Mcgovern Quotes & Sayings

The thing that got Daley mad," one of the delegates said later, "was that Ribicoff had been ass-kissing him just a day or two before. He came over and pushed for McGovern to our delegation and made a big speech about what a great guy Daley was. Then he got up there and played the hero for the TV cameras."
Daley was on his feet, his arms waiving, his mouth working. The words were lost in the uproar, but it was later asserted by Mayday, an almost-underground Washington paper, that a lip-reader had determined that he said: "Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch, you lousy motherfucker, go home. — Mike Royko

He stood in front of her and told her he'd come, not to climb her tower but to shelter it. In his clumsy way, he was like a prince who arrived with sweaty armpits and bad hair. At least I'm here, he might have said. That's better than nothing. And it was. — Cammie McGovern

It was electrifying the way he watched her so carefully that he forgot himself. — Cammie McGovern

McGovern couldn't carry the South if Rhett Butler were his running mate. — Spiro T. Agnew

There is a strong tendency in the United States to rally round the flag and their troops, no matter how mistaken the war. — George McGovern

I like writing letters and receiving letters. It's a shame that we've lost the art of letter-writing and saving correspondence. I mourn that. — Elizabeth McGovern

Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction 'Love the neighbor as thyself.' — George McGovern

I just slipped into my mother's office to look at the names of my new peer helpers, and I'm so happy! Your name is on the list! I thought maybe I'd scared you by coming right out and asking you to apply. I realize it's an unusual setup, but try not to think of it as my parents offering to pay people to be my friend. I know there's something unsettling and prideless in that. I prefer to think of it this way: my parents are paying people to pretend to be my friend. This will be much closer to the truth, I suspect, and I have no problem with this. I'm guessing that a lot of people in high school are only pretending to be friends, right? It'll be a start, I figure. — Cammie McGovern

I met my wife in South Dakota. — George McGovern

For 50 years, the Republicans have been accusing the Democrats of being soft on national security. — George McGovern

What's a strapless bra?" he finally asked.
"LIKE A TOURNIQUET FOR YOUR CHEST."
"Can you breathe if you're wearing it?"
"BARELY — Cammie McGovern

We have the resources (to end hunger), we know what has to be done, and it's something that can be achieved at a rather modest cost — George McGovern

McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for.
Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President? — Hunter S. Thompson

The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security. — George McGovern

Well, when I moved to England I was making a lot of personal adjustments because I was getting married and starting a family, that sort of thing. — Elizabeth McGovern

Since nostaglia is fueled by inflation, could it be that inflation is the result of a conspiracy by the people who are trying to palm off McGovern buttons and Howdy Doody puppets and their Aunt Thelma's toaster as antiques. — Calvin Trillin

Economic libertarians and Christian evangelicals, united by their common enemy, are strange bedfellows in today's Republican party, just as the two Georges - the archconservative Wallace and the uberliberal McGovern - found themselves in the same Democratic Party in 1972. — Steven Pinker

Security Division of NASA: Headed by Werner von Braun. Nazi headquarters were moved to the Caribbean after World War II. The National Security Council, patterned after Hitler's intelligence apparat, provided the framework inside the White House for political assassinations, Watergate "Plumbers" and election manipulations. Agents from military intelligence and the armed forces were concealed inside defense projects. The Syndicate worked with the Defense Industrial Security Command. Robert Sheridan, appointed by George McGovern to "investigate Watergate for the Democrats," was the direct liaison to departments involved in the Kennedy assassination. The Watergate parallels are too great to not suspect a continuous working of this operation.28 — Mae Brussell

I'm constantly meeting people who said that they cast their first vote for me, or that they cut their eye teeth on the 1972 campaign, or that they didn't vote for me but admire my positions. — George McGovern

To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina. — George McGovern

George McGovern - and I campaigned very hard for his election - was not, in the summer of 1971, a strong feminist ally. But he did come around. — Karen DeCrow

Above all, being a Democrat means having compassion for others ... It means standing up for people who have been kept down ... — George McGovern

I don't believe in villains - just people who channel their energy in the wrong way. — Elizabeth McGovern

In London, I take the Tube everywhere. — Elizabeth McGovern

You don't have to date me, just don't date her. Please, as your friend, I'm begging you not to date someone who doesn't appreciate you. — Cammie McGovern

England as a culture has endured so much more than America has as a culture, so it's given them a different perspective. — Elizabeth McGovern

I would say that not many German people are still alive, who experienced what happened during the third reich. We don't have to go to the Stasi, we can go to the Gestapo, and see what happens, when your human rights, your ability to a freedom of expression and a freedom of thought is infringed upon. This is terribly, terribly dangerous territory. — Ray McGovern

It's peaceful for people to know how their lives are going to be, pretty much. — Elizabeth McGovern

After that, a strange thing happened: Amy couldn't stop her expectations from rising. She imagined herself transformed and beautiful, like Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, with her homemade dress and mysterious lace boots. She pictured her hair in an upsweep of loose curls. In the fantasy, her prom face looked like the one she only wore asleep, loose and relaxed. She imagined a photographer asking her to smile and, for the first time in her life, being able to do it. — Cammie McGovern

