1972 Democratic National Convention
Encyclopedia
The 1972 Democratic National Convention was the presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 for the 1972 presidential election. It was held at Miami Beach Convention Center
Miami Beach Convention Center
Miami Beach Convention Center is an indoor arena in Miami Beach, Florida and it is currently the largest convention center in the Miami area. It now features 4 large rooms each holding about 12,000 people.- History :...

 in Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter which separates the Beach from Miami city proper...

 on July 10–13, 1972.

It nominated Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....

 of South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 and Senator Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Francis Eagleton was a United States Senator from Missouri, serving from 1968–1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972...

 of Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 for Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

. Eagleton later withdrew from the race when it was disclosed that he had undergone mental health
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

 treatment, including electroshock therapy, in the past, and he was replaced on the ballot by Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., known as Sargent Shriver, R. Sargent Shriver, or, from childhood, Sarge, was an American statesman and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family, serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations...

.

The convention itself was one of the most unusual in recent American history, with sessions beginning in the early evening and lasting until sunrise the next morning, and previously excluded political activists gaining influence at the expense of elected officials and traditional core Democratic constituencies such as organized labor
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

. A protracted vice presidential nominating process delayed McGovern's acceptance speech until the early hours of the morning, after most television viewers had gone to bed. Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...

 covered this convention in detail in several articles and in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 is a collection of articles covering the 1972 presidential campaign written by the gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson and illustrated by Ralph Steadman...

.

Delegate selection

The 1972 convention was significant as the first implementation of the reforms set by the Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, which McGovern himself had chaired before running for president. (McGovern resigned as chair to run for president, and he was replaced as chair by U.S. Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 Donald Fraser
Donald M. Fraser
Donald MacKay Fraser is an American politician from Minneapolis, Minnesota.-Early life:Donald Fraser played a critical role in making human rights an important part of U.S. policy. Fraser was born on 20 February 1924 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Everett and Lois Fraser. His parents were émigrés...

; the Commission is known as the McGovern-Fraser Commission). The 28-member commission was established after the tumultuous 1968 convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek a second term, the purpose of the convention was to...

.

The commission set guidelines ordering state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 parties to "adopt explicit written Party rules governing delegate selection" and implemented eight "procedural rules and safeguards," including the prohibition of proxy voting
Proxy voting
Proxy voting has two forms: delegable voting and delegated voting, which are procedures for the delegation to another member of a voting body of that member's power to vote in his absence, and/or for the selection of additional representatives, as in the case with transitive proxies...

, the end of the unit rule (winner-take-all primaries) and related practices such as instructing delegations, a new quorum
Quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly necessary to conduct the business of that group...

 requirement of not less than 40 percent at all party committee meetings, the removal of all mandatory assessments of delegates and the cap of mandatory participation fees at $10. In addition, there were new rules ensuring that party meetings in non-rural areas were held on uniform dates, at uniform times and in places of easy access and that adequate public notice of all party meetings concerned with delegate selection was posted. Among the most significant of the changes were new quotas mandating that certain percentages of delegates be women or members of minority groups.

As a result of the new rules, subjects that were previously deemed not fit for political debate, such as abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

 and gay rights
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...

, now occupied the forefront of political discussion. The new rules for choosing and seating delegates created an unusual number of rules and credentials challenges. Many traditional Democratic groups such as organized labor and big city political machine
Political machine
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses , who receive rewards for their efforts...

s had small representation at the convention. Their supporters challenged the seating of relative political novices, but for the most part were turned back by the supporters of McGovern, who during the presidential primaries
United States presidential primary
The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses is one of the first steps in the process of electing the President of the United States of America. The primary elections are run by state and local governments, while caucuses are private events run by the political parties...

 had amassed the most delegates to the convention by using a grassroots
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...

 campaign that was powered by opposition to the Vietnam War
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...

. Many traditional Democratic leaders and politicians felt that McGovern's delegate count did not reflect the wishes of most Democratic voters. Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 helped to spearhead a "Stop McGovern" campaign, while at the same time trying to become McGovern's candidate for vice president. The stop-McGovern forces tried unsuccessfully to alter the delegate composition of the California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 delegation.

The Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 primary required voters to select individual delegates, not presidential candidates. Most Illinois delegation members were uncommitted and were controlled or influenced by Chicago Mayor
Mayor of Chicago
The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of Chicago, Illinois, the third largest city in the United States. He or she is charged with directing city departments and agencies, and with the advice and consent of the Chicago City Council, appoints department and agency leaders.-Appointment...

 Richard J. Daley
Richard J. Daley
Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...

, the leader of the Chicago political machine
Cook County Democratic Organization
The Cook County Democratic Organization is one of the most powerful political machines in American history. Historically called the "Chicago Democratic machine", or simply the "Chicago Machine", the organization has dominated Chicago politics since the 1930s...

. The delegation was challenged by McGovern supporters arguing that the results of the primary did not create a diverse enough delegation in terms of women and minorities. The credentials committee, headed by Patricia Roberts Harris
Patricia Roberts Harris
Patricia Roberts Harris served as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the administration of President Jimmy Carter...

, rejected the entire elected delegation, including elected women and minorities, and seated an unelected delegation led by Chicago Alderman William S. Singer, Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

 and pledged to George McGovern.

The California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 primary was "winner-take-all," which was contrary to the delegate selection rules. So even though McGovern only won the California primary by a 5% electoral margin, he won all 271 of their delegates to the convention. The anti-McGovern group argued for a proportional distribution of the delegates, while the McGovern forces stressed that the rules for the delegate selection had been set and the Stop McGovern alliance was trying to change the rules after the game. As with the credential fight, McGovern's army carried the day effectively handing the nomination to McGovern.

McGovern recognized the mixed results of the changes that he made to the Democratic nominating convention, saying, "I opened the doors of the Democratic Party and 20 million people walked out."

Running mate

Most polls showed McGovern running well behind incumbent President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

, except when McGovern was paired with Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 Senator Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

. McGovern and his campaign brain trust lobbied Kennedy heavily to accept the bid to be McGovern's running mate
Running mate
A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position but can also properly be used when referring to both candidates, such as "Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen were...

, but he continually refused their advances, and instead suggested U.S. Representative (and House Ways and Means Committee chairman) Wilbur Mills
Wilbur Mills
Wilbur Daigh Mills , was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Arkansas...

 of Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 and Boston Mayor Kevin White. Offers were then made to Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...

, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...

, all of whom turned it down.

McGovern and his campaign staff felt that a Kennedy-style figure to balance the ticket
Ticket balance
In United States politics, balancing the ticket is when a political candidate chooses a running mate with the goal of bringing more widespread appeal to the campaign. It is most prominently used to describe the selection of the U.S. Vice Presidential candidate.There are several means by which the...

: a Catholic, big city-based leader with strong ties to organized labor and urban political machines. McGovern informed Kennedy that he was seriously considering Kevin White, who had informed McGovern he was available. But the Massachusetts delegates threatened to boycott the convention hall if the choice was White, who as a Edmund Muskie
Edmund Muskie
Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981...

 supporter had fought sharply with the McGovern slate during the primary. White was dropped.

Finally, the vice presidential slot was offered to Senator Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Francis Eagleton was a United States Senator from Missouri, serving from 1968–1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972...

 of Missouri. Eagleton was relatively unknown to many of the delegates. This, along with the inexperience of many of the delegates who were wary after the protracted infighting, caused the vice presidential balloting to become almost a farce. The delegates insisted on nominating eight candidates for Vice President, including not only Eagleton but also Senator Mike Gravel
Mike Gravel
Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election....

 of Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

, former Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody
Endicott Peabody
Endicott "Chub" Peabody was the 62nd Governor of Massachusetts from January 3, 1963 to January 7, 1965.-Early life:...

, and Frances "Sissy" Farenthold
Frances Farenthold
Frances Tarlton Farenthold , commonly referred to as Sissy Farenthold, is an American Democratic politician, attorney and educator, who was the third woman whose name was put into nomination for Vice President of the United States at a major party's nominating convention Frances Tarlton Farenthold...

 of the Texas state House
Texas House of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the Texas Legislature. The House is composed of 150 members elected from single-member districts across the state. The average district has about 150,000 people. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...

