Seth TupperThe Daily Republic - 05/08/2008
George McGovern has a history of associations with transformative political figures.
He campaigned at the sides of John F. and Robert Kennedy during their respective runs for the White House, and he’s currently writing a book about Abraham Lincoln.
McGovern thinks Barack Obama may be cut from the same historic mold as those men, and that’s one reason McGovern said Wednesday that after eight months of supporting Hillary Clinton for president, he is switching sides.
McGovern even compared Obama to Lincoln, saying he discovered similarities between the two men while doing research for the Lincoln book.
“As I have researched this book and followed the current presidential nomination contest, I have slowly come to believe that, in Barack Obama, we may have a second Lincoln,” McGovern, a Mitchell native and resident, said in an Obama campaign news release.
“With passion and eloquence, he is calling America home to its founding ideals, both at home and abroad.”
The phrase “calling America home” is a throwback to McGovern’s own unsuccessful 1972 bid for the presidency. His slogan that year was “Come home, America.”
Since 1972, McGovern has said and written much about the damage his campaign suffered from Democratic Party infighting. In the current squabbles between Obama and Clinton, he hears echoes of the counter-productive 1968 scuffles between Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey, and the similar 1972 battles between himself and Humphrey.
“I think Nixon won two elections to the presidency based on the divisions in the Democratic Party — I really do,” McGovern said in an interview Wednesday afternoon at the McGovern Library on the campus of Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. “I think we’d have won either one of those elections if we’d have had a united Democratic Party, and I don’t want to see that happen again this year, because this is obviously a Democratic year.”
McGovern’s switch to Obama surprised some, given McGovern’s long association with the Clintons. Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, both worked in Texas for McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign. In 2006, Mr. Clinton delivered the keynote speech at the dedication of the McGovern Library.
Wednesday, in that same library, McGovern sat for numerous interviews to explain why he is abandoning his support of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. McGovern said the decision was “painful,” partly because he continues to hold the Clintons “in affection and admiration.”
“They’ve both waged valiant races,” he said of Sens. Clinton and Obama, “but there comes a time when you have to say enough is enough.”
Obama leads Clinton in the delegate race with few contests left — South Dakota Democrats will vote June 3, the last primary date in the nation — and Obama scored a big win Tuesday in North Carolina while losing closely in Indiana.
When McGovern was asked Wednesday if he thinks Obama is the better candidate, he said “at this stage he is. Looking at how things have turned out, he’s probably the stronger candidate.”
Sen. Clinton is scheduled to visit Sioux Falls today. Reporters asked her about McGovern’s announcement during one of her Wednesday campaign appearances in West Virginia.
“I respect him,” she said. “And, you know, he has a right to make whatever decision he makes.”
McGovern announced his endorsement of Clinton on Oct. 6 during an appearance with her in Iowa. Hints that he might switch to Obama began cropping up recently.
On March 6, as McGovern was in the midst of a West Coast speaking tour, a writer for a group of Pasadena-area newspapers said that McGovern declined during his visit there to endorse either Obama or Clinton.
Then, during a March 10 television appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” McGovern responded this way to a question about the presidential race:
“I endorsed Hillary last October. I have known her for 35 years and I think she would be a good president. I want to quickly add I didn’t know Barack Obama at that time, but I have been very impressed with him as a candidate and …”
Before McGovern could finish, host Stephen Colbert interrupted and steered the interview back to a comedic give-and-take on other topics.
Wednesday, McGovern said that he first started thinking about switching his endorsement in February when Obama won his 11th consecutive nominating contest.
“I thought, ‘You know, this man is for real,’ ” McGovern said. “There’s something moving here.”
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