McGovern as Food for Peace director in 1961, with President John F. Kennedy.
“I always thought of myself as a good old South Dakota boy who grew up here on the prairie,” he said in an interview for this obituary in 2005 in his home in Mitchell. “My dad was a Methodist minister. I went off to war. I have been married to the same woman forever. I’m what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like.”
Along with fellow Senators Gaylord Nelson and Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern was at the heart of an era in US politics dominated by Midwestern progressives. I grew up in that era, and that region. I have a yellowed copy of a 2003 Los Angeles Times op-ed posted on a bulletin board in my office, and have drawn on it for inspiration during my two election campaigns, and throughout the past five-plus years of holding elected office.
“Give me a presidential candidate who speaks the truth as he sees it and I’ll show you a candidate whose campaign, win or lose, will be good for the nation.”
This year’s presidential election campaign – and politics in general in this country right now – is sadly lacking of the common decency and honest human compassion of George McGovern. America has lost a great, wise voice with his passing.
“We are at a crossroads,” he wrote, “over how the federal government in Washington and state legislatures and city councils across the land allocate their financial resources. Which fork we take will say a lot about Americans and our values.”
A wonderful NY Times obituary (from which the first and last quotes above come) can be read here.
Rest in peace, Senator.