Tag Archives: 1972

This Week’s Memorabilia

Sitting members of Congress rarely become President of United States.  The last Congressman elected President while serving in the House was James Garfield in 1880.  Many House members have vied for the White House since then and have failed.  Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) was one of those members of Congress who tried and failed.  In 1968, Chisholm was the first African-American Congresswoman elected to office.  In 1972, she was the first African-American in a major party to run for President.   She lost the Democratic nomination to Senator George McGovern.  The poster shown here is from her 1972 campaign.  What message is Congresswoman Chisholm trying to convey here?

Chisholm

Identify the Message

Identify the political message below.  It is from a bumper sticker in 1972.  John Ashbrook was a Congressman from Ohio.  A Republican, he challenged fellow Republican and sitting President Richard Nixon in the GOP primaries.  Nixon easily defeated Ashbrook.

Ashbrook

 

Short and to the Point?

Perhaps Senator George McGovern‘s team felt that a :60 ad highlighting the lowlights of the Nixon Administration would resonate with the public in 1972.  Maybe this ad is a little too long.  Could it have been done better in 30 seconds? When the Presidential Election of 1972 was all said and done, President Richard Nixon (R) soundly defeated his Democratic opponent in a landslide.  McGovern went on to win only one state, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia.

Incumbent Presidential Vote Totals

President Barack Obama, as of this post, received 60,892,345 popular votes in his Presidential re-election bid.  This was down from the 69 million votes+ he received in 2008.  This is not the first time an incumbent President who was   re-elected for another term received fewer popular votes in his next go around than in his previous election.  The last that this happened was in 1944 when Franklin D. Roosevelt received fewer votes in his fourth bid for the Presidency than in his third.  The last time before that?  Roosevelt once again in 1940.  Here are the victorious incumbent Presidents and their popular vote totals in back to back elections.

Andrew Jackson

1828:  642,533; 1832:  701,780

Abraham Lincoln

1860:  1,855,593; 1864:  2,218,388

Ulysses S. Grant

1868:  3,013,790; 1872:  3,598,235

William McKinley

1896:  7,102,246; 1900:  7,228,864

Woodrow Wilson

1912:  6,296,284; 1916:  9,126,868

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932:  22,821,277; 1936:  27,752,648; 1940:  27,313,945; 1944:  25,612,916

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1952:  34,075,529; 1956:  35,579,180

Richard Nixon

1968:  31,783,783; 1972:  47,168,710

Ronald Reagan

1980:  43,903,230; 1984:  54,455,472

Bill Clinton

1992:  44,909,806; 1996:  47,400,125

George W. Bush

2000:  50,460,110; 2004:  62,040,610

Barack Obama

2008:  69,498,215; 2012:  60,892,345

What accounts for the drop in Obama’s total from 2012 to 2008?

George McGovern and the Primary System

Former Democratic United States Senator George McGovern died early Sunday morning, October 21, 2012.  He was 90.  He leaves a legacy of being a champion of liberal causes in the United States.  McGovern is also remembered for losing to Richard Nixon in the 1972 Presidential election by a landslide.  He tried again in 1984, but was beaten in the primaries that year. What George McGovern should be remembered for, however, is his role in how we nominate our Presidential nomination process.

In 1968, the Democratic Party nomination for President was in disarray.  Senator Robert Kennedy, the likely nominee of the party, had been assassinated after the California primary.  The candidate with the most delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota.  Having the most delegates gave McCarthy the inside track to the nomination.  McCarthy was deemed to be too much of a “peace candidate” for President by the Democratic establishment.  So much so, that party leaders including President Lyndon Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley took liberties with the delegate selection process and worked to nominate Vice President Hubert Humphrey for President.  Humphrey did not compete in any primaries.  After an arduous primary season, Democratic voters had been shut out essentially in the Presidential nomination process.

This is where George McGovern comes in.  He, and Minnesota Representative Donald Fraser, headed a commission that would streamline the nomination process so that voters would have a direct say on who their nominee for President would be.  The McGovern-Fraser Commission, as it was informally called, was charged in part with making sure that party leaders would not work behind closed doors to manipulate the nomination process.

National party convention delegates were to be chosen through direct primary elections.  Previously to the Commission, primary results were binding in some states and non-binding in others.  In those states with binding results, the number of delegates sent to the national convention was known by the public.  In those states with non-binding primaries, the primary looked more like a beauty contest.  In those cases, the delegate selection process was more likely to be determined by party leaders and not the voters.  In some states, delegates were chosen in state conventions.  Convention attendees tended to favor party leader-backed candidates.  Outsider or anti-establishment candidates for President (or any office) had little chance of gaining their party’s nomination.

McGovern-Fraser created uniformity in the delegate selection process.  Party leaders now had less of say in the selection of a Presidential nominee.  Primaries have been the deciding factor in the nominating process since McGovern-Fraser.  McGovern was the first to benefit from the change in the rules, as he became the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 1972.

Not since 1968 has either party had a contested nomination for President.  It is highly unlikely that the major parties will have another convention like the one in Chicago where party leaders ignored the will of people and selected a candidate for President who did not run in one single primary.  George McGovern made the process simpler and gave the public its rightful say in selecting its Presidential nominees.  For that, George McGovern should be remembered.

You can follow the link below for a 1972 campaign ad for George McGovern.

George McGovern Voting Booth Ad

What are your thoughts on the McGovern’s legacy? What are your thoughts on the McGovern ad?