Recruit George McGovern to Speak -- at the REPUBLICAN Convention!

Shrewd move in choosing House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as running mate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Now here's the next play: Invite George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, to speak this month in Tampa at the Republican National Convention.

Yes, that old lefty McGovern. You know the expression, "A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged"? Well, McGovern has been mugged.

The most left-wing Democratic presidential candidate this side of Barack Obama, former Sen. McGovern, D-S.D., proposed giving every man, woman and child an annual $1,000 "demogrant." In his nomination acceptance speech, McGovern made the same case that Obama makes today -- capitalism and free markets let us down, and social justice require universal health coverage: "A program to put America back to work demands that work be properly rewarded. That means the end of a system of economic controls in which labor is depressed, but prices and corporate profit run sky-high. It means a system of national health insurance so that a worker can afford decent health care for himself and his family."

Sen. Bobby Kennedy, D-N.Y., himself a presidential candidate in 1968, called McGovern the "only decent man in the Senate." A decorated World War II bomber pilot, McGovern fiercely opposed the Vietnam War and pushed for a complete and immediate withdrawal of American troops. Name a tax hike, spending bill or new regulation, and very likely McGovern supported it. But after he left the Senate in 1981, something happened that profoundly changed several of his most deeply held views.

Following the recommendation of a friend with "a lifetime of hotel- and restaurant-management experience," McGovern bought a small hotel and restaurant, the Stratford Inn in Connecticut. He poured his savings into the place, investing his seven year's worth of post-Senate earnings from the lecture circuit.

A contributing factor to the failure, according to McGovern, was the regulations that make it tough to make a profit. In a mea culpa that should chill every lefty on the Hill, McGovern said: "I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House. ... I learned first of all that over the past 20 years America has become the most litigious society in the world. ... The second lesson I learned by owning the Stratford Inn is that legislators and government regulators must more carefully consider the economic and management burdens we have been imposing on U.S. businesses. ... Many businesses, especially small independents such as the Stratford Inn, simply can't pass such costs on to their customers and remain competitive or profitable."

"I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople." Holy Ayn Rand! Then in the spring of 2008, McGovern wrote an article called, "Freedom Means Responsibility":

"Many people can't afford the gold-plated health plans that are the only options available in their states," wrote McGovern. "Buying health insurance on the Internet and across state lines, where less expensive plans may be available, is prohibited by many state insurance commissions. Despite being able to buy car or home insurance with a mouse click, some state governments require their approved plans for purchase or none at all. It's as if states dictated that you had to buy a Mercedes or no car at all."

This is, of course, exactly what Republicans, pre-ObamaCare, offered as one of the ways to increase the affordability of health care insurance -- without further government intrusion.

McGovern, in warning about excessive regulation, sounded almost Reaganesque: "Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. ... Since leaving office, I've written about public policy from a new perspective: outside looking in. I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.

"Why do we think we are helping adult consumers by taking away their options? We don't take away cars because we don't like some people speeding. We allow state lotteries despite knowing some people are betting their grocery money. Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don't operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in life.

"The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else."

McGovern did a lot of damage while in Congress. Here's a chance for him to help undo some of it. For the sake of the country, McGovern should share his hard-earned wisdom -- at the Republican National Convention.

As folks would soon learn, Nixon’s reelection was the biggest disaster for the GOP and the Conservative cause in the past 50 years, and it would take decades to recover from (especially here in the South).

Clearly you must have been sleeping through the election and 49-state re-election of Ronald Reagan, a mere 6 and 10 years after Nixon left office.

If Nixon couldn’t handle a few zingers from a righty, so what?

Schmitz, a one-term US Congressman, squashed himself, and his idiotic comments like, "I have no objection to President [Richard] Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back," showed he was little more than a loose cannon prone to shooting himself in the foot - like most inflated-ego third-party types do and are.

Nixon made it personal and installed Hinshaw in Schmitz’s seat, a convicted criminal.

And Schmitz just didn't have enough political schmaltz to win it back, did he?

