Recruit George McGovern to Speak -- at the REPUBLICAN Convention!

Townhall.com ^ | August 16, 2012 | Larry Elder

[Vigilanteman]

Here is an abbreviated version of McGovern's screed on the TSA. The full-blown version was published in the Wall Street Journal editorial page some years earlier, but I am unable to locate the link.

[Agamemnon]

Schmitz only ran for President because of Nixon’s actions, otherwise he’d have been cruising to another term in Congress.

Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

He was such a biiiiig "thorn" in Nixon's side that he chose to actually take it to the big guy with a candidacy backed largely by the John Birch Society that unsurprisingly amounted to little more than a political booger flick -- like most third party challengers' candidacies usually are.

His career did not end in 1972. He returned to the California State Senate in 1979

I stand corrected. I should have been clearer to say "Congressional," specifcially, rather than "political," generally.

CA Senate one must admit is a political backbench compared to serving in the US Congress, and if he could have run for Congress again with the expectation of winning, one suspects he would have tried.

Despite his unfortunate actions in his personal life, he was still buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

Unfortunate is quite an understatement.

Someone else who suffered from what some might characterize his "unfortunate actions," namely, Ted Kennedy, was also buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors too.

So what's your point?

[fieldmarshaldj]

As folks would soon learn, Nixon’s reelection was the biggest disaster for the GOP and the Conservative cause in the past 50 years, and it would take decades to recover from (especially here in the South). If Nixon couldn’t handle a few zingers from a righty, so what ? Nixon made it personal and installed Hinshaw in Schmitz’s seat, a convicted criminal.

Given that there are fewer California State Senators than California Congressmembers, it’s actually harder to get elected to, and they’re often higher profile. John Burton left Congress and later entered the State Senate where he became the President of that body, ostensibly more powerful than his House position.

In any event, Schmitz was no “minor pest”, as a multiple-office winner. Sadly, had he not been derailed by personal peccadilloes, he would’ve ended up back in Congress by the ‘80s (and vindicated by his criticisms of Nixon).

I’m also sure there is no comparison between Ted Kennedy, a traitor who was responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (whose “military service” was the equivalent of attending a country club in Europe, safe from the front lines of Korea), and John Schmitz, a Conservative patriot who served in the Marines for over 30 years.

In any event, Aggie, you have this rather nasty habit of savaging Conservatives on this website who don’t blindly support the Republican (establishment) party. I might remind you that Free Republic is not an appendage or propaganda arm of the GOP, it is a Conservative website. If you have a problem with that, this is not the website for you.

[Impy]

I endorsed Schmitz on our campaigns.

[Impy]

Of course he will. I’m sure he’s just offering his party some “constructive criticism” hoping they’d listen and win.

[matt04]

Thanks.

[Agamemnon]

As folks would soon learn, Nixon’s reelection was the biggest disaster for the GOP and the Conservative cause in the past 50 years, and it would take decades to recover from (especially here in the South).

Clearly you must have been sleeping through the election and 49-state re-election of Ronald Reagan, a mere 6 and 10 years after Nixon left office.

If Nixon couldn’t handle a few zingers from a righty, so what?

Schmitz, a one-term US Congressman, squashed himself, and his idiotic comments like, "I have no objection to President [Richard] Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back," showed he was little more than a loose cannon prone to shooting himself in the foot - like most inflated-ego third-party types do and are.

Nixon made it personal and installed Hinshaw in Schmitz’s seat, a convicted criminal.

And Schmitz just didn't have enough political schmaltz to win it back, did he?

Hinshaw was not a convicted criminal when he ran for office and beat Schmitz in the primary in 1972. Schmitz' political intel was dismal. Schmitz just showed that he couldn't defeat Hinshaw when he wasn't convicted, and later even when he was. Since Hinshaw was convicted in 1977, how is it that Schmitz couldn't get his seat back in US Congress in 1978, and could instead only settle for CA Senate?

Given that there are fewer California State Senators than California Congressmembers, it’s actually harder to get elected to, and they’re often higher profile.

Geographic size of a representative area does not automatically translate into electoral difficulty to achieve political office.

