[Genoa]

afraid of McGovern

But the early Dem favorite that year was Edmund Muskie, and Scoop Jackson was also highly touted. Plus George Wallace was popular in the south (that's the year he was shot). McGovern didn't look like a winner until the primary season had already been underway. And I don't know if I'd go so far as to say the Republicans were afraid of him. The Democrats let the lefties get control of the party and shot themselves in the foot. McGovern took one state (Massachusetts) and DC in November. (But my college friends and I all thought he was cool.)

[ngat]

I remember all that, but my sense was that the conservatives of the time saw McGovern as so radical, that there were going to go with what they felt was the sure thing, rather than any releatively unknown republican, just to keep McGovern out at all costs.