Today is the birthday of the politician George McGovern, born in 1922. He was a fighter pilot and a WWII hero. His parents were staunch Republicans, but he ran for Congress as a Democrat in South Dakota and won.
By 1968, he was a leading opponent of the war in Vietnam and a hero of our generation. He famously said: “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
McGovern ran against Richard Nixon in 1972, and it was the first presidential election I ever voted in. We had a McGovern bumper sticker plastered on our VW.
In our naiveté, it seemed impossible that such an intelligent, liberal, rational and basically good person could lose to the hated incumbent, Richard Nixon. Well, that was just the beginning of my political "education."
Mark Twain once said that “history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
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