"George McGovern’s indelible mark on Massachusetts politics" by Joseph P. Kahn |
Globe Staff, October 23, 2012
“Don’t Blame Me, I’m From Massachusetts.”
Tucked away in old barns and auto graveyards are reminders of what
the 1973-74 Watergate scandal felt like here in Massachusetts, where
voters chose Democratic candidate George McGovern over Republican
Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential campaign: vindication, spelled
out on fading bumper stickers.
I used to feel proud about that.
Since 1928, Massachusetts has backed only two Republican presidential
candidates: Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and ’56, Ronald Reagan in ’80 and
’84. When the state voted 40 years ago for McGovern, who died Sunday at the age of 90,
largely on the basis of his opposition to the Vietnam War, no other
state followed suit. That lopsided outcome turned Massachusetts into a
punchline for countless political jokes.
It still is, but for different reasons.
But as time passed, it also made a statement to the rest of the
country that transcended partisan politics and has been a source of
pride ever since.
We may not always pick a presidential winner or put forth a candidate
(Dukakis, Kerry) capable of taking the Electoral College by storm
(Romney gets his chance next month). But we are as maverick-y as any
when it comes to voting the courage of our convictions and to seeing
through the political chicanery of a candidate like Nixon, who had
barely deigned to speak McGovern’s name during that race and who would
resign in disgrace two years later.
In 1982, I interviewed McGovern on the 10th anniversary of the 1972
race. He was remarkably unbitter in defeat, despite having lost his US
Senate seat in 1980 to a hard-right candidate who had portrayed McGovern
as unpatriotic and antifamily. (McGovern was a decorated WWII bomber
pilot, a devout Methodist, and devoted family man who had been married
to his wife since 1943.)
At the time of our interview, McGovern was eking out a living making
speeches. For these, he was typically paid about half of what Watergate
felons Gordon Liddy and John Erlichman
earned on the lecture circuit. “I guess crime really does pay,” McGovern
cracked, puffing on a cigar and shaking his head.
Sure looks like it when you turn your head towards Wall Street.
Asked why he had fared so much better with Massachusetts voters in
’72, McGovern credited the political support he had gotten from the
Kennedys and Tip O’Neill and on campuses like Harvard and MIT. But he
also cited the many days he had spent campaigning in and around Boston
that year, long before the “swing-state” syndrome came to dominate
presidential campaign strategy, and to John F. Kennedy having “taught
the state to be highly skeptical of Richard Nixon way back in 1960,” as a
smiling McGovern put it.
One more footnote to the ’72 campaign that ought not to be forgotten:
At the Democratic Convention that summer, McGovern had nearly selected
Boston’s mayor, Kevin White, as his running mate. White, then 44 and in
his second term as mayor, was a rising star in the national party and a
leading voice on urban policy issues.
Also see: The Boston Globe's White File
Other Massachusetts pols, however, Ted Kennedy included, opposed
White’s nomination, largely because the mayor had supported Senator
Edmund Muskie of Maine in the primaries. McGovern picked Thomas
Eagleton of Missouri instead, to his lasting regret. Revelations that
Eagleton had received shock therapy for depression led to his dismissal
from the ticket. Choosing White, McGovern admitted, “would certainly
have been much better than what happened.” “We probably should have
overruled” Kennedy and the others, McGovern added. What lasting effect
that decision had on Boston political history we will never know.
To voters and political aides who came of age here in the 1960s and ’70s, McGovern remained an inspirational figure, even decades later. Micho
Spring worked for the ’72 McGovern campaign in California. Moving here
in the mid-’70s, she later joined the White administration’s inner
circle and now leads the consulting firm Weber Shandwick’s New England
offices.
McGovern was “an icon for decency and integrity in politics,” she
said. “For my generation, he lifted our sights and empowered us to
participate in politics.” In Massachusetts, she added, the ’72 vote
remains “a badge of honor, proof that we were on the right side of
political events” all along.
History will remember George McGovern for his service to his country,
political and otherwise. But his legacy deserves a pop culture salute
or two, as well. In movies like “All The President’s Men” (1976) and
“Nixon” (1995), McGovern functioned as a mostly unseen plot device, the
object of Nixon’s withering scorn (“pansy poet socialist”) and dirty
tricks strategizing. Not so on “Saturday Night Live,” though, or on the
sitcom “Newhart,” where he personally mined his loser’s image for
good-natured laughs.
Nixon a good companion piece to JFK. Nixon knew it was a conspiracy and to where it tracked back.
“Do you realize you were the only state that voted for McGovern?”
asked comedian Dick Gregory on his 1974 album, “Caught in the Act,”
recorded before a Bay State audience. “You have the distinction of
being able to tell the other 49 states, ‘We told you.’ ” In other words,
don’t blame us.
--more--"
Related: George McGovern, liberal stalwart, dies
George McGovern: Stereotypes did him no justice
Kerry calls McGovern ‘a voice of clarity’
The real George McGovern
Also see: US releases documents on Watergate scandal
Renting a Room at the Watergate
Pretty good reading material there.
