Quotes from George McGovern


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Somehow politicians have become convinced that negative campaigning pays off in elections.


Every once in a while, I run into somebody who tells me that she met her husband in my campaign or a husband who says, I met my wife. I have to tell you, I caused a few divorces too.


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.


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.


You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.


The longer the title, the less important the job.


I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket.


People didn't have the political guts to stand up against an American war.


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


I always thought of myself as a moderate liberal, a fighter for peace and justice. I never thought of myself as being all that far out.


I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.


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


It is not patriotic to commit young Americans to war unless our national security clearly requires it.


When I was in the war, I was lucky that I was in a plane and never saw the carnage close-up.


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 plain.


I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.


The Establishment center... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster - a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation.


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.


I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.


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