Word: mating
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Thus did Democratic Presidential Candidate George McGovern finally land a vice-presidential running mate, climaxing one of the most bizarre weeks in American political history. It was a week in which the convention-approved nominee, Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton, was pressured off the ticket and five respected figures in the Democratic Party turned down McGovern's desperate pleas to fill the vacancy. Even for the Democrats, noted for their internecine squabbles and disorderly manners, the spectacle was one of a party reduced to near shambles just as it started its overwhelmingly difficult campaign to reach the White House...
...occasions, in 1960, 1964 and 1966, he had been hospitalized in St. Louis or at the Mayo Clinic for nervous exhaustion. When the McGovern camp learned that the Knight newspapers were ready to break a story on Eagleton's medical history (see THE PRESS), McGovern and his running mate decided to break the news themselves at a press conference in Sylvan Lake, S. Dak. Eagleton described himself as "an intense and hard-fighting person," and added: "I sometimes push myself too far." After his successful 1960 campaign for attorney general of Missouri, he was hospitalized in St. Louis...
...think Tom Eagleton is fully qualified in mind, body and spirit to be the Vice President of the United States and, if necessary, to take on the presidency at a moment's notice," McGovern said. McGovern noted that when he had asked Eagleton to be his running mate, he had inquired "if he had any problems in his past that were significant or worth discussing with me." Eagleton told him no-"and I agree with that," McGovern said. He added: "If I had known every detail that he discussed this morning, he would still have been my choice...
...McGovern calmly stayed put in South Dakota. Eagleton, at first shaken, gained strength through a hectic week of campaigning in California and Hawaii. By the end of the week, it was McGovern who seemed to be wavering as he apparently tried to ditch Eagleton without actually informing his running mate directly. They would meet early this week in Washington. But McGovern made no effort to discourage his backers from dump-Eagleton talk, and he tried to enlist the press in getting the word to Eagleton. In stories based on conversations with him but transparently attributed only to "sources close...
Just before he returned to Washington and the confrontation with his running mate, McGovern stopped off in Aberdeen to address the South Dakota Democratic convention. Since he picked Eagleton, he said, "we have had some heart-rending days." He added: "I do not know how it will all come out, but I do know that it gets darkest just before the stars come out. I ask for your prayers and your patience for Senator Eagleton and me while we deliberate on the proper course ahead...