Posted on 02/29/2020 3:52:59 PM PST by Kaslin
You hear it said and see it written that Bernie Sanders will be another George McGovern -- that is, a left-wing nominee who lost a presidential election in a landslide.
I'm here to tell you that's wrong. Because the times are different. And because Sen. Sanders is, or ought to be, a scarier candidate and a further departure from historic American norms than George McGovern ever was.
I speak perhaps from a position of prejudice. I supported George McGovern in 1972, in the primaries and in the general election. And though my views on issues have changed since then -- as have issues themselves -- I still find things to admire in my onetime candidate.
And evidently, so far as my family members and McGovern himself were able to figure, we were neighbors once, living down the street from each other in Diamond Lake, Illinois, in 1947. McGovern was then a divinity student at Northwestern University and a practice minister, and my father was an Army surgeon at nearby Fort Sheridan.
But back to the present. If Sanders becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party, there is just about zero chance that he will lose by anything like the 61% to 38% popular vote and the 521-17 Electoral College margin by which McGovern lost to Richard Nixon 48 years ago. That's even if his free college/free health care/free Ben & Jerry's ice cream platform proves as unpopular as McGovern's $1,000-a-year so-called Demogrant. And even if Sanders' anti-Israel, soft-on-Cuba foreign policy views prove as irrelevant as McGovern's opposition to a Vietnam war that was clearly winding up toward an end.
That opposition came not from Sanders-like admiration of the communists or anti-American animus but from a visceral recoil against the horrors of war. McGovern was the son of a Methodist minister who studied for the ministry himself, but in between, he served as a bomber pilot -- famously hazardous duty -- in World War II.
His service as chairman of a commission rewriting the Democrats' nomination process rules helped him maneuver to win the Democratic nomination just as the Nixon administration was preparing to negotiate a settlement with the communists and withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam. That outcome was sealed in June, when after intensive U.S. bombing of Hanoi, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev headed to a summit meeting with Richard Nixon.
McGovern's main issue was suddenly rendered moot. And just at that moment, in mid-June, operatives employed by the Nixon campaign broke into the Democratic headquarters at Watergate. Events of a single month doomed both McGovern's campaign and Nixon's presidency.
Anyway, McGovern was McGovern and is now part of history. Bernie Sanders is something else.
I remember McGovern and he was no communist, Bernie is.
Why the barf alert? Barone is right on this. Bernie is more dangerous than WWII vet McGovern and he WILL garner more of the popular vote than McGovern did. You have to remember, almost 50% of this country will vote for ANY candidate that has a D in front of his or her name.
“...operatives employed by the Nixon campaign broke into the Democratic headquarters at Watergate.”
The difference is half of that 50% won’t vote for a communist, they’ll either stay home or they’ll vote third party or they may even vote for Trump.
Turnout is how he won last time and turnout is how he will win again.
He gave people who were tired of voting against the other guy something to vote FOR, restoring the rule of law and keeping their country.
President repeatedly makes the point that one of the major reasons he ran was to give us back our sovereignty.
blacks will NOT turn out for sanders..normal dems will stay home or vote Trump...who will win 45 states.
If I were forced to choose between Bernie and McGovern, I’d choose McGovern anytime. By far. McGovern was ideologically much to the left of Moi. But, he was no commie. And, he was a decorated USAF bomber pilot in WW2. And, he did have a theme of developing or finding food supplies for people who needed them, a cause he worked a great deal on both in his senatorial career and afterwards for the rest of his life. Also, McGovern did work pretty well with other senators on both sides of the aisle.
I don’t recall Bernie ever doing anything useful or helpful for anybody (other than himself)?
I was in Vietnam in 1972 when McGovern was there trashing our South Vietnamese allies while vowing to go on his knees to Hanoi to secure the release of our POWs.
I remember McGovern citing his WWII record as a means of making his politics immune to criticism; he felt only other combat veterans had the right to criticize.
McGovern told Life magazine that he feared the U.S. military far more than the Red Chinese Army and vowed to cut the defense budget by 37% if elected.
Yeah, McGovern supposedly didn’t believe in Gulags, secret police, & midnight arrests like Sanders but he was willing to talk to communists anytime, anywhere.
I was disgusted in 1975 as Saigon was falling to the NVA & Gerald Ford initiated Operation Babylift to evacuate the children of our allies from the communist grasp; McGovern complained that these children should have been left behind “to build socialism in the new order”.
McGovern’s image as the kindly Prairie Populist who just wanted to build a better world is the dominant one but doesn’t square with his record.
He sure is.
Lurkinanloomin didn’t put the barf alert there. I did, because I thought it deserved one.
Right you are. No matter who the ‘RATs put up, they’ll win New York, California, Colorado and many other states.
So it will be close.
I wasn’t old enough to vote but wouldn’t have voted for him if I could.
He was a pacifist and a liberal.
But he wasn’t a commie.
There will never be another 49 state landslide until we become North Mexico.
The Democrats will always win CA, OR, WA, NY, MA, IL, MD, CT, RI, VT, DE, NJ and now sadly, VA.
Once Flimsey Grahamnesty gets his amnesty there will never be another GOP President.
McGovern took one State in 1972. Bernie might take about 14-16, so without reading the article I’d say Barone is right.
BERNIE STATES
HI
CA
OR
WA
CO
NY
NJ
VA
MN
DE
RI
CN
MA
TOSS UP
NV
ME
NH
NM
I don’t know about VA it could flip after the voters seeing exactly what the hell would be headed their way!!!
He’s right in that the times are different
America is far far far more leftist mostly due almost completely to the utter collapse proportionately of the non Hispanic white population
Bernie is guaranteed a half dozen states McGovern lost
And the youth vote today is around 20% more liberal voting ....at least so
Nixon carried the youth vote in 1972
Barone as are many others is Compromised, and the hammer is ready to fall and He is trying to protect his butt when it does
I wouldn’t write off Colorado quite so quickly in the November election. A little uphill, but not out of reach for Trump.
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