The Mythology about McGovern in 1972.

[JackRiddler]

Here are the six candidates who won delegates during the 1972 Democratic presidential primary season:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_1972

For those of you never tire in pushing the old mythology that the choice of a supposedly too liberal McGovern was a unique disaster that handed the general election to Nixon: Please tell us whom you would have supported, and which of these candidates you believe might have been able to defeat the incumbent Richard Milhouse "Silent Majority" Nixon in November of the YOOL 1972:

- Hubert Humphrey?
- George Wallace?!
- Edmund Muskie?
- Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson?!
- Shirley Chisholm?

If you scroll down you can see other candidates who dropped out before the convention (some of them as late as July) and the map of actual states voting - an embarrassment for democracy even by today's standards. (It was even worse in 1968, before the reforms, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_1968)

Thanks!

[democraticinsurgent]

1. And McGovern might have won...

...were it not for Wallace's assassination attempt. Many thought that Wallace would siphon enough votes away from Nixon to hand the election to McGovern.

What great fortune for Nixon that Wallace was shot.

[NuclearDem]

15. McGovern had no chance.

He ran a disastrous campaign, drove out millions of Democrats from the party, and had unknowingly picked the guy who had started labeling him as a far-left nut to be his running mate.

No Democrat was going to win 1972. Nixon, whether he deserved it or not, was popular and the Democratic Party was in disarray. We ultimately ended up better for it--getting rid of the racists wasn't a bad thing--but it was still a disaster.

[demosincebirth]

2. Humphrey would have beaten Nixon, if not, it would have been a sqeaker.

[tritsofme]

3. HHH, Muskie, or Jackson wouldn't have lost 49 states.

Nixon's reelection was probably inevitable, but it didn't have to be a wipeout. Muskie got knee-capped by Nixon's CREEPs before he took off in that campaign.

[book_worm]

4. It's likely nobody would have defeated Nixon in 72

due to detente in China, Soviet Union. Wage-Price Controls (ultimately a disaster) which did rein in inflation and men were coming home from Vietnam (as well as POW's). It could have been closer. I think Humphrey might have done better, but McGovern, too, would have done better had it not been for the Eagleton fiasco. After the Democratic convention McGovern was down 53-35 percent so there was room to grow. After Eagleton Nixon's lead went to 64-30--McGovern never really recovered.

[JackRiddler]

6. How did Humphrey do in 1968?

It was close - with Wallace taking a big slice, however, exactly as Nixon had hoped.

Nixon '68 + Wallace '68 + Four Years of "Success" = Nixon '72.

I'd say the majority of the country was more reactionary than at any other point in the 20th century.

Plus Humphrey supported the war and lost the left in '68 and had become a widely hated man associated with the establishment -- sort of like Clinton today.

Would Humphrey or Muskie have won six more states? Maybe, maybe not.

(Would the Neocon Founding Father Jackson have used the bomb in Vietnam if he'd won? Possibly!)

[leftofcool]

5. He lost 49 states

[JackRiddler]

7. What's your counterfactual scenario?

Would Humphrey have picked up six more?

(See post 6)

[DanTex]

8. Too bad the Dems didn't have a Hillary Clinton to run in that election.

Fortunately, in this one we do, and she just locked up the primary, so we won't be having a 1972 repeat this time around.

[JackRiddler]

11. That's a good one.

It's like a spaceman thing, though. Valid counterfactuals should stick to what actually existed at the time being considered, not have magical time-travel scenarios. (And obviously Hillary Clinton herself would have been crushed by Nixon in 1972 and would ever since have been used - without validity - as the lesson against going left, just like McGovern was. But she should be able to beat the 2016 version of Nixon, Donald Trump. I think.)

[Art_from_Ark]

9. As long as the Watergate break-in was kept under wraps

which it basically was, and as long as Nixon and Kissinger announced that the end of American involvement in the Vietnam War was near (which they did 2 weeks before the election), then it's doubtful any of those candidates could have beaten Nixon.

However, if Muskie hadn't been slimed with charges of "crying" (when a melting snowflake started dripping down his face), he might have been able to get farther than he did. And if McGovern hadn't botched his running mate selection (that is, for example, if he had chosen Sargent Shriver at the beginning), then McGovern might have done better.

[The Second Stone]

10. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72

by Hunter S. Thompson is a great read. Remember that the narrator is unreliable. It will give you a great flavor of the time. It won't answer the OP question. McGovern got the nomination and was probably going to get it. Thompson explains that Muskie was a weak candidate and would have lost to McGovern, who ran the best campaign on the Democratic side.

[JackRiddler]

12. I remember it well.

The book, I mean. I was very young for the actual events. And that's what Thompson made clear - McGovern ran the best campaign. But Nixon '72 was a monstrous, cheating, evil juggernaut very much in tune with the majority's mood.

[jfern]

13. Obviously McGovern the more electable liberal

The two liberals are McGovern and Chisholm.
The two moderates (definitely more liberal than Hillary though) are Humphrey and Muskie.
Scoop Jackson is basically Hillary.
Wallace is conservative Democrat.

[JackRiddler]

14. Wallace is the openly racist vote.

Wallace could have conceivably won the nomination, by the way, look at those numbers. He was shot in May. Probably that was his peak already, however, CA and NY being ahead.

In personality, Trump is kind of a 2016 post-reality combo of Wallace and Nixon. Luckily, this is not 1972, or he might win!