McGovern's First Crisis: The Eagleton Affair

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One irony in all the embarrassment to McGovern and Eagleton is that many political scientists doubt that vice-presidential candidates affect the outcome of presidential elections. Nixon was probably not a minus for Ike in 1952 despite the Checkers affair; Lyndon Johnson, however, was a decisive plus for Kennedy in the much closer 1960 election. Still, Warren Miller, director of the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, says that it is difficult to prove historically that any vice-presidential candidate really made the difference between winning and losing. Political Scientist J. Austin Ranney of the University of Wisconsin agrees. He says of the Eagleton affair: "I think it will blow over by November."

That depends, of course, on how it comes out and on what scars it leaves within the McGovern camp and among Democratic supporters. McGovern's people are understandably dismayed about Eagleton, for an unusual kind of idealism brought many of them to the cause. Beyond that, of course, is what the affair will ultimately be judged to have exposed about the character and temperament of George McGovern, who starts from far behind against Nixon and can scarcely afford to give away any points. It has not been a promising beginning for a winning campaign.