Anyone here remember Thomas Eagleton?

[mykpart]

He was *Hubert Humphrey's* running mate in *1968* until Republicans dug up some dirt on him. Seems he was a recovering alcoholic who had been in a mental hospital to dry out several years before. So Humphrey chose a new running mate and Nixon was elected president. I sometimes wonder if this was when all the dirty nasty politics started. Not with Watergate, but with Eagleton. And perhaps the Democrats might not have pursued investigating Watergate so thorougly had the Republicans not started it with crucifying Eagleton.

Edit to correct: Eagleton was George McGovern's running mate in 1972. God, do I feel stupid.

[hobbit709]

1. My comment at the time was

that Eagleton was the only one certifiably sane-he was treated and released, all the rest we don't know about for sure.

[Demit]

2. Yes. He was George McGovern's running mate in 1972.

I remember a little better than you, apparently ;)

[mykpart]

4. You're right! I had been thinking about Eagleton and

trying to remember when it happened. Well, I just turned 59 on Wed., so I guess I can claim senility! Thank you for correcting me - I can't stand to be wrong! :)

[Demit]

10. I'll bet you're remembering Muskie (HH's running mate in 68) crying

something about his wife being maligned, I think. Press harped on it, insinuating he might not be emotionally suited for the office, IIRC.

[NoPasaran]

3. Not Humphrey's---McGovern's

[mykpart]

7. Sorry I'm an old lady. I'm correcting my OP now.

[HeeBGBz]

5. I remember him cause he was from my home state. n/t

[Crankie Avalon]

6. I was only born in 67, but I remember reading about his story later...

...I guess if he had just known enough to say that God had forgiven him his past ("I heard Him tell me so Himself while I was eating a bowl of Cheerios") everything would have been OK and acceptable (hell, a badge of "honor") like it was/is for Junior, now.

[monarch]

8. Not to pile on here, but

I don't remember anything about alcoholism. I think that his problem was depression and the fact that he had been treated with ect therapy ("shock treatment") scared the heck out of everybody. Although that treatment is coming back into vogue, it was highly disfavored at the time.

[NoPasaran]

13. That's how I remember it as well

And a lot of the damage to the campaign was self-inflicted---especially McGovern saying he stood behind Eagleton "one thousand percent" and then dumping him a few days later.

For the young folks who didn't live through those times, Humphrey's running mate in 1968 was Edmund Muskie, who was the front-runner in 1972 before his campaign imploded in the early primaries. The Watergate hearings established that there had been some GOP dirty tricks to sabotage his campaign. Humphrey then entered the 1972 race and fought a bitter primary battle with McGovern (and Goerge Wallace until Wallace was shot and badly wounded). McGovern replaced Eagleton with Sargeant Shriver as his running mate.

[formercia]

9. From what I remember of him

he seemed like a nice guy.

assholes are fair game in my book.

[LibDemAlways]

11. Eagleton was drummed out and replaced by

Sargent Shriver, but it was a lost cause anyway. Shortly thereafter Nixon's crooked VP Agnew resigned in disgrace and, a year later, so did Nixon. I'd have preferred a man who confronted his demons and sought treatment rather than the festering, unexcised cancer of corruption that was the GOP - then and now.

[Mist]

12. The Nixon Administration relied on aggressive nasty attacks on

political opponents. Many who engaged in such stuff started their political careers in college. IIRC, the term the Nixonites used was "rat-fucking." So yeah, this dirty campaigning started in the '60s.

[mykpart]

14. And evidently has continued because it has been successful.

As Clinton said of Karl Rove, "You can't blame the guy for doing what works."

[neebob]

15. I remember that

but couldn't have told you why until I read your post. If it was 1972, I would have been 11 or 12. I don't remember anything about alcohol treatment - just mental illness - and couldn't tell you if I picked it up from TV news or parents conversing or what. Probably TV news, because I don't remember my parents talking about McGovern.

I'm pretty sure my super wingnutty Mo-mom was still a Democrat in 1972, because - since you brought up 1968 - one of my few memories from that year is feeling obliged to take up Humphrey's cause when a bunch of girls went marching around the playground during recess shouting, "Nixon's the one! Nixon's the one!" Why? Because my mom was voting for Humphrey.

Of course she would deny this now. But thanks for the flashback!