Hinshaw was not a convicted criminal when he ran for office and beat Schmitz in the primary in 1972. Schmitz' political intel was dismal. Schmitz just showed that he couldn't defeat Hinshaw when he wasn't convicted, and later even when he was. Since Hinshaw was convicted in 1977, how is it that Schmitz couldn't get his seat back in US Congress in 1978, and could instead only settle for CA Senate?

Given that there are fewer California State Senators than California Congressmembers, it’s actually harder to get elected to, and they’re often higher profile.

Geographic size of a representative area does not automatically translate into electoral difficulty to achieve political office.

In fact, since, as you say, Nixon's chosen substitute to supplant Schmitz was successful in doing so in the context of a smaller geographic footprint, Schmitz' loss to Hinshaw by your own measure was a double fail. Schmitz' later election to CA Senator could only be achieved by a greater sized area which allowed the dilution of his more concentrated home-based opposition.

But he just couldn't keep his pecker in his pants long enough to make his continuing presence in the CA Senate anything more significant and his behavior blew away his own wife's continuing career as a conservative political commentator.

What you do when no one is looking is what you really are, not all the pontificating you engage in so hypocritically and fraudulently as you seek public adulation and office.

The prestige and national influence one has in the US House is far greater than one has on a state level, particularly if one's intent is to have a national influence. Schmitz' failed run for the Presidency and later for US Senate indicates that his goal was to have influence on a national level.

40 CA State Senate members vs 55 US House members is a distinction without a difference. By the way he ran as (R) for CA senate in 1978 and as an (R) in 1982, not as some third party geek like he did in 1972 for President.

Schmitz crashed and burned on the National stage and the personal peccadilloes to which you aptly refer saw to it that he would never return to political life once exposed for the hypocrite he always was.

John Burton left Congress and later entered the State Senate where he became the President of that body, ostensibly more powerful than his House position. In any event, Schmitz was no “minor pest”, as a multiple-office winner. Sadly, had he not been derailed by personal peccadilloes, he would’ve ended up back in Congress by the ‘80s (and vindicated by his criticisms of Nixon).

How did Schmitz put it: "I lost by 44,000,000 votes."

He turned out to be a vanishingly small man when the truth about him came out. He made a living mockery of all he supposedly stood for, as he quipped when caught with his adulterous relationship and the spawn from it, "I ought to get the Right to Life man-of-the-year award for this."

Schmitz' hypocritical behavior and his shoot-off-at-the-mouth style allowed conservatism to be further pilloried for mockery by the detestable Gloria Allred.

Yet somehow you think he could have won his congressional seat back when he couldn't even make a show in 1982 for anything? He couldn't even show up to take fatherly responsibility for his two illegitimate kids in 1982.

And you say Nixon set back conservatism when this doofus made a living and verbal mockery of the conservatism he supposedly championed?

I’m also sure there is no comparison between Ted Kennedy, a traitor who was responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (whose “military service” was the equivalent of attending a country club in Europe, safe from the front lines of Korea), and John Schmitz, a Conservative patriot who served in the Marines for over 30 years.

And Schmitz is still your hero, I see.

Oh yes, a conservative paragon of virtue he was, wasn't he, sort of like Strom Thurmond, with his 50-year hidden, paid- off, posthumously exposed love child, or Newt Gingrich's serial divorces and adulteries, toe-tapping Larry (Craig), all done in the same hypocritical Elmer Gantry-styled spirit as the religio-politico-peccadilloes of the contemporary Jim Bakker's, Jimmy Swaggart's, Ted Haggard's and most recently, today's Jack Schapp.

It was you who tried to make it appear meaningful that when someone is buried at Arlington with full military honors it is something that by definition is meaningful.

Both my boys are Marines. Schmitz was a disgrace to the honor of the Corps and what it means to be a Marine every bit as much as was Jack Murtha.

In any event, Aggie, you have this rather nasty habit of savaging Conservatives on this website who don’t blindly support the Republican (establishment) party.

