David Dellinger, 1993:
“In recent years, McGovern’s resounding defeat by Nixon in the elections has been cited frequently as proof that no one to the left of center has a chance in presidential elections. But what I observed at the time was his desperate attempts to prove that he was not left of center. Besides his timid refusal to take advantage of the opportunity presented him by the Vietnamese to dramatize his unambiguous opposition to the war, here are some other examples that offended me during the convention and that severely disillusioned his former supporters, Hoffman and Rubin. We compared notes and this is how they expressed our combined knowledge in their book Vote:Militants were “pissed off” that McGovern people deliberately “threw” the Alabama Black and South Carolina women’s challenges to aid in winning the California credentials fight.
Gay people were double-crossed by the McGovern organization. Privately the gay delegates … were told “we agree with you but …”
When it came time for the public debate on TV, the speaker against equal rights for homosexuals, a McGovern spokeswoman, said freedom for gays would encourage “child molesting.”
Women were again furious that McGovern pressured delegates to vote against abortion reforms on the platform. It was another of those “We agree with you privately, but . . .”
The young McGovern delegates felt manipulated by the organization. Attempts to weld all the youth delegates into a self-conscious “youth caucus” were foiled. … “They don’t want the youth to come together as an organized power bloc,” complained one McGovern delegate.
McGovern used his floor whips, delegation leaders and an elaborate communications hookup from an outside trailer to the floor to successfully pressure supporters to vote against the $6,500 guaranteed minimum income proposed by the National Welfare Rights Organization and originally backed by McGovern.
After his nomination McGovern published a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal in which he went to great lengths to prove to the financial/ corporate power elite that he was not “left of center” but their friend and supporter.
My opinion is that this turned out not to be a fair test of how far one can go in imperialist wars and advocating basic changes in the society and still have popular support. It was more of a revelation of what the heads of the Democratic Party and the corporate funders who have ties to both parties demand of the candidates. Knowing McGovern as I did, I don’t think he wanted to betray ha own principles as much as he did, any more than I think that in that same year Congressman Ron Dellums wanted not to go to Vietnam, when Cora Weiss and I invited him to, to bring home a POW who was one of his own constituents.
So maybe the cliché that no one left of center can win the presidency is right after all. Not because the public is not ready to support such a candidate, if he is well grounded, personable and properly presented to them, but because the Party heads, that financial backers and the media won’t allow it.”
David Dellinger has words that are very relevant to the behavior of the Democratic Party in 2016 & 2017.