Wise old heads are urging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to cool it from here to November.
In a New York Times OpEd, George McGovern recalls the nastiness that let Richard Nixon slip between his party's cracks:
"In 1968, we Democrats tipped the election to the Republicans and defeated our able nominee, Hubert Humphrey, by splitting our party wide open over the war in Vietnam.
"That year, after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, his staff talked me into running for the nomination and taking over his delegates. At the convention in Chicago, after Vice President Humphrey won the nomination, one of my fellow candidates, Eugene McCarthy, perhaps understandably, refused even to stand next to him on the convention stage in a show of unity. I believe that our party’s divisions cost us our chance to prevent Richard Nixon, who at that time had been out of office for eight years, from ever becoming president."
After today’s West Virginia primary, McGovern suggests that Obama and Clinton make joint visits to the five remaining locales, "agree not to criticize each other," and then attend "a reception where citizens paying $50 a ticket would mingle with the two candidates" to raise money for local and state candidates in the fall elections.
In the Washington Post, veteran columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. proposes Hillary Clinton take on a new role as "a stronger and more independent figure" by not letting supporters corner Obama about handing her the vice-presidency but let him heal the Democratic breach by choosing one of her supporters, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell or Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh.
After her victory lap in West Viriginia tonight, Clinton and Obama will be under a lot more pressure to play nice. It would be heartening to see them do that.
Showing posts with label George McGovern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George McGovern. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Thursday, May 08, 2008
South Dakota Spoilsport
Et tu, George McGovern? After Tuesday's balloting, the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate announced his support for Barack Obama and expressed hope for an "early decision" on the nomination.
But as a former senator from South Dakota, why would he want to deny his state's chance for a place in the sun, or at least on cable TV, for its June 3rd primary?
South Dakota gets so little attention, as I learned when I was stationed there during World War II in Rapid City, a sleepy place in the Black Hills, not far from Deadwood, where Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back holding aces and eights. His death hand was framed in the local saloon where I played poker with ranchers and Native Americans, who were still called Indians in those days.
On the trip from the air base, our bus would pass Mt. Rushmore with huge sculptures of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln watching over a scrubby landscape.
Only old movies commemorate those places these days, with Gary Cooper playing Wild Bill in "The Plainsman" and Cary Grant scrambling over those big faces in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."
Why would McGovern want to deny Hillary and Bill and Barack a chance to reenact those classic American scenes and help the tourist trade this summer?
But as a former senator from South Dakota, why would he want to deny his state's chance for a place in the sun, or at least on cable TV, for its June 3rd primary?
South Dakota gets so little attention, as I learned when I was stationed there during World War II in Rapid City, a sleepy place in the Black Hills, not far from Deadwood, where Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back holding aces and eights. His death hand was framed in the local saloon where I played poker with ranchers and Native Americans, who were still called Indians in those days.
On the trip from the air base, our bus would pass Mt. Rushmore with huge sculptures of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln watching over a scrubby landscape.
Only old movies commemorate those places these days, with Gary Cooper playing Wild Bill in "The Plainsman" and Cary Grant scrambling over those big faces in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."
Why would McGovern want to deny Hillary and Bill and Barack a chance to reenact those classic American scenes and help the tourist trade this summer?
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A Role Model for Both Clinton and Obama
The race and gender issues that haunt this year's campaigns were embodied by one person who ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1972 and won 152 delegates before losing to Sen. George McGovern.
As a first-term House member, Shirley Chisholm had even less experience then than Obama does now, but she was an inspirational figure who understood the importance of reaching out. When her racist opponent George Wallace was shot during the campaign, she visited him in the hospital. Years later, when Chisholm was pushing a bill to give domestic workers a minimum wage, Wallace got her enough votes from southern Congressmen to pass it.
We had been together on the New York delegation to the raucous 1968 Democratic convention, which nominated Hubert Humphrey and failed to pass a resolution to end the war in Vietnam. But Chisholm won a seat in Congress that year and, what she said in her first speech on the House floor could serve as a guide for both Clinton and Obama now:
"We Americans have come to feel that it is our mission to make the world free. We believe that we are the good guys, everywhere, in Vietnam, in Latin America, wherever we go. We believe we are the good guys at home, too...Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our own country, poverty and racism, and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed in the eyes of the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free.
"I am deeply disappointed at the clear evidence that the number one priority of the new administration is to buy more and more and more weapons of war...and to ignore the war we must fight here, the war that is not optional. There is only one way, I believe, to turn these policies around. The Congress must respond to the mandate that the American people have clearly expressed. They have said, 'End this war. Stop the waste. Stop the killing. Do something for our own people first.'"
She was ahead of her time in more ways than one.
As a first-term House member, Shirley Chisholm had even less experience then than Obama does now, but she was an inspirational figure who understood the importance of reaching out. When her racist opponent George Wallace was shot during the campaign, she visited him in the hospital. Years later, when Chisholm was pushing a bill to give domestic workers a minimum wage, Wallace got her enough votes from southern Congressmen to pass it.
We had been together on the New York delegation to the raucous 1968 Democratic convention, which nominated Hubert Humphrey and failed to pass a resolution to end the war in Vietnam. But Chisholm won a seat in Congress that year and, what she said in her first speech on the House floor could serve as a guide for both Clinton and Obama now:
"We Americans have come to feel that it is our mission to make the world free. We believe that we are the good guys, everywhere, in Vietnam, in Latin America, wherever we go. We believe we are the good guys at home, too...Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our own country, poverty and racism, and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed in the eyes of the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free.
"I am deeply disappointed at the clear evidence that the number one priority of the new administration is to buy more and more and more weapons of war...and to ignore the war we must fight here, the war that is not optional. There is only one way, I believe, to turn these policies around. The Congress must respond to the mandate that the American people have clearly expressed. They have said, 'End this war. Stop the waste. Stop the killing. Do something for our own people first.'"
She was ahead of her time in more ways than one.
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