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McGovern-Cronkite in 1972?
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Jul 27, 2009 01:43pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | Jack Shafer |
| News Date | Sunday, July 26, 2009 01:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Vice President Walter Cronkite has a nice ring to it, and according to an op-ed in today's (July 25) Washington Post by Frank Mankiewicz — political director of George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign — it coulda, woulda happened if only other top McGovernites had grabbed the trial balloon Mankiewicz launched in July 1972, when he proposed that their candidate invite Cronkite to join the Democrats' ticket.
Mankiewicz believes that one of the late anchorman's great strengths as a potential candidate, along with opposing the Vietnam War, was that he was the "most trusted man in America." Cronkite's status as America's most trusted is bunk, as I wrote last week. It all stems from a May 1972 poll that Oliver Quayle and Co. conducted in 18 states to determine the level of public trust for candidates in contests for senator, governor, and president. (See CBS News veteran Martin Plissner's fine book The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections for the full story.) It's not clear why Quayle added Cronkite to the poll, which included the names of potential candidates as well as slots for "average governor" and "average senator," Plissner writes. Cronkite topped the survey, but a poll across 18 states that pits one broadcaster against a bunch of would-be candidates and "average" office holders is a pitiful measure of trust.
According to Mankiewicz, his Cronkite pitch "met with instant, and unanimous, disapproval." But he speculates that had Cronkite run with McGovern, they might have won in 1972 or come close to winning. And had they come close, a McGovern-Cronkite ticket would "probably" have been renominated and elected in 1976 after the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon. |
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