Senator George McGovern: 1972 Democratic Convention Speech

Source:EFAN- U.S. Senator George McGovern (Democrat, South Dakota) 1972 Democratic Party nominee for President 

"Here is Mcg's convention speech from 1972. He was about up the creek as you can get at this point, but a little bit more drama was on the way over his VP choice. It also did not help much when he made his speech at 2:00, unless it's Election Night that's bad."

Source:EFAN

One thing that I respect about George McGovern, was that he didn’t meet all the stereotypes that have been thrown at so-called Progressives (Democratic Socialists, in actuality) at least when he ran for President in 1972, but ever since. 

George McGovern was a man who grew up in South Dakota and was proud of it and represented South Dakota in Congress for twenty-two years. Winning five Congressional elections, two in the House and three in the Senate. He was not from Boston, or New York, or Washington, or Chicago, or San Francisco, or Los Angeles, stereotypical left-wing cities in America, where many so-called leftists either come from, or live now. 

Senator McGovern, was an American Patriot, who served his country proudly in World War II, not a Pacifist. He was a devout Christian, not an Atheist. And also simply because of his honesty and consistency, he was against the Vietnam War when it was popular in the mid 1960s and was against it when it was unpopular the rest of the way.

George McGovern’s legacy in the Democratic Party, is a positive one, at least in this sense because of his political judgement. And he knew how the civil rights laws and the Great Society of the 1960s were going to cost the Democratic Party in the South. That the Democratic Party were going to need new voters. Similar to the Republican Party of today and they were going to need new voters. 

What George McGovern and his campaign did was change the rules of the Democratic Party to get more Democrats represented in the party: African-Americans, Latinos, Jews, women and others and making the Democratic Party a true national party. That didn’t have to have the South to be a competitive party nationally.