George McGovern, one of the leading liberals in U.S. politics, was born in a Republican household in a small South Dakota town. His family had some struggles during the Great Depression, but they were able to make ends meet. The young, idealistic man joined the Air Force during World War II and became a bomber pilot. He served with great bravery, flying missions over North Africa and Italy, bombing German military targets, and won citation for his duty. Upon returning home, he graduated from college and became a college teacher, teaching history. Up to that point, he had been relatively non-political, as had his parents. That changed in 1952, when he heard a speech by the Democratic nominee, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, and was so inspired by it that he volunteered for the Stevenson campaign.
Stevenson lost to retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower, but McGovern remained active in politics, becoming Chairman of the South Dakota Democratic Party. Democrats were very much the minority in the state, but McGovern pursued his duties with great zeal, and in 1956 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in an upset, helped by growing dissatisfaction with the Eisenhower administration in the rural Midwest. He was reelected in 1958 and in 1960, was an enthusiastic backer of Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. That same year, McGovern took a gamble by running against Republican U.S. Senator Karl Mundt, who had first been elected in 1948. Although he ran well ahead of what Democrats usually did in the state, he fell short, as Mundt won by a 52% to 48% margin.
In 1961, Kennedy appointed McGovern Director of the Food For Peace program, and McGovern was greatly affected by his service in this capacity. In 1962, McGovern ran for the U.S. Senate again, this time in an open race. He was considered the underdog against Republican Governor Joe Bottum, but managed to win by 597 votes, one of the closest U.S. Senate races in state history. He immediately became one of the Senate's most liberal members, enthusiastically supporting the domestic policies of Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.
His major accomplishment was creation of the Food Stamp program, which was to provide Federal food assistance to impoverished people. But he became increasingly focused on overseas and military affairs. He became an opponent of the growing American involvement in Vietnam and opposed maintaining a large military. In 1968, he was a leading supporter of Robert F. Kennedy and was horrified by the latter's assassination. He was also appalled by the Chicago Police Force's rough treatment of anti-war protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that same year. He was reelected easily that year, winning 57% of the vote.
After Richard Nixon took office, McGovern quickly became a proponent of immediate withdraw of all military forces from Vietnam. In 1969, he chaired the commission which instituted reforming the way the Democratic Party nominated its Presidential candidates, dramatically reducing the role of party leaders and political insiders. In 1972, McGovern launched a campaign for President. He was given little chance of winning his party's nomination, which seemed to be united around U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. However, Muskie's campaign foundered and McGovern ran a close second to Muskie in the Presidential primary in New Hampshire. Helped by his campaign manager, Gary Hart, McGovern won several other primaries and the nomination.
His campaign theme was "America, come home." His main platform, aside from withdraw from Vietnam, was a 37% reduction in defense spending and a guaranteed minimal income for all Americans. At the convention in Miami, he initially won praise for nominating U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his running mate. But his campaign was rocked when it was revealed that Eagleton had been treated for depression in a psychiatric ward many years before. McGovern initially claimed that he was "1000 percent" behind Eagleton, but later his campaign staff persuaded Eagleton to drop out of contention. This made McGovern look bad to his most idealistic supporters and haunted him throughout the campaign.
Ultimately, former Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver replaced Eagleton as his running mate, but the damage was done. Throughout the campaign, he was perceived by the public as a well-meaning but fuzzy-minded radical leftist. Taking advantage of McGovern's support for amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers, decriminalizing abortion, and ending Federal drug laws (leaving them to the individual states),Vice President Spiro Agnew labeled McGovern the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid," and the label stuck.
The Nixon campaign successfully portrayed McGovern as a pacifist and socialist who would endanger national security, wreck the economy, and bankrupt the government. In the election, McGovern lost overwhelmingly. Nixon out-polled him by 61% to 37%, with a plurality of 18
