‘What Democrats Still Don’t Get About George McGovern’

I have had come across comparisons of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to the 1972 losing Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern.

It comes from old (and I don’t mean that word negatively) people, outside the beltway establishment, but it is pushed as a narrative by corporate Democratic Party Establishment figures.

They think of Election 1972.

In that presidential election, McGovern carried only District of Columbia and Massachusetts and a then-mathematical 17 electoral votes while Republican incumbent Richard Nixon was re-elected with carriage of 49 states and 521 (520, faithless elector) electoral votes.

So, the McGovern electoral disaster is instant recall for some. And, from the Democratic Party Establishment, it is used as the shining example of a warning against taking the party left.

Problem: They do not have an accurate understanding and/or memory of that particular U.S. presidential elections. (For those that do, they are dishonest.)

I am not one who normally reads The New Republic. Not at all. But, in doing a search, I came across an interesting piece from 2016. This was during the 2016 presidential primaries. It is worth sharing.


Link: What Democrats Still Don’t Get About George McGovern

A specter is haunting the Democratic Party—“McGovernism.” In 1972, President Richard Nixon shellacked his Democratic opponent, George McGovern, by a 23-point margin in the popular vote. Following McGovern’s defeat, Democrats began running towards the center and haven’t looked back, even though that center seems to have moved further and further to the right with each passing election. 

For the past 40 years, whenever a Democratic presidential hopeful has given off the slightest whiff of leftish anti-establishmentarianism, party leaders and mainstream pundits have invoked McGovern’s name. In 2004, Howard Dean was the new McGovern. In 2008, Barack Obama became the new McGovern. This year [2016], it’s Bernie Sanders’s turn. 

But the Democrats’ fear of McGovernism is misplaced. McGovern didn’t lose because he was too far to the left. He lost because he was facing a popular incumbent presiding over a booming economy. Moreover, the Democrats’ belief that they need to steer clear of McGovernism, assuming it was ever correct, now looks increasingly misguided. With each passing decade, the types of voters drawn to McGovern’s 1972 campaign have become a larger and larger share of the American electorate, while the issues championed by McGovern have become more and more salient. 

…

I am going to present some information, from Gallup, about how 37th U.S. president Richard Nixon was polling prior to winning re-election on November 7, 1972. (Source: Gallup—Presidential Job Approval Center.)

• December 10–13, 1971 — 50%
• January 7–10, 1972 — 49%
• February 4–7, 1972 — 52%
• March 3–5, 1972 — 56%
• March 24–27, 1972 — 53%
• April 28–May 1, 1972 — 54%
• May 26–29, 1972 — 62%
• June 16–19, 1972 — 59%
• June 23–26, 1972 — 56%
• November 11–14, 1972 — 62%

(Gallup does not list any more specific dates between late-June and, say, late-October 1972. A graph indicates Nixon’s job-approval percentage, in between those four months, was in the high-50s.)

Here is a reminder of the results of Election 1972:

1972 U.S. PRESIDENT [November 7, 1972]
• Richard Nixon (R, inc., re-elected) 60.67%
• George McGovern (D) 37.52%
• U.S. Popular Vote Margin: Republican +23.15
• National Shift (from 1968): Republican +22.45 (Nixon’s 1968 popular-vote margin, as a Republican pickup winner, was +0.70)
• Electoral Map: 49 carried states and 521/520 electoral votes (not carried were District of Columbia and Massachusetts)
• Electoral Map Changes (from 1968): Republican +17 pickup states (from 32, in 1968) and +219 electoral votes (from 302/301, in 1968)