In fact, since, as you say, Nixon's chosen substitute to supplant Schmitz was successful in doing so in the context of a smaller geographic footprint, Schmitz' loss to Hinshaw by your own measure was a double fail. Schmitz' later election to CA Senator could only be achieved by a greater sized area which allowed the dilution of his more concentrated home-based opposition.

But he just couldn't keep his pecker in his pants long enough to make his continuing presence in the CA Senate anything more significant and his behavior blew away his own wife's continuing career as a conservative political commentator.

What you do when no one is looking is what you really are, not all the pontificating you engage in so hypocritically and fraudulently as you seek public adulation and office.

The prestige and national influence one has in the US House is far greater than one has on a state level, particularly if one's intent is to have a national influence. Schmitz' failed run for the Presidency and later for US Senate indicates that his goal was to have influence on a national level.

40 CA State Senate members vs 55 US House members is a distinction without a difference. By the way he ran as (R) for CA senate in 1978 and as an (R) in 1982, not as some third party geek like he did in 1972 for President.

Schmitz crashed and burned on the National stage and the personal peccadilloes to which you aptly refer saw to it that he would never return to political life once exposed for the hypocrite he always was.

John Burton left Congress and later entered the State Senate where he became the President of that body, ostensibly more powerful than his House position. In any event, Schmitz was no “minor pest”, as a multiple-office winner. Sadly, had he not been derailed by personal peccadilloes, he would’ve ended up back in Congress by the ‘80s (and vindicated by his criticisms of Nixon).

How did Schmitz put it: "I lost by 44,000,000 votes."

He turned out to be a vanishingly small man when the truth about him came out. He made a living mockery of all he supposedly stood for, as he quipped when caught with his adulterous relationship and the spawn from it, "I ought to get the Right to Life man-of-the-year award for this."

Schmitz' hypocritical behavior and his shoot-off-at-the-mouth style allowed conservatism to be further pilloried for mockery by the detestable Gloria Allred.

Yet somehow you think he could have won his congressional seat back when he couldn't even make a show in 1982 for anything? He couldn't even show up to take fatherly responsibility for his two illegitimate kids in 1982.

And you say Nixon set back conservatism when this doofus made a living and verbal mockery of the conservatism he supposedly championed?

I’m also sure there is no comparison between Ted Kennedy, a traitor who was responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (whose “military service” was the equivalent of attending a country club in Europe, safe from the front lines of Korea), and John Schmitz, a Conservative patriot who served in the Marines for over 30 years.

And Schmitz is still your hero, I see.

Oh yes, a conservative paragon of virtue he was, wasn't he, sort of like Strom Thurmond, with his 50-year hidden, paid- off, posthumously exposed love child, or Newt Gingrich's serial divorces and adulteries, toe-tapping Larry (Craig), all done in the same hypocritical Elmer Gantry-styled spirit as the religio-politico-peccadilloes of the contemporary Jim Bakker's, Jimmy Swaggart's, Ted Haggard's and most recently, today's Jack Schapp.

It was you who tried to make it appear meaningful that when someone is buried at Arlington with full military honors it is something that by definition is meaningful.

Both my boys are Marines. Schmitz was a disgrace to the honor of the Corps and what it means to be a Marine every bit as much as was Jack Murtha.

In any event, Aggie, you have this rather nasty habit of savaging Conservatives on this website who don’t blindly support the Republican (establishment) party.

I savage the self-righteousness of third party acolytes who voted for the likes of Schmitz in '72 and who intend to repeat the same meaningless vanities with the same kinds of third party snake-oil salesmen in 2012.

Like Schmitz, your American Party guy is procreative, but unlike Schmitz he's never served as anything more than someone's political field op guy. All hat, no cattle.

I might remind you that Free Republic is not an appendage or propaganda arm of the GOP, it is a Conservative website. If you have a problem with that, this is not the website for you.

Spare the lecture. FR is not the place for the likes of you to champion serial adulterers and those who repeatedly father children conceived in illegitimacy, who at the same time try to raise funds and run political campaigns all the while calling themselves "conservatives."

I happen to have been around here substantially longer than you, and by the way you reason and write it appears that you didn't start posting here until sometime just after you tried to pass your GED for the third time.

