Democratic Party Presidential Primaries
After the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969, Ted Kennedy fell from front runner to non-candidate. Ed Muskie was the establishment favorite until he was reported to have cried emotionally during a speech defending himself against the Canuck letter. George McGovern was able to gain ground and make a strong showing in New Hampshire. George Wallace ran as an outsider and did well in the South. His campaign was ended when an assassin shot him and left him paralyzed. McGovern went on to win a majority of the delegates and the nomination at the convention. However, his prior efforts to reform the nomination process had reduced the power of Democratic Party leaders. McGovern had difficulty getting a vice presidential running mate to run with him. It then took hours to get him approved. A couple weeks later it was revealed that Thomas F. Eagleton had undergone electroshock therapy for depression. After claiming to back Eagleton "1000%", McGovern asked him to resign three days later. After a week of being publicly rebuffed by prominent Democrats, McGovern finally managed to get Sargent Shriver to be his new running mate. This trouble compounded the already weak support he had among party leaders.
See also: United States presidential election, 1972#Democratic Party nominationRead more about Democratic Party Presidential Primaries: 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012
Famous quotes containing the words democratic party, democratic, party and/or presidential:
“The Democratic Party is like a mule. It has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.”
—Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901)
“People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.”
—Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)
“It is well-known what a middleman is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)