General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 1972 McGovern campaign, what would you have done ? [View all]GreenStormCloud
(12,072 posts)The Eagleton mess was his own doing. It was like that cruise ship that hit the rocks a couple of years ago. He stood behind Eagleton 1,000% and dumped him, totally ruining his credibility.
He wanted to Federal gov't to give every single citizen a taxable check for $1,000 every year. Even Humphry, in the primaries, ripped him over that. I was watching the debate on TV. At the time our population was 200 million. Our entire federal budget was also about 200 billion, IIRC. HHH attacked McG, saying the cost of his program was as much as the entire budget, $200B. McG counter attacked, claiming HHH was off in his humbers and asking where he got that figure. HHH countered with, "Simple our population of 200M times 1,000 equals 200B." It made McG look like a dunce.
McG wanted deep cuts in defense, including nuclear forces, during the Cold War. That scared the crap out of lots of folks.
Nixon's Watergate spying was because they could not believe that McG was really that stupid. McG had to have a secret plan to spring on Nixon at the last minute and Nixon wanted to know what it was. Even with the Watergate burglars caught in the act, Nixon won 49 states.