Presidential Election 1972

When one studies the Presidential Election of 1972, they think about how Richard Nixon won 49 out of 50 states to George McGovern winning Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.  But this election brought about some serious change in regards to the Vietnam War and young people's actual voting participation in the way things are run.  As well as the issue of mental illness.

The transition to Richard Nixon's success towards re-election really started in 1970 after the Kent State Shootings.  America was starting to see a realignment of blue collar Democrats, the traditional working fella feeling as though the values and ideals that they fought for in their war were being threatened by a communist takeover of their former Democratic Party and particularly among the youth who were studying in our colleges and universities.  A great example of this was on May 1, 1970 when President Nixon, while visiting the Pentagon referred to "the bums on the colleges campuses" vs. the brave young men fighting in Vietnam.  Whatever was happening, despite Vietnam and the Ohio National Guard killing unarmed students in a Northeast Ohio university, or an economy about to experience high inflation; that great silent majority was solidly behind their president.  You need look no further than the Construction Workers Riot in Buffalo after the Kent State Shootings.  As Pat Buchanan once said, the Republican Party was winning the political war while the Democratic Party was winning the culture war.

As for the Democratic Party, there was a field consisting of 1968 Presidential Nominee Hubert Humphrey, his running mate, Senator Ed Muskie of Maine, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, and 1968 Independence Party Nominee George Wallace.  Muskie was out of the race as fast as he was in it.  When the cameras caught him crying in New Hampshire, his campaign was over.  George Wallace had been gaining ground, particularly in southern states like Florida, but in May 1972 all of that came to an end when he was shot in a Maryland shopping center.  Wallace would be paralyzed from the waist down until his death in 1998.  That just left Senator George McGovern and Former Vice President turned US Senator Hubert Humphrey, DFL-MN.

McGovern's message of ending the war, and Humphrey's connections to Lyndon Johnson and the establishment that got us heavily involved in Vietnam  earned George McGovern the nomination.

As the Democratic National Convention was underway, Senator McGovern was yet to name a running mate.  The shortlist was anything but.  Some of the names floating around were Wilbur Mills, Hubert Humphrey, and Walter Mondale.  Finally, after 79 names were placed on the ballot, the Democrats nominated Senator Tom Eagleton of Missouri.  It seemed like a well balanced ticket, but within eighteen days since the Convention, Eagleton would be dropped from the Ticket as it was revealed that he had received electroshock therapy in 1962 for depression.  He is forever known as the Eighteen Day Running Mate.

So the Democrats needed to scramble for a last minute running mate.  They didn't have to look too far as they went straight to the Kennedy dynasty within the Democratic Party and decided on the brother in law of the late President John F. Kennedy, the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA; Sargent Shriver, the first Director of the Peace Corps.

Everything was spelling doom for the McGovern/Shriver Ticket.  President Nixon was winding down the war in Vietnam, the Red Scare of the Cold War was all but over, and after the Kent State Shootings; the traditional blue collar Democratic voter was shifting their cultural values to the right.

Unlike 1960 and 1968 where the elections were pretty close, Richard Nixon had good reason to celebrate early as he was going to win 49 of the 50 states' Electoral College Votes.  This would not happen again until 1984 when Ronald Reagan did the same thing.

At the end of the campaign, President Nixon in his first Victory Speech to the American people said, "Only if in these next four years, we, all of us can achieve our common great goals of peace at home and peace for all nations of the world.  And for that, new progress and prosperity which all Americans deserve.  I would only hope that in these next four years we can so conduct ourselves in this country, and so meet our responsibilities in the world in building peace in the world.  That years from now people will look back to the generation of the 1970s, and how we conducted ourselves and they will say, 'God bless America.'"

Well, less than two years later, Richard Nixon, who had won re-election in the greatest landslide victory to that time had resigned the presidency in disgrace over his role in the coverup of the break in at the Watergate Complex of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters.

See also:

• Presidential Election 1940
• Presidential Election 1944
• Presidential Election 1948
• Presidential Election 1952
• Presidential Election 1956
• Presidential Election 1960
• Presidential Election 1964
• Presidential Election 1968
• Presidential Election 1972
• Presidential Election 1976
• Presidential Election 1980
• Presidential Election 1984
• Presidential Election 1988
• Presidential Election 1992
• Presidential Election 1996
• Presidential Election 2000
• Presidential Election 2004
• Presidential Election 2008
• Presidential Election 2012
• Presidential Election 2016
• Presidential Election 2020