. By the time the roll call finally began, the delegates were in a prankish mood, casting ballots for people not involved in politics, deceased persons, non-American persons or even fictional characters. Such ballots were cast for Martha Beall Mitchell
Martha Beall Mitchell
Martha Beall Mitchell was the wife of John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General under President Richard Nixon. Martha Mitchell gained notoriety in the press during the Nixon administration for her frequent phone calls to reporters and colorful comments on the state of the nation...

, CBS-TV's Roger Mudd
Roger Mudd
Roger Mudd is a U.S. television journalist and broadcaster, most recently as the primary anchor for The History Channel. Previously, Mudd was weekend and weekday substitute anchor of CBS Evening News, co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, and hosted NBC's Meet the Press, and NBC's American...

, Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

, and the fictional Archie Bunker
Archie Bunker
Archibald "Archie" Bunker is a fictional New Yorker in the 1970s top-rated American television sitcom All in the Family and its spin-off Archie Bunker's Place, played to acclaim by Carroll O'Connor. Bunker is a veteran of World War II, reactionary, bigoted, conservative, blue-collar worker, and...

.

Eventually, Eagleton secured the nomination but the last-day-of-school atmosphere of the proceedings dragged out the process. When Eagleton was at last confirmed, it was 1:40 a.m. This delay forced the acceptance speeches of the candidates to be given well past the television prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

 hours and probably hurt the McGovern campaign by not creating the so-called "convention bounce."

Several days after the convention, it was revealed that Senator Eagleton had been hospitalized for depression and had electric shock treatment. He was also rumored to be more than a social drinker and had what many considered too close ties to the Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

 Pendergast machine
Tom Pendergast
Thomas Joseph Pendergast controlled Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri as a political boss. "Boss Tom" Pendergast gave workers jobs and helped elect politicians during the Great Depression, becoming wealthy in the process.-Early years:Thomas Joseph Pendergast, also known to close friends as...

. McGovern stood behind his choice and stated that he was behind Senator Eagleton "1000 percent". The news media and many political pros, especially in the Democratic Party, lobbied hard for his removal from the ticket.

Eventually, McGovern felt compelled to accept Senator Eagleton's resignation from the ticket. The episode had placed McGovern in a "no-win" situation. If he kept Eagleton, the selection did not look good for the decision-making ability of the McGovern team, while if he removed Eagleton, he appeared to be weak and vacillating. Since this incident, front-running presidential candidates have developed short lists of potential running mates and have meticulously performed background checks.

McGovern chose Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., known as Sargent Shriver, R. Sargent Shriver, or, from childhood, Sarge, was an American statesman and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family, serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations...

 as his running mate a few weeks later. The McGovern-Shriver ticket went on to one of the greatest defeats in American political history.

Feminism

The Feminist Movement was a major influence on the Democratic platform of 1972, and on the entire convention in general. With renewed vigor, the Democrats reaffirmed their dedication to the Equal Rights Amendment
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...

, as did the Republicans.

There were disagreements within the Democrats of the National Women's Political Caucus
National Women's Political Caucus
The National Women's Political Caucus is a national bipartisan grassroots organization in the United States dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting women who seek elected and appointed offices....

, and the Women's Movement in general, over how to best approach certain issues. At the convention Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...

 clashed with Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...

 over the way NWPC women should approach certain issues, and whether or not they should make sure to throw all possible support behind Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to Congress...

 (both women were supporters of Chisholm's Presidential campaign).

McGovern ultimately excised the abortion issue from the party's platform. (Recent publications show McGovern was deeply conflicted on the issue.) Actress and activist Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...

, though privately supporting abortion rights, urged the delegates to vote against the plank. Gloria Steinem later wrote this description of the events:
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....

 flatly contradicted Steinem's account. Having recently gained public notoriety for her feminist manifesto The Female Eunuch
The Female Eunuch
The Female Eunuch is a book first published in 1970 that became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. The author, Germaine Greer, became well known in broadcast media of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and her home of Australia...

and sparring with Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...

, Greer was commissioned to cover the convention for Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

. Greer criticized Steinem's "controlled jubilation" that 38% of the delegates were women, ignoring that "many delegations had merely stacked themselves with token females...The McGovern machine had already pulled the rug out from under them."