And above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system. The tax system today does not reward hard work: it penalizes it. Inherited or invested wealth frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But wages on the assembly line or in farming the land, these hard-earned dollars are taxed to the very last penny. — George McGovern

The real problem with his type of OCD
chronic fear of hurting other people
was that you thought so much about not running over children, not sideswiping pedestrians, not poisoning strangers with germs on your hands
essentially not killing a world full of strangers
that you ended up hurting the people you loved most. He saw that now. — Cammie McGovern

What depressed me, I think, was that McGovern was the only alternative available this time around, and I was sorry I couldn't get up for it. I agreed with everything he said, but I wished he would say a lot more - or maybe something different. Ideas? Specifics? Programs? Etc.? Well — Hunter S. Thompson

I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House. — George McGovern

I don't think the American people had a clear picture of either Nixon or me. I think they thought that Nixon was a strong, decisive, tough-minded guy and that I was an idealist and antiwar guy who might not attach enough significance to the security of the country. The truth is, I was the guy with the war record, and my opposition to Vietnam was because I was interested in the nation's well-being. — George McGovern

No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public. — George McGovern

Don't worry. Here's the thing I've learned about pregnancy. Everything feels like a crisis and everything turns out to be heartburn. — Cammie McGovern

My view of Bradley Manning is that he's a very courageous young man who ... did what I didn't have the guts to do during the Vietnam war. — Ray McGovern

According to Sarah, who had gone two years ago, prom was famous for being an overpriced disappointment where most people had no fun. — Cammie McGovern

Now, how do you explain Obama's claim, that he can kill American citizens without due process? Well, he has his attorney general get up and say, "Well, it doesn't say in the constitution judicial process. It just says due process." Now that's a lawyerly diversion from the truth. — Ray McGovern

Can collective intelligence save the planet? It's the only hope we have. — Patrick Joseph McGovern

And the passiveness, you know, the apathy, well, that's not responsible citizenship. When I'm asked, why am I an activist, I say, well that's the rent that I pay for living on this planet, okay? — Ray McGovern

I'm what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like. — George McGovern

Now the big danger is to avoid doing anything, unless you have a surety, unless you have an assurance that you'll be successful. It's not about being successful. It's about being faithful. The good is worth doing, because it's good. And who knows what the results will be? — Ray McGovern

I would love to be in a Jimmy McGovern drama on TV, but there is no way he would ever ask me unless it would be to play a lawyer or something. — Toby Stephens

I thought Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time and have been fighting to get the Administration to stop its failed policy and bring our troops home. — Jim McGovern

One of the sharp parallels is that neither Vietnam nor Iraq was the slightest threat to America's national security. — George McGovern

My father was an academic, an eccentric. He was a lecturer. — Elizabeth McGovern

When an administration embarks on a war justified by little or no intelligence, speaking the truth can be regarded as treachery. The country could use more of that kind of "treachery". — Ray McGovern

Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. — George McGovern

It really is true that an orator is simply a good man who speaks well. — George McGovern

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard. — George S. McGovern

I thought helping someone else might take me out of my own head for a while. — Cammie McGovern

If you're Iran's minister of defense, I think you'd try to develop at least one nuclear weapon to save yourself from what happened to Iraq. — George McGovern

Now, I simply do what I want. — George McGovern

I was tired. I hadn't slept eight hours in two, three years. I lived on four, five hours of sleep. You can do it during a campaign because thousands are screaming for you. You're getting adrenaline shots each day. Then the campaign ends, and there are no more shots. — George McGovern

Our bill of rights has been shredded. The fourth amendment specifically prohibits the kind of activities the NSA is involved in domestically. The fifth amendment prohibits any president or anyone else from killing anyone without due process. — Ray McGovern

Jimmy McGovern - I love his writing, and I'm a big fan of him and Alan Clarke. — Sean Bean

We lack rituals in this modern world. — Elizabeth McGovern

If we are willing to concede the President dictatorial authority where we happen to agree with him, as liberals have tended to do over the years, we will have little chance of tying his hands when we do not ... You will see why many of us in the Congress understand how Dr. Frankenstein must have felt when his creation ran amok. — George McGovern

I seek to call America home to those principles that gave us birth. — George McGovern

When I was a youngster growing up in South Dakota, we never referred to the national debt, it was always referred to as the war debt because it stemmed from World War I. — George McGovern

George McGovern, for all his mistakes ... understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon, — Hunter S. Thompson

Form a small group. Five or six people, of people who think the way you do, and are willing to meet regularly, every week, and you will be surprised at what imaginative, gutsy thought and action comes out of that synergy. Takes a while, but there's something that every little group like that can do. — Ray McGovern

For a generation and more, the government has sought to meet our needs by multiplying its bureaucracy. Washington has taken too much in taxes from Main Street, and Main Street has received too little in return. It is not necessary to centralize power in order to solve our problems. — George McGovern

John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things. — Colm Toibin

Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a George McGovern. — William F. Buckley Jr.

