what were Mcgovern's issues?

[BayCityProgressive]

what was Mcgovern's platform and issues that he ran on besides being against the Vietnam War? I am only 20 so I wasn't around at the time.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. Ending The War

A negative income tax- the EITC....


Cutting the defense budget by 25%


I think the Dems had their first pro choice platform...

[On the Road]

2. The Republican Spin Was

"Acid, amnesty, and abortion"

He was stuck as a cultural radical, which is one reason he lost. And that $5,000 he planned to give to each person in the country was weird -- he couldn't explain it properly.

Having said that, I am a McGovern fan and am very sorry that he lost. As I've mentioned in other threads, if you're curious, read Hunter Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 1972." A masterpiece -- most of the chapters were written as a series of articles in Rolling Stone.

[BayCityProgressive]

3. he sounds like

he would have fit in with the Progressive Caucus.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. We Have The $5,000.00

"thingy" now.... It's called the Earned Income Tax.... If you are part of the workoing poor you'll get money back on your taxes...

It was proposed by that radical, Milton Friedman, as an alternative to welfare....

[wuushew]

5. No one is a credit the other would be a check

You cannot match credits beyond what your tax liability is, a negative income would be giving you money beyond your tax liability(in some cases).

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. I'm Not Sure

I thought that some low wage earners actually get money back beyond their tax liability...

Could be wrong though...

[kcordell]

13. You're Right

It's called the 'Earned Income Tax Credit'. My senile old mind forgets exactly how it works or when it was enacted. Maybe someone with a little more tax knowledge could explain it.

[Yupster]

17. No you're right

Demofrombirth. Many people get all the taxes they had withheld back plus more. I think the original explanation for that was to give them back their social security and medicare deductions too.

[rogerashton]

8. The McGovern negative income tax proposal actually originated

with Milton Friedman. See his book "Capitalism and Freedom." Sorry I can't give you the page number but my copy is in my office -- and I'm not.

Friedman argued for it on free-market conservative grounds!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. That's What I Thought

[WilliamPitt]

7. Acid / Amnesty / Abortion

[hedda_foil]

10. Will ....

You're too well-respected here to toss off this old saw, which I'm sure you intend as a joke. There are too many who might take it seriously because it comes from you.

[birdman]

16. The phrase was used by (I think) PA Republican Senator Hugh Scott

McGovern was painted as the candidate of hippies
and radicals. He favored abortion rights, decriminalization
of marijuana (not acid but Scott needed an "a" word) and amnesty for those who avoided Vietnam (an issue that's almost forgotten today
but could certainly get a rise out of some people back then). Those
who try to draw the Dean-McGovern analogy refer only to the war
issue and forget that McGovern lost a lot of votes because of
cultural issues. That would be unlikely to happen with Dean.

[Yupster]

18. For Dean, the cultural issue will be

Civil Unions for gay couples.

[UTUSN]

11. Losing with Nobility n/t

[Terwilliger]

12. so what did that make Gore?

[UTUSN]

14. Same-Same n/t

[UTUSN]

15. Could We Want to WIN, Now, PLEASE? n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. The Democratic Party platform of 1972

is available online. Due to a hard disk crash, I no longer have the link, but I found it by by the time-honored (?) method of googling.

McGovern lost because the Nixonites painted him as the "hippie candidate," and a lot of socially conservative people who would have actually liked McGovern's economic policies voted against him.

It's perhaps hard for anyone who wasnt' around at the time to fathom how utterly shocked and horrified Middle American types were by long hair, unconventional clothes, unashamed premarital sex, marijuana, and refusing to enter the military, which the parents of that time saw *solely* as the savior of civilization.

When I was in high school in the 1960s, a boy who had long hair risked being dragged out of lunch by the coaches and being given a crude "heinie" cut. Around that same time, a student was kicked out of Barnard College for living with her boyfriend.

When I was a college freshman, professors called students by their last names: "Mr. Smith, Miss Jones." Women students had curfews, and males were not allowed in the women's dorms except on moving-in day, when fathers and brothers could help carry the stereo.

By the time I was a senior, professors called students by their first names. There were no curfews, and even my Lutheran college had a coed dorm.

Even more striking, someone nowadays seeing photos of the first Free Speech protestors at Berkeley in 1964-65 could be forgiven for thinking that they were on their way to a job interview, not carrying out a protest. The women wore dresses and bouffant hairdos, and the men wore coats and ties. A mere four years later, Berkeley students looked like everyone's popular image of anti-Vietnam War protestors.

Every aspect of society changed incredibly fast between 1964 and 1972. Compared to those times, nothing changed at all between 1994 and 2002. Being young, I just accepted the changes. But older people thought the world was going to hell. They griped constantly about the "dirty, lazy, immoral hippies," the black people who "didn't know their place anymore," and "Commie, pinko cowards" who fought the draft.
The voters weren't so much rejecting McGovern as they were expressing their shock and dismay at the way the world had changed in just eight years.

[Terwilliger]

20. Kucinich would be the McGovern candidate

Compared to those times, nothing changed at all between 1994 and 2002

Good observation.

Whatever else happened in that time (whether free speech, love, sex, drugs, or a combination of all that) something was nearly unleashed. The establishment has a real problem with it.

Human history has not faced this transformation through technology and information, and the population explosion brings a lot more of us than there have ever been. It's time for some real change.

[cosmicdot]

21. wish I could find it (IIRC, there were no presidential debates in 1972)

I've googled ... if you re-discover it ... please PM me

an issue of the day was the guaranteed income

I read that even Tricky Dick had 'his plan'

George's was something like $1000 - not much, but better than none at all

Nixon lied people died

Nixon's vietnamization of the war lead to something like a peace with honor BS ... saying if we, as McGovern promised, pulled 'lock stock and barrel' out of Vietnam, there would be bloodshed in the wake ... couldn't do that ... bad ... shake your jawls ... and throw the peace sign up with both arms ...

so, Nixon stole the election fair and square; and, American soldiers continued to die and be wounded, etc. ... and, when the lock stock and barrel pull-out happened on his watch ... there was just what he criticized the Democrats over .... a major bloodshed ... go figure ...

so, McGovern would have ended the undeclared war before Dick Milhous and the healing process would have already begun ... I'm sure our citizens in Canada would have come home early instead of having to wait until Carter's first act as President ...

Nixon lied people died