I savage the self-righteousness of third party acolytes who voted for the likes of Schmitz in '72 and who intend to repeat the same meaningless vanities with the same kinds of third party snake-oil salesmen in 2012.

Like Schmitz, your American Party guy is procreative, but unlike Schmitz he's never served as anything more than someone's political field op guy. All hat, no cattle.

I might remind you that Free Republic is not an appendage or propaganda arm of the GOP, it is a Conservative website. If you have a problem with that, this is not the website for you.

Spare the lecture. FR is not the place for the likes of you to champion serial adulterers and those who repeatedly father children conceived in illegitimacy, who at the same time try to raise funds and run political campaigns all the while calling themselves "conservatives."

I happen to have been around here substantially longer than you, and by the way you reason and write it appears that you didn't start posting here until sometime just after you tried to pass your GED for the third time.

When exposed for his adulterous affair with a student (ever wonder where his daughter Mary Kay LaTourneau got the idea to mimic daddy's behavior?...), fathering as he did not 1 but 2 children out of wedlock -- both of which he refused to support, I'll remind you again that he mocked a core set of principles he and his wife supposedly stood for "I ought to get the Right to Life man-of-the-year award for this."

He had enough staying power to father 2 little kids illegitimately, but not enough staying power to remain in office after having been exposed for having done so.

And in the end he died just a two-bit candy bar kiosk peddler.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't his illegitimate children that he had entirely abandoned from birth that petitioned for his interment at Arlington.

"Clearly you must have been sleeping through the election and 49-state re-election of Ronald Reagan, a mere 6 and 10 years after Nixon left office."

How long did it take to win Congress ? Watergate KILLED GOP gains in the South. In my state of TN, we had a majority of the Congressional delegation, both Senators and a Governor and were on the brink of a majority in the State House. After the 1974 & '76 elections, we were down to a minority, a Democrat (crook) Governor and reduced to 1/3rd of the legislature. It took until 2010 to get back what we had prior to 1974. If Nixon had lost or another Republican had replaced him either in '68 or '72, that never would've happened and the GOP was on track to majority status by the mid to late '70s. Carter himself never would've been elected President absent Nixon/Watergate.

"Schmitz, a one-term US Congressman, squashed himself, and his idiotic comments like, "I have no objection to President [Richard] Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back," showed he was little more than a loose cannon prone to shooting himself in the foot - like most inflated-ego third-party types do and are."

Two terms. I happen to think the comment was quite funny. We may also come to regret his having opened up China, as that seems to have created a monster. It's more than a little odd you have this bizarre loathing of Schmitz (and Mr. Hoefling) that borders on the pathological.

"And Schmitz just didn't have enough political schmaltz to win it back, did he?"

Don't try to be witty, you'll hurt yourself. In fact, he came within 1% of Robert Badham (another excellent Conservative) in a multicandidate field in the 1976 primary, well ahead of the corrupt Hinshaw (who came in 4th). Because there was no runoff, he might very well have regained his seat. Still, he made it back to the Senate 2 years later (even as Jerry Brown was reelected).

"Schmitz crashed and burned on the National stage and the personal peccadilloes to which you aptly refer saw to it that he would never return to political life once exposed for the hypocrite he always was."

Such personal failings only tend to nail those on the right, even if it has little to no effect on their voting record. We have an excellent Conservative Senator from a certain Southern state who suffers from unfortunate pecadilloes, but it doesn't change the fact he has a superb record of voting. We're not electing a Pope. In a body filled with numerous whores, the least they can do is vote right. I'd rather have a sexual libertine in office who votes right than a paragon of virtue whose voting record is abominable (though in which case, voting left/wrong tends to diminish any claims to virtue or morality).

"He turned out to be a vanishingly small man when the truth about him came out. He made a living mockery of all he supposedly stood for, as he quipped when caught with his adulterous relationship and the spawn from it, "I ought to get the Right to Life man-of-the-year award for this."

"Yet somehow you think he could have won his congressional seat back when he couldn't even make a show in 1982 for anything? He couldn't even show up to take fatherly responsibility for his two illegitimate kids in 1982."

