Twenty years ago, the Minnesota Senator mobilized the forces of antiwar protest by daring to challenge President Lyndon Johnson. His candidacy then was an odd mixture of poetry and politics, of sardonic humor and philosophical discussion. McCarthy's latest race, on different tickets in different states, is more symbolic than serious, but he is still attempting to change the political system and is still full of irony and sarcasm. His new book, Required Reading, is a collection of his essays. He talked with TIME chief of correspondents John Stacks and New York bureau chief Bonnie Angelo.
Q. Why exactly are you running again?
A. There's a substantive reason first. I don't think the two parties are raising really critical issues. Second, there's a procedural reason. There is a need for continuing challenge to the two-party system that has been forced on us by state legislatures and federal election laws. And third, half the people don't participate in elections. With different procedures you'd have 70%, 80% of the people voting.
Q. What do you think of the other candidates in this race?
A. As the saying goes, Dukakis bites off more than he can chew, but Bush chews more than he bites off. I think that's a fair distinction.
Q. In your new book you categorically banned a fairly large pool of would-be Presidents: Governors, Vice Presidents, ministers, ministers' sons, generals, corporate presidents.
A. They weren't just theory. There's a realistic example that goes with all the exclusions -- like Walter Mondale and George McGovern as ministers' sons.
Q. You proposed abolishing the vice presidency.
A. I'm serious about that. In 1803 there was a vote in the House on abolishing the vice presidency. It failed, 85 to 27. Handling succession would be easy. We did it with Ford when we had to ((when Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in 1973)). It was simple. But instead of that method, I'd just reconvene the Electoral College. Under the Constitution, theoretically, they pick the President anyway, and the Vice President. It would give some meaning to the Electoral College.
The vice presidency clutters up the campaign. Even having Bentsen -- you get a ticket with each person unbalanced in a different way, and you call it balance.
It's an insult to the electorate. It puts people in line to become either the candidate or the President who shouldn't be there. It wastes good people, takes them out of circulation for eight years and sometimes practically destroys them.
Humphrey, for example, was hurt by being Vice President, even if we hadn't had the war. Mondale was hurt politically, but Humphrey was almost made a different person by Johnson, whereas Mondale just had a little bit of a burden, having been there with Jimmy. I said Mondale was a good choice because he had the soul of a Vice President.
Q. In this campaign, the very word liberal is like a poison dart. Is liberalism dead in this country?