THE CONVENTION: Introducing... the McGovern Machine

IT was the 36th time that the Democrats met in convention since Andrew Jackson first called the faithful to Baltimore in 1832. But so unusual was the Democratic Convention that nominated George McGovern that it could have been the first one ever held.

Gone were the building blocks of tightly controlled state delegates answerable to political bosses, to old-line party discipline, to organized labor. Gone were the tightlipped, gravel-voiced party barons from the tiers of the New Jersey, New York and Illinois delegations. Gone were the trappings that moved Will Rogers to describe conventions as "the Fourth of July of...

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