Stories related to: George McGovern

Divisions among Democrats have killed the party’s presidential chances on more than one occasion, and it must not happen this time, writes George McGovern in the New York Times . The 1972 Democratic nominee—who recently switched his endorsement to Barack Obama—offers a plan to unite the party: Obama and Hillary Clinton should campaign side-by-side in the remaining states, outlining their plans for the country without attacking each other. More »

Top Hillary Clinton backer and former Democratic nominee George McGovern is switching his endorsement to Barack Obama—and urging Hillary to step aside, the AP reports. McGovern said it was now all but impossible for Clinton to prevail; the party’s choice in 1972, he said he would call Bill to relay the news. More »

How bad is the Pennsylvania result for Team Obama and what does it mean going forward? Three writers think it through: “He can’t finish her off,” says Dan Kennedy in the Guardian . Obama scooped up presumptive-nominee status too soon, and now Americans have “buyer’s remorse”—realizing Clinton is the scrappier fighter. But it’s probably too late to tap the former first lady. More »

The postwar legacy of Democratic candidates is one of failure, Andrew O’Hehir writes in Salon, with so many lost campaigns that any seasoned observer could lay out sorry futures for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Whether Obama and Clinton are McGovern and Muskie or Hart and Mondale, the party's "unresolved internal struggles have time and again undermined its ability to win elections." More »

Hillary Clinton's deep Texan ties may win her next month's primary, but only if young voters feel the same bond, the Washington Post reports. Her romance with the state dates back 35 years and has won her a base “broader than in any other state that I can think of," said Clinton ally Henry Cisneros. But Obama is aiming to entice her young Latino supporters and may benefit from the state's muddled primary/caucus mix. More »

Now is the time to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney, declares former Democratic nominee George McGovern in a passionate, if quixotic, plea in the Washington Post . The duo have committed a plethora of "high crimes and misdemeanors," says McGovern, including illegal wiretapping, systematic torture, and substantial lying to the American people. The administration has reduced the US "to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world," he writes. More »

The man who tried to assassinate George Wallace in 1972 walked free from prison today after serving 35 years of his 53-year sentence. Arthur Bremer opened fire on the Alabama governor as he campaigned for president in Maryland, leaving him paralyzed. Before he died in 1998, the onetime segregationist wrote to Bremer saying he had forgiven him, the Washington Post reports. More »

President Johnson’s motives for escalating the Vietnam War were “psychological and political rather than military,” wrote insider Arthur Schlesinger Jr. The former Kennedy hand documented the flight of top liberals from LBJ, even as he psychoanalyzed the president’s 1966-1967 decision to play “the war to the hilt”—entries relived in the latest New York Review of Books . More »