Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail '72

The New York primary takes place in late June. The day after, Thompson wakes up in a hotel room and feels no compunction about billing room service to his publisher because a watchman working for the company once killed his snake. McGovern has emerged victorious in New York, adding to victories in numerous other states. Thompson reflects on the absolute collapse of the Muskie campaign, wondering if its failure may be “a major political watershed for the Democratic Party” (244) since it dragged down several party mainstays. Humphrey, way behind McGovern in the delegate count, is also presumably out, meaning that the two orthodox representatives of the Democratic Party have failed to secure the nomination, while Wallace’s campaign has fallen apart in the wake of the failed assassination. McGovern’s apparent victory, Thompson suggests, shows that the party is “no longer controlled by the Old Guard, Boss-style hacks” (245) of the recent past. If McGovern defeats Nixon, he could reshape the party in a more progressive style. Should he lose, however, the Old Guard will immediately return to retake control of the party. Nixon benefited from a similar situation with the Republican party, which outsider Barry Goldwater briefly controlled before Nixon returned to take back control.

Thompson looks ahead to the Democratic National Convention. Though McGovern has won many of the delegates needed to secure the nomination, someone like Humphrey would have numerous options to spring a parliamentary surprise. The unpledged delegates attending the convention will be wooed by candidates’ representatives and may be extorted. For “political junkies,” Thompson notes, the exhilaration and adrenaline of these fast-moving moments is unlike anything else. He feels himself rapidly becoming a political junkie.

While traveling through Atlanta, Thompson bemoans the local restrictions on alcohol sales on Sundays. He knows that the airport’s VIP lounge sells alcohol since he passed through the same lounge in February with Ed Muskie. At the time, Muskie was the favorite for the Democratic nomination, and George McGovern was expected to be finished in New Hampshire. Since McGovern was expected to do poorly, John Lindsay was expected to challenge Muskie from the Left. Now, again in the Atlanta airport, that time feels like five years earlier to Thompson rather than five months. McGovern has proven himself a much cannier and successful politician than the media assumed he was. In particular, Thompson notes, he has successfully recruited the disaffected, alienated George Wallace voters into his power base. Though the McGovern campaign considered Wallace “a dangerous bigot” (257), the McGovern camp brought many of Wallace’s voters into its base by appealing to their dissatisfaction with Washington elites. The Democratic race, Thompson notes, has become a civil war between “the Old Guard on the Right and a gang of Young Strangers on the Left” (263). Wallace himself has spoken about the Old Guard’s attempted power grab in California, where their negative campaign against him took him by surprise.

The confusion surrounding the California primary means that though McGovern arrives in Miami (where the Democratic National Convention will be held on July 10-13) with many delegates, the possibility looms that the Old Guard may maneuver to strip many of his California delegates from him and award them to Humphrey instead. Should McGovern keep these delegates, he is assured the nomination against the ABM Movement, which stands for “Anybody but McGovern” (265). The ABM Movement does not care whether they can beat Nixon in the election; they care only about “keeping control of the party” (268). They are defeated, however, by a “surprise parliamentary maneuver” (269).

After the chaotic 1968 National Convention, McGovern chaired a commission to overhaul the delegate selection process. This resulted in new rules that emphasized proportional representation and aimed to make the selection process more democratic. Now the ABM Movement, particularly those aligned with more traditional and centrist factions, challenges his delegates’ legitimacy in an attempt to prevent him from securing the nomination. The key tactic involves the seating of delegates from various states, particularly from California, which has many pro-McGovern delegates. The California delegation’s winner-take-all system violates the new proportional representation rules, but McGovern’s team argues for their inclusion, since they are crucial to his winning a majority of delegates. In a dramatic moment at the convention, McGovern’s team successfully defends his delegate count against the establishment’s attempts to unseat his California delegates by either winning or losing a proxy vote by a large margin. McGovern’s floor leaders then work tirelessly to fend off procedural challenges, and after a long battle, the convention rules committee sides with McGovern. The path clears to make McGovern the nominee.

After this long and complicated process, McGovern delivers his acceptance speech. According to Thompson, it is “the best speech” (295) he has ever heard McGovern give, though it came in the early hours of the morning and few people heard it. The convention then becomes a series of people delivering speeches, advocating for various nominees to become McGovern’s running mate. How McGovern came to pick Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, Thompson explains, is a “very tangled story” (301), but he does not want to tell it at this point. Thompson was displeased with the selection, considering it an unnecessary concession to the Old Guard.

After the Democratic National Convention, Thompson leaves Miami. He plans to recuperate before the Republican National Convention in August. During this time, however, the press uncovers a secret about Thomas Eagleton: He was “hospitalized three times between 1960 and 1966 for psychiatric treatment, suffering from ‘nervous exhaustion and fatigue’” (307). McGovern tries to deal with the rapidly unfolding scandal and confers with Eagleton in several private meetings. Eventually, Eagleton is removed from the party ticket. His political career is essentially over, but Thompson suggests that the biggest causality of the affair may be “the man who chose him to seek the Vice Presidency” (311). In his botched handling of the affair, McGovern undoes his months of hard work to establish himself as a candid, honest, and unique politician. He reminds the electorate that he is “after all, a politician” (312).