Massachusetts and DC.

[gandalftb]

I've always wondered why he would let his brother-in-law Shriver be the goat....

Teddy clearly was dogged by Chappaquiddick and had no interest in running for that reason.

The dems were a complete mess that year. The pattern of defeat established in 1972.....massive and bitter primary battles....adoration of populist, anti-war, young-voter-protester attracting candidates still haunts them.

Dems are driven by quick-fix ideology and keep creating circular firing squads.

[driftless2]

Dropping Eagleton didn't help, but McGovern never had a chance anyway. Now look at the situation in 1972... the Vietnam war was unpopular as today's Iraq war, but the public was in no mood to choose an arch-leftist like McGovern...who even served honorably in WWII. Contrast that with today where nutty leftist ideas are treated as paragons of logical thinking, and the Dem party can run outright criminals like Al Sharpton without anyone thinking it odd. That's the difference between yesterday and today. Wacko leftism ala Barack Obama has a chance of being instituted in the highest office in the country.

p.s. I was a Democrat in those days, and I swear I never saw so many nutty leftist nutjobs walk up to the Dem podium at their convention and give their speeches. I didn't vote for McGovern or Nixon...someone down the line, and not George Wallace either.

[se_ohio_young_conservative]

I still cant believe how much ignorance there still is on mental health issues.