Word: mcgoverns
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...candidate: "I'm saving energy, George!" In Sioux Falls, half a dozen strangers greeted him on the street as if he were an old friend. That night, as he walked unobtrusively by the bleachers during a high school football game, teen-agers shouted: "Hey, George!" At 58, George McGovern is probably South Dakota's best-known and, on a personal level, best-liked politician. Nonetheless, this year McGovern is in trouble because many of the same constituents who think he is so personable have decided that he is too liberal...
...opponent, conservative Republican James Abdnor, 57, a bachelor wheat farmer and popular four-term Congressman, maintains that McGovern has lost touch with South Dakotans. Says Abdnor: "I'm the first working farmer off a tractor that South Dakota ever sent to Washington. I represent the mainstream." Abdnor favors Government price supports for farm products and a stronger national defense, but less Government spending on social welfare programs-all popular stands in the state, where nearly 25% of the 689,000 people live on farms...
...McGovern has begun closing the gap with an aggressive campaign that belies his reserved style on the stump. He reminds voters that he, too, is a fervent backer of farm price supports, that he is the No. 2 Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and that he supports increased benefits for the elderly (more than 17% of South Dakota's population is over 60, one of the highest percentages in the nation). He makes no apologies for being a liberal, which he defines as "one who believes the power of the U.S. Government ought to be thrown...
...also has proved to be a shrewd campaign tactician. When a national conservative group passed out handbills that called McGovern, the father of five, a "baby killer" because he believes women should have a right to abortions, he objected to being smeared by out-of-staters. So many South Dakotans sided with him that Abdnor had to disavow the group's support...
Then, when former President Gerald Ford spent a day campaigning for Abdnor, McGovern ran full-page newspaper advertisements noting that he and the ex-President both supported the Panama Canal Treaties, SALT II and the Equal Rights Amendment, all of which are opposed by Abdnor. As a result, Ford spent much of his time fending off hostile questions. Ford also goofed by urging that the candidates debate; apparently no one had told him that Abdnor, who has a slight speech impediment, has repeatedly refused to do just that...