McGovern Falls: HST on the Campaign Trail 1972
Note: This is part two of my four-part review of Hunter S. Thompson's book on the 1972 presidential campaign. With the nomination almost miraculously sewn up thanks to his campaign's "mind-bending coalition," McGovern proceeded to the Democratic convention assured of winning on the first ballot. But this is precisely when things started to come unraveled for his candidacy. There is no better example of this than the ridiculous lack of control McGovern exercised on the proceedings. While he had chosen Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his vice-presidential running mate, many other names were nevertheless allowed to be placed in nomination with long-winded, self-serving speeches of pure hubris. This ultimately meant that McGovern's acceptance speech (which I have previously blogged about here ) was given at a ludicrous early-morning hour of 3 AM Eastern Time. “But these brainless bastards persisted, nonetheless, using up half the night and all the prim