Greer leveled her most searing critique on Steinem for her capitulation on abortion rights. Greer reported, "Jacqui Ceballos called from the crowd to demand abortion rights on the Democratic platform, but Bella [Abzug
Bella Abzug
Bella Savitsky Abzug was an American lawyer, Congresswoman, social activist and a leader of the Women's Movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus...

] and Gloria stared glassily out into the room," thus killing the abortion rights platform. Greer asks, "Why had Bella and Gloria not helped Jacqui to nail him on abortion? What reticence, what loserism had afflicted them?"

The cover of Harper's that month read, "Womanlike, they did not want to get tough with their man, and so, womanlike, they got screwed."

Right to be different

The Democrats also included "the right to be different" in their 1972 platform. According to the party, this right included the right to "maintain a cultural or ethnic heritage or lifestyle, without being forced into a compelled homogeneity."

Delegate vote for presidential nomination

  • George McGovern
    George McGovern
    George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....

     - 1,729 (57.37%)
  • Henry M. Jackson
    Henry M. Jackson
    Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from the state of Washington from 1941 until his death...

     - 525 (17.42%)
  • George Wallace
    George Wallace
    George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...

     - 382 (12.67%)
  • Shirley Chisholm
    Shirley Chisholm
    Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to Congress...

     - 152 (5.04%)
  • Terry Sanford
    Terry Sanford
    James Terry Sanford was a United States politician and educator from North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Sanford was the 65th Governor of North Carolina , a two-time U.S. Presidential candidate in the 1970s and a U.S. Senator...

     - 78 (2.59%)
  • Hubert Humphrey
    Hubert Humphrey
    Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...

     - 67 (2.22%)
  • Wilbur Mills
    Wilbur Mills
    Wilbur Daigh Mills , was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Arkansas...

     - 34 (1.13%)
  • Edmund Muskie
    Edmund Muskie
    Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981...

     - 25 (0.83%)
  • Ted Kennedy
    Ted Kennedy
    Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

     - 13 (0.43%)
  • Wayne Hays
    Wayne Hays
    Wayne Levere Hays was an American politician whose strong rule of the House Administration Committee extended to even the smallest items. In the mid-1970s, lawmakers avoided crossing Hays for fear that he would shut off the air conditioning in their offices...

     - 5 (0.17%)
  • Eugene McCarthy
    Eugene McCarthy
    Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...

     - 2 (0.07%)
  • Ramsey Clark
    Ramsey Clark
    William Ramsey Clark is an American lawyer, activist and former public official. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969, under President Lyndon B. Johnson...

     - 1 (0.03%)
  • Walter Mondale
    Walter Mondale
    Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...

     - 1 (0.03%)


Source

Delegate vote for vice-presidential nomination

  • Thomas Eagleton
    Thomas Eagleton
    Thomas Francis Eagleton was a United States Senator from Missouri, serving from 1968–1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972...

     - 1,742 (59.07%)
  • Frances Farenthold
    Frances Farenthold
    Frances Tarlton Farenthold , commonly referred to as Sissy Farenthold, is an American Democratic politician, attorney and educator, who was the third woman whose name was put into nomination for Vice President of the United States at a major party's nominating convention Frances Tarlton Farenthold...

     - 405 (13.73%)
  • Mike Gravel
    Mike Gravel
    Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election....

     - 226 (7.66%)
  • Endicott Peabody
    Endicott Peabody
    Endicott "Chub" Peabody was the 62nd Governor of Massachusetts from January 3, 1963 to January 7, 1965.-Early life:...

     - 108 (3.66%)
  • Clay Smothers - 74 (2.51%)
  • Birch Bayh
    Birch Bayh
    Birch Evans Bayh II is a former United States Senator from Indiana, having served from 1963 to 1981. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in the 1976 election, but lost to Jimmy Carter. He is the father of former Indiana Governor and former U.S. Senator Evan Bayh.-Life...

     - 62 (2.10%)
  • Peter W. Rodino
    Peter W. Rodino
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Source

See also

  • United States presidential election, 1972
    United States presidential election, 1972
    The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...

  • History of the United States Democratic Party
    History of the United States Democratic Party
    The history of the Democratic Party of the United States is an account of the oldest political party in the United States and arguably the oldest democratic party in the world....


External links

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