When exposed for his adulterous affair with a student (ever wonder where his daughter Mary Kay LaTourneau got the idea to mimic daddy's behavior?...), fathering as he did not 1 but 2 children out of wedlock -- both of which he refused to support, I'll remind you again that he mocked a core set of principles he and his wife supposedly stood for "I ought to get the Right to Life man-of-the-year award for this."

He had enough staying power to father 2 little kids illegitimately, but not enough staying power to remain in office after having been exposed for having done so.

And in the end he died just a two-bit candy bar kiosk peddler.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't his illegitimate children that he had entirely abandoned from birth that petitioned for his interment at Arlington.

[x]

I’m also sure there is no comparison between Ted Kennedy, a traitor who was responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (whose “military service” was the equivalent of attending a country club in Europe, safe from the front lines of Korea), and John Schmitz, a Conservative patriot who served in the Marines for over 30 years.

The guy who left Mary Jo in the Oldsmobile and Mary Kay's dad? Both families were pretty messed-up. Glad if we finally don't have to bother with either of them any longer.

[EternalVigilance]

I'm even less politically connected to Schmitz than Mitt Romney is connected to Ronald Reagan.

Romney on Reagan

Nice try though.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Clearly you must have been sleeping through the election and 49-state re-election of Ronald Reagan, a mere 6 and 10 years after Nixon left office."

How long did it take to win Congress ? Watergate KILLED GOP gains in the South. In my state of TN, we had a majority of the Congressional delegation, both Senators and a Governor and were on the brink of a majority in the State House. After the 1974 & '76 elections, we were down to a minority, a Democrat (crook) Governor and reduced to 1/3rd of the legislature. It took until 2010 to get back what we had prior to 1974. If Nixon had lost or another Republican had replaced him either in '68 or '72, that never would've happened and the GOP was on track to majority status by the mid to late '70s. Carter himself never would've been elected President absent Nixon/Watergate.

"Schmitz, a one-term US Congressman, squashed himself, and his idiotic comments like, "I have no objection to President [Richard] Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back," showed he was little more than a loose cannon prone to shooting himself in the foot - like most inflated-ego third-party types do and are."

Two terms. I happen to think the comment was quite funny. We may also come to regret his having opened up China, as that seems to have created a monster. It's more than a little odd you have this bizarre loathing of Schmitz (and Mr. Hoefling) that borders on the pathological.

"And Schmitz just didn't have enough political schmaltz to win it back, did he?"

Don't try to be witty, you'll hurt yourself. In fact, he came within 1% of Robert Badham (another excellent Conservative) in a multicandidate field in the 1976 primary, well ahead of the corrupt Hinshaw (who came in 4th). Because there was no runoff, he might very well have regained his seat. Still, he made it back to the Senate 2 years later (even as Jerry Brown was reelected).

"Schmitz crashed and burned on the National stage and the personal peccadilloes to which you aptly refer saw to it that he would never return to political life once exposed for the hypocrite he always was."

Such personal failings only tend to nail those on the right, even if it has little to no effect on their voting record. We have an excellent Conservative Senator from a certain Southern state who suffers from unfortunate pecadilloes, but it doesn't change the fact he has a superb record of voting. We're not electing a Pope. In a body filled with numerous whores, the least they can do is vote right. I'd rather have a sexual libertine in office who votes right than a paragon of virtue whose voting record is abominable (though in which case, voting left/wrong tends to diminish any claims to virtue or morality).

"He turned out to be a vanishingly small man when the truth about him came out. He made a living mockery of all he supposedly stood for, as he quipped when caught with his adulterous relationship and the spawn from it, "I ought to get the Right to Life man-of-the-year award for this."

"Yet somehow you think he could have won his congressional seat back when he couldn't even make a show in 1982 for anything? He couldn't even show up to take fatherly responsibility for his two illegitimate kids in 1982."

Obviously, not his finest hour. But no one around here is praising his unfortunate choices in his personal life. He made his bed. It's just unfortunate that everyone across the spectrum isn't held to such standards. At least he never raped his campaign volunteer like a certain future President did.

"And you say Nixon set back conservatism when this doofus made a living and verbal mockery of the conservatism he supposedly championed?"

