Fwd: Eugene McCarthy, R.I.P.

[Guest guest]

NOMINATING SPEECH FOR EUGENE MCCARTHY

 

Sam Smith

Americans for Democratic Action National Board

December 15, 1992

 

[in 1992, Gene McCarthy asked me, as a vice president of Americans for

Democratic Action, to put his name into nomination for the

organization's endorsement as the Democratic candidate for president.

I knew ADA was about to endorse Bill Clinton but I agreed to Gene's

request. Here is my speech]

 

I first became involved in the McCarthy campaign out of friendship.

Gene McCarthy called me and asked for my help. I told him I had

already contributed to Tom Harkin. He said that was all right to help

those young fellows. It's hard to argue with an attitude like that.

 

My initial task was to figure out why the hell he was running again.

 

I soon discovered that what appeared quixotic only had that aura

because of the cynical, perverse, corrupt, trivial and destructive

politics of our times. The oddity was not that Gene McCarthy was

running but that we thought it odd.

 

And what precisely did we think was odd?

 

That he refuses to give up a good fight?

 

That he is probably the most intelligent candidate?

 

The wisest?

 

The one with the longest service to the progressive cause?

 

The one with the most experience, both foreign and domestic?

 

The one of most unflinching integrity?

 

Or that he believes, in the manner of Plutarch, that politics is a

lifetime avocation and not an occasional experience of convenience?

 

No, what was really odd was that these qualities appear to carry so

little weight in our political considerations.

 

In 1948, Gene McCarthy supported national health insurance.

 

In 1954, he was the only member of Congress willing to debate publicly

with Joseph McCarthy.

 

In 1968, he opposed the Vietnam War.

 

In 1975, he went to court against our current crazy and corrupt

elections system.

 

So the basic question is: do you want to adopt McCarthy's policies now

or -- as we have in the past -- wait another 20 or 25 years?

 

Is Gene McCarthy serious? No candidate is more serious. But unlike

most candidates these days, McCarthy is serious about his politics.

Most candidates are only serious about getting themselves elected.

Most -- including some who will be extolled this morning -- really

only hope to be the misty mirror of our own longings. They are not

truly salesmen at all, but consumers -- consumers of our own

gullibility.

 

Much of what you hear from politicians is not policy and ideas, but

merely speeches. The other night, at the Irish Times pub, Maurice

Rosenblatt explained to me how speeches in Washington are written:

first you write the headline, then you write the news release, then

you write the speech, then you do the research.

 

It has been said that Washington is a place where perceptions vie with

scenarios to supplant reality. Whether that happens is ultimately,

however, not Tom Brokaw's or George Will's choice, but ours.

 

Each of us has the choice to surrender to the tyranny of perceptions

or, as Dylan Thomas put it, rage, rage, rage, against the dying of the

light. Part of that choice is before you this morning. I urge you to

consider your remaining potential to choose as a gift, a sacred part

of what makes you human.

 

To those who would chide me for the impracticality of nominating the

senior statesman of liberalism, I advise you to consider what the

great British liberal, G.K. Chesterton, once said: all good politics

starts with the ideal.

 

You work backwards from there. So be pragmatic if you must. Accede to

puerile perceptions if there is no other choice. But not -- dear

friends -- on the first ballot. On the first ballot, just vote right.

 

 

http://prorev.com/2005/12/nominating-speech-for-eugene-mccarthy.htm