[nancyr]

16. Alcohol???

I remember he was treated for depression: I don't recall ever hearing anything about an alcohol problem. He seemed to be a good man who was unfairly maligned.

[neebob]

18. I was just responding to the OP

saying he'd been treated for alcoholism. I only remembered the name and that he was a national political candidate who withdrew because he'd been treated for some mental issue. Like I said, I was 11 or 12.

[acmavm]

17. What a difference a few decades make. Eagleton was unfit

because he had been treated for depression and here we now have a drunken AWOL ex-frat boy moran in the White house.

Talk about lowering the standards.

[WI_DEM]

19. the vetting process for VP wasn't as extensive then as it is now

and actually began in 1976 because of the "Eagleton affair." Frankly Eagleton should have been up front with McGovern about this. It was only fair and then McGovern knowing all the facts could have made up his mind. What really hurt McGovern the most is saying he was behind Eagleton "1000 percent" and then a few days later backtracking on that statement.

[TygrBright]

20. Well, the current round of sleaze certainly has its roots...

...in the "ratfucking" of the Nixon campaigns. But it wasn't just the Democrats who were involved in investigating Watergate. There were still a few GOPpies back then who really believed all that BS about keeping the government clean so people could trust it. Hahahahahahahahahaha, can you IMAGINE? Gullible morons...

sadly,
Bright

[Strawman]

21. political mudslinging is as old as the republic

"Political mudslinging is nothing new, says UAB political scientist Steven Daniels, Ph.D., who has been a political commentator for several local news organizations. For instance, Thomas Jefferson’s enemies accused him of having a slave mistress. Abraham Lincoln was subjected to insults because of his physical appearance. And Grover Cleveland’s rivals accused him of fathering an illegitimate child.

In the South, race has been a popular weapon for mudslinging. Around the time of the Civil War, for example, candidates such as Lincoln were accused of supporting blacks and interracial relations.

“The content of the mudslinging was just as bad back then,” says Daniels, “but fewer people read about it, because there were no mass media, and many people were uneducated and therefore could not read.”

http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=49288

[WinkyDink]

22. "Dirty tricks" certainly were before McGovern/Eagleton!

Muskie and the attack on his wife, e.g.

I don't think that "drying out" note about TE is correct, either.

[saltpoint]

23. I remember Eagleton. And fondly.

A good man.

[VOX]

24. His "transgression": Two sessions of electroshock treatment...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Eagleton
<snip>
From 1960 to 1966, Eagleton checked himself into the hospital three times for physical and nervous exhaustion, receiving electric shock treatments twice.
<snip>

The angle of Republican attack was on his ability to withstand the stress should he have to bear the responsibilities of the presidency. What was done to him was tragic and shameful.

The incident drastically altered the political process; Eagleton's time forward, VP candidates have been thoroughly vetted beforehand.

[flowomo]

25. I was just teaching about him in class last night....

we were watching "All the President's Men" fr my college journalism class and, of course, Eagleton is mentioned in the movie several times -- so I had to explain the reference.

[Hidden Stillness]

26. Eagleton Suffered From Depression

Thomas Eagleton was one of the finest people ever in modern politics, was George McGovern's running mate during the "Dirty Tricks Committee" 1972 campaign, when they had already destroyed the strongest camdidate, the great Edmund Muskie, who would have been a great President and who was leading at the time. Republicans then went on a slander campaign against McGovern; the WWII hero was suddenly a "pacifist/against our soldiers/extremist/coddler of Communists," etc. Then they turned to Eagleton. Eagleton had a son who was killed in Viet Nam, and who had a prolonged bout of deep depression after that, and sought treatment for it. It was NOT "mental illness," it was severe depression after the death of this child of the Eagletons'. Eagleton, viciously, sickeningly slandered by Republicans, had become a liability, and was replaced by the also-great Sargent Shriver, who invented many of the Johnson "Great Society" anti-poverty programs, and VISTA, etc., but it was too late. Republicans and their slander had poisoned the whole campaign by then, and Nixon won.

By the way, several years later, and included in the book "The Day America Told the Truth," an extensive survey/polling around all areas of the country during the early '80s, one part was a poll among staffers and other Government workers in Washington, D.C., as to who they most admired and considered the most moral and ethical politician they knew. The winner: Thomas Eagleton.