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No one was more aware of his campaign needs than George McGovern. He moved swiftly to try to salvage something out of the debacle by adroitly using the free TV announcement time to attack Nixon. He urged Americans to join the Democrats in making a "choice of the century—between your hopes and your fears—between today's America and the one you want for your children." The Nixon Administration, he charged, represents "the belief that political power exists to serve private power," and has presided for four years "over a continued deterioration in the conditions of American life"; it has failed to stop the war, reform welfare, make streets safer or the air cleaner. "Our land is being ravaged, while our cities become more painful and dangerous. It is almost as if we had turned our own creations against us—had forgotten that the purpose of wealth and power is not to increase itself, but to enlarge the happiness of the individual."
There will be many other addresses and many other forums for both parties to debate and inspire before November. But both incumbent and candidate are right in agreeing that there is a genuine choice to be made between Richard Nixon and George McGovern. It was high time to get on with weighing that choice and its political consequences on the merits of men and issues.
* One other vice-presidential candidate, former Senator Albert Gallatin, was nominated in 1824, then forced off the Democratic-Republican ticket by Party Leader Martin Van Buren, who was trying to strengthen the ticket. Two men have refused to run after being nominated: Senator Silas Wright in 1844 and former Illinois Governor Frank Lowden in 1924.
* Jane Muskie was criticized for allegedly liking predinner cocktails and salty jokes in an article reprinted in the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader. This led to Muskie's denouncing its publisher, William Loeb, in a tearful speech.