I don't say Nixon did, the proof is in the elections. Eisenhower, too, had a similarly disastrous impact in his failures to aide the GOP (the 1958 elections remain unsurpassed in the number of actual seat losses for GOP Senators, which took 22 years to recover from). Schmitz wasn't the President, nor was he an active participant in Watergate. Who would you blame for the destruction of the GOP in 1974 ? Even Reagan couldn't run for the Senate that year upon his retirement from the Governorship to take out the execrable Alan Cranston.

"And Schmitz is still your hero, I see."

I can admire flawed individuals, can you ? I happen to like bombastic righty iconoclasts. I also happen to loathe phony lefty opportunist scumbags like Slick Willard.

"Oh yes, a conservative paragon of virtue he was, wasn't he, sort of like Strom Thurmond, with his 50-year hidden, paid- off, posthumously exposed love child, or Newt Gingrich's serial divorces and adulteries, toe-tapping Larry (Craig), all done in the same hypocritical Elmer Gantry-styled spirit as the religio-politico-peccadilloes of the contemporary Jim Bakker's, Jimmy Swaggart's, Ted Haggard's and most recently, today's Jack Schapp."

Like it or not, Thurmond & Gingrich both did more to move the South to the GOP (in spite of itself) and to majority status in Congress than most of the rest of the sainted establishment did. With folks like Willard in charge, they left the party deader than Elvis. Do I celebrate the mistakes they made in their personal lives ? No. For the record, I opposed Gingrich for President because while I credit him with getting us a majority in 1994, he has been too erratic and polarizing in the years since.

"Both my boys are Marines. Schmitz was a disgrace to the honor of the Corps and what it means to be a Marine every bit as much as was Jack Murtha."

That's a vile comparison, and you know it. Murtha was a traitor. Schmitz was never a traitor.

"I savage the self-righteousness of third party acolytes who voted for the likes of Schmitz in '72 and who intend to repeat the same meaningless vanities with the same kinds of third party snake-oil salesmen in 2012."

I'm voting for Congressman Goode. Deal with it. When the GOP decides to nominate a Conservative whose record matches their rhetoric, they have my support. When they nominate scumbags like Willard, whom are antithetical to Conservatism, they will never have my support. If Willard loses, the entire blame can be laid at the feet of a party that gives the middle-finger to its base supporters. Don't you dare blame us for not voting for a thinly-veiled fraud whom is no more deserving of the Presidency than his tanner and equally megalomaniacal twin.

"Spare the lecture. FR is not the place for the likes of you to champion serial adulterers and those who repeatedly father children conceived in illegitimacy, who at the same time try to raise funds and run political campaigns all the while calling themselves "conservatives."

You asked for the lecture, and it's not the first time you were deserving of it. I already told you I never supported Schmitz's unfortunate decisions in his private life. But it is you who has no business lecturing others, especially when claiming to be a Conservative, when you prostitute yourself to support whatever ghastly reprobate the GOP puts up... and then have the unmitigated nerve to attack those who won't similarly sell themselves. Shame on you, sir. Shame.

"I happen to have been around here substantially longer than you"

I've been here since October 1998, right before the 6th year elections of the Clinton regime, steered here by Rush Limbaugh, IIRC. Your math skills seem to be just as questionable, since a month scarcely can be described as "substantially longer." I've also seen more than a few arrogant '98ers losing their minds in the era of Willard.

"and by the way you reason and write it appears that you didn't start posting here until sometime just after you tried to pass your GED for the third time."

You can't win arguments, so you resort to personal attacks. What can I say ? Well, at least I'm not a party whore and mindless Willardbot, something you undoubtedly consider virtuous.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Perhaps I should’ve just gone for the one-liner than indulging the Willardbot in his Saturday afternoon diatribe. They’re such bores. ;-)

[EternalVigilance]

I admit that the not-that-sly innuendo was a tempting target for retort, but I figured it just wasn’t worth the time or effort.

[Fred Hayek]

I was not old enough to vote in 1972 (short by one year), but I did not want to see McGovern in the White House at that time. I was a Democrat, but more of the Scoop Jackson variety (very pro-defense, knew something about the Soviet Union - including the orbat - unusual for a high school senior).