Obviously, not his finest hour. But no one around here is praising his unfortunate choices in his personal life. He made his bed. It's just unfortunate that everyone across the spectrum isn't held to such standards. At least he never raped his campaign volunteer like a certain future President did.

"And you say Nixon set back conservatism when this doofus made a living and verbal mockery of the conservatism he supposedly championed?"

I don't say Nixon did, the proof is in the elections. Eisenhower, too, had a similarly disastrous impact in his failures to aide the GOP (the 1958 elections remain unsurpassed in the number of actual seat losses for GOP Senators, which took 22 years to recover from). Schmitz wasn't the President, nor was he an active participant in Watergate. Who would you blame for the destruction of the GOP in 1974 ? Even Reagan couldn't run for the Senate that year upon his retirement from the Governorship to take out the execrable Alan Cranston.

"And Schmitz is still your hero, I see."

I can admire flawed individuals, can you ? I happen to like bombastic righty iconoclasts. I also happen to loathe phony lefty opportunist scumbags like Slick Willard.

"Oh yes, a conservative paragon of virtue he was, wasn't he, sort of like Strom Thurmond, with his 50-year hidden, paid- off, posthumously exposed love child, or Newt Gingrich's serial divorces and adulteries, toe-tapping Larry (Craig), all done in the same hypocritical Elmer Gantry-styled spirit as the religio-politico-peccadilloes of the contemporary Jim Bakker's, Jimmy Swaggart's, Ted Haggard's and most recently, today's Jack Schapp."

Like it or not, Thurmond & Gingrich both did more to move the South to the GOP (in spite of itself) and to majority status in Congress than most of the rest of the sainted establishment did. With folks like Willard in charge, they left the party deader than Elvis. Do I celebrate the mistakes they made in their personal lives ? No. For the record, I opposed Gingrich for President because while I credit him with getting us a majority in 1994, he has been too erratic and polarizing in the years since.

"Both my boys are Marines. Schmitz was a disgrace to the honor of the Corps and what it means to be a Marine every bit as much as was Jack Murtha."

That's a vile comparison, and you know it. Murtha was a traitor. Schmitz was never a traitor.

"I savage the self-righteousness of third party acolytes who voted for the likes of Schmitz in '72 and who intend to repeat the same meaningless vanities with the same kinds of third party snake-oil salesmen in 2012."

I'm voting for Congressman Goode. Deal with it. When the GOP decides to nominate a Conservative whose record matches their rhetoric, they have my support. When they nominate scumbags like Willard, whom are antithetical to Conservatism, they will never have my support. If Willard loses, the entire blame can be laid at the feet of a party that gives the middle-finger to its base supporters. Don't you dare blame us for not voting for a thinly-veiled fraud whom is no more deserving of the Presidency than his tanner and equally megalomaniacal twin.

"Spare the lecture. FR is not the place for the likes of you to champion serial adulterers and those who repeatedly father children conceived in illegitimacy, who at the same time try to raise funds and run political campaigns all the while calling themselves "conservatives."

You asked for the lecture, and it's not the first time you were deserving of it. I already told you I never supported Schmitz's unfortunate decisions in his private life. But it is you who has no business lecturing others, especially when claiming to be a Conservative, when you prostitute yourself to support whatever ghastly reprobate the GOP puts up... and then have the unmitigated nerve to attack those who won't similarly sell themselves. Shame on you, sir. Shame.

"I happen to have been around here substantially longer than you"

I've been here since October 1998, right before the 6th year elections of the Clinton regime, steered here by Rush Limbaugh, IIRC. Your math skills seem to be just as questionable, since a month scarcely can be described as "substantially longer." I've also seen more than a few arrogant '98ers losing their minds in the era of Willard.

"and by the way you reason and write it appears that you didn't start posting here until sometime just after you tried to pass your GED for the third time."

You can't win arguments, so you resort to personal attacks. What can I say ? Well, at least I'm not a party whore and mindless Willardbot, something you undoubtedly consider virtuous.

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