James Abdnor, Former South Dakota Senator, Dies at 89 (R who succeeded McGovern)
James Abdnor, a South Dakota Republican farmer who liked to say that he got off his tractor and went to Washington, where he served four terms in Congress and one in the Senate after defeating the Democratic incumbent, George S. McGovern, in 1980, died on Wednesday in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was 89.
His death was announced by his family.
It was not quite true that Mr. Abdnor got off his tractor and went to Washington. He went first to South Dakota’s capital, Pierre, in the 1950s and was a state senator for 12 years and lieutenant governor for two more before winning a seat in the House and being re-elected three times in the 1970s.
But his campaign line, evoking Jimmy Stewart’s aw-shucks Senate appointee in Frank Capra’s 1939 film classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” played well with conservative voters when he challenged Mr. McGovern, a three-term incumbent. Mr. McGovern had opposed American involvement in the war in Vietnam and, as the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, had lost in a landslide to Richard M. Nixon.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/us/james-abdnor-former-south-dakota-senator-dies-at-89.html
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