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Former Presidential front runner George McGovern injured in fall

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  • Former Presidential front runner George McGovern injured in fall

    This doesn't have much to do with current politics, but if you've read the book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, you might be interested. McGovern seemed like a decent candidate, with a REAL shot to oust Nixons sorry ass, but flubbed the election by selecting a VP who later admitting to having shock treatments and being admitting to an insane asylum.

    SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was alert, comfortable and in stable condition at a South Dakota hospital Saturday after hitting his head during a fall, hospital officials said.
    The 89-year-old former U.S. senator was taken by helicopter to a Sioux Falls hospital late Friday after falling outside Dakota Wesleyan University's McGovern Library in Mitchell. A school official said McGovern hit his head on the pavement about two hours before he was scheduled to appear on a live C-SPAN interview at the library.

    "Senator McGovern is alert and resting comfortably but, as with any head injury, it is important that we observe the situation closely," Dr. Michael Elliott, chief medical officer at Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center, said in a written statement Saturday.

    The statement said McGovern was in stable condition, though no other details were released. The hospital said his family was asking for privacy.
    The former South Dakota senator has lived in St. Augustine, Fla., since 2008 but also has a home in Mitchell.

    Friends and faculty who had gathered at the library for the C-SPAN taping said McGovern fell at about 5:15 p.m. Friday. McGovern was "bleeding profusely" but was conscious and talking as he was taken from the university by ambulance, said Donald Simmons, dean of the College of Public Service.
    McGovern's daughter, Ann, was with her father before he was taken to the Sioux Falls hospital. She said Friday that the injury was unrelated to her father's hospitalization in late October for exhaustion.

    University President Robert Duffett said McGovern had been excited to take part in the C-SPAN program "The Contenders," which focuses on failed presidential candidates who changed the landscape of American politics. McGovern lost his 1972 presidential bid against President Richard Nixon, who eventually resigned amid the Watergate scandal.

    Duffett said he had coffee with McGovern just hours before the fall and that McGovern was returning to the campus to grab dinner with faculty before the interview.

    McGovern was entering a side door when he "tripped and fell and hit his head hard," Duffett said. "It's just one of those things. He's made that walk many times before."

    McGovern has an office inside the library, which is named for him and his late wife, Eleanor.

    C-SPAN went ahead and aired the segment on McGovern, with program host Amity Shlaes interviewing political experts and journalists to analyze McGovern presidential campaign. Shlaes said on air that McGovern had taken "a spill" and wasn't able to be on the program as planned, but she said he was fine.

    McGovern was elected to his first of three terms in the Senate in 1962. Though he later lost the presidential race to Nixon, he continued to distinguish himself during his political career and was a lifelong advocate for U.S. and world food programs.

  • #2
    Actually, Ed Muskie was supposed to run against Nixon, but bailed after some stuff about his wife surfaced. Then... McGovern chose Eagleton for a running mate, who suffered from depression, who bailed. Then..he picked Shriver as a running mate and lost to Nixon in one of the most lop-sided elections of all time. It was never close.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Vertnut View Post
      Actually, Ed Muskie was supposed to run against Nixon, but bailed after some stuff about his wife surfaced. Then... McGovern chose Eagleton for a running mate, who suffered from depression, who bailed. Then..he picked Shriver as a running mate and lost to Nixon in one of the most lop-sided elections of all time. It was never close.


      That's probably my fault. I didn't mean it was close, just that if he had made a couple of better decisions, he had a chance. Ed Muskie. lmfao thinking about some of the stuff Hunter S Thompson said about that guy.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by talisman View Post
        That's probably my fault. I didn't mean it was close, just that if he had made a couple of better decisions, he had a chance. Ed Muskie. lmfao thinking about some of the stuff Hunter S Thompson said about that guy.
        I was old enough to watch "Laugh-In" (not the re-runs, either, unfortunately), and they LOVED McGovern and tore Tricky Dick's ass up every chance they got. Just like all the sit-coms and talk shows treat the conservatives now. Some things never change.

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        • #5
          (Reuters) - Former Democratic Senator George McGovern, who lost to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election, is "no longer responsive" and is surrounded by family and friends at a hospice center in South Dakota, his family said on Wednesday.

          McGovern, 90, was admitted to hospice in Sioux Falls "with a combination of medical conditions, due to age, that have worsened over recent months," his family said in a statement.

          "The Senator is no longer responsive. He is surrounded by his loving family and close friends," the statement added.

          McGovern served in the Senate for South Dakota from 1963 to 1981. He unsuccessfully challenged Nixon in 1972 on a platform opposing the Vietnam War. He won only 37.5 percent of the popular vote and carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia in one of the worst defeats in U.S. history.

          The son of a Methodist minister, McGovern flew combat missions over Europe as a B-24 bomber pilot during World War Two, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross.

          He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956, and re-elected two years later. After McGovern lost a U.S. Senate election in 1960, President John F. Kennedy named him the first director of the Food for Peace Program.

          He also ran for president in 1968, had a short-lived bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, and considered running for president in 1976.

          A historian and prolific author, McGovern had been hospitalized several times in the past year after complaining of fatigue and dizziness and after a fall before a scheduled television appearance at the McGovern Library at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota.

          On Wednesday, McGovern's family encouraged people to donate to Feeding South Dakota (www.feedingsouthdakota.org) if they planned to offer remembrances of the senator.

          (Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney)

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