I have a terrible sense of direction. — Elizabeth McGovern

'Legs are for men's pleasure, breasts are for babies'.' - Lib McGovern — Pat Frank

We are at a crossroads over how the federal government in Washington and state legislatures and city councils across the land allocate their financial resources. Which fork we take will say a lot about Americans and our values. — George McGovern

Her idea had a beautiful simplicity at first. — Cammie McGovern

Now we have to contend with overstimulation and too many opportunities all the time, and too many decisions all the time. — Elizabeth McGovern

I would not plan to base my campaign primarily on opposition to the war in the Persian Gulf. — George McGovern

This is what we do, my mother's life said. We find ourselves in the sacrifices we make. — Cammie McGovern

It's nice not to have to worry about constituents. — George McGovern

HST: Wasn't there a Harris Poll that showed that only 3 percent of the electorate considered the Watergate thing important?
McGovern: Yeah. That's right. Mistakes that we made seemed to be much more costly. I don't know why, but they were. I felt it at the time, that we were being hurt by every mistake we made, whereas the most horrendous kind of things on the other side somehow seemed to--because, I suppose, of the great prestige of the White House, the President's shrewdness in not showing himself to the press or the public--they were able to get away with things that we got pounded for. — Hunter S. Thompson

A large majority of Americans believe that corporations exert too much influence on our daily lives and our political process. — Jim McGovern

When you start one of these programs, school lunch programs, in a country that heretofore had nothing of that kind, immediately school enrollment jumps dramatically. Girls and boys get to the classroom with the promise of a good meal once a day. — George McGovern

I think it was my study of history that convinced me that the Democratic Party was more on the side of the average American. — George McGovern

It's possible to dazzle a crowd if you really work at it. But that is no qualification for leadership. Hitler was a master of crowds. — George McGovern

Beware of geeks bearing gifs. — Iggy Mcgovern

It surprised me because she put it as well (or better) than I could have and made a simple point she didn't even intend: being disabled wasn't the main thing about her. — Cammie McGovern

My family were all into classical music, and I found that very intimidating. — Elizabeth McGovern

McGovern is very sensitive about this sort of thing, and for excellent reason. In three of the last four big primaries (Ohio, Nebraska & California) he has spent an alarmingly big chunk of his campaign time denying that behind his calm and decent facade he is really a sort of Trojan Horse candidate - coming on in public as a bucolic Jeffersonian Democrat while secretly plotting to seize the reins of power and turn them over at midnight on Inauguration Day to a Red-bent hellbroth of radicals, Dopers, Traitors, Sex Fiends, Anarchists, Winos, and "extremists" of every description. — Hunter S. Thompson

At least I have precluded the possibility of peaking too early. — George McGovern

I'm a movie buff. — George McGovern

Well, I have a band, Sadie and the Hotheads, and we have an album that is already out that is available on our website. — Elizabeth McGovern

Most people grow up dreaming of going to Hollywood and some of them work and work and work and finally end up in Hollywood. — Elizabeth McGovern

This total failure to address the diet/cancer relationship is most disturbing to ... those ... informed ... — George McGovern

The earth has enough knowledge and resources to eradicate this ancient scourge. Hunger has plagued the world for thousands of years. But ending it is a greater moral imperative now than ever before, because for the first time humanity has the instruments at hand to defeat this cruel enemy at a very reasonable cost. We have the ability to provide food for all within the next three decades. — George McGovern

McGovern is the only major candidate - including Lindsay and Muskie - who invariably gives a straight answer when people raise these questions. He lines out the painful truth, and his reward has been just about the same as that of any other politician who insists on telling the truth: He is mocked, vilified, ignored, and abandoned as a hopeless loser by even his good old buddies like Harold Hughes. On — Hunter S. Thompson

Everyone knows that due process means judicial process, and when John Brennan brings him a list of people to be killed this particular week, that's not due process. That's certainly not judicial process. So there's the fifth amendment. Not even George Bush claimed the right to kill American citizens without due process. — Ray McGovern

I fully endorse the millennial goals to make (hunger) history, ... Those are big goals, but it's do-able. — George McGovern

The longer the title, the less important the job. — George McGovern

There isn't any one big test or way to validate ourselves in the world. There's just a long, quiet process of finding our place in it — Cammie McGovern

I am a liberal and always have been - just not the wild-eyed character the Republicans made me out to be. — George McGovern

I hope I live long enough to see every hungry school child in the world being fed under the so-called McGovern-Dole program. — George McGovern

I would support a Presidential candidate who pledged to take the following steps: ... At the end of the war in the Persian Gulf, press for a comprehensive Middle East settlement and for a 'new world order' based not on Pax Americana but on peace through law with a stronger U.N. and World Court. — George McGovern

It doesn t require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed it won t be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate. — George McGovern

When I was small, my most serious handicap was a painful bashfulness in the presence of strangers. — George McGovern

Honestly, I am always shocked when I see myself in the mirror because I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18 getting off the plane to go to Juilliard in New York. — Elizabeth McGovern