Editing Thomas Eagleton (section)

==="Amnesty, abortion, and acid"===
On April 25, 1972, as George McGovern won the Massachusetts [[Democratic Party presidential primaries, 1972|Democratic primary]], conservative journalist [[Robert Novak]] phoned Democratic politicians around the country. On April 27, 1972, Novak reported in a column his conversation with an unnamed Democratic senator about McGovern.<ref name=PCOLKansascitystar>{{cite news| newspaper=Kansas City Star | title = With another disclosure, Novak bedevils the dead | first1= Steve | last1= Kraske | date=July 28, 2007 | url= http://www.kansascity.com/news/columnists/steve_kraske/story/209499.html | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071018194343/http://www.kansascity.com/news/columnists/steve_kraske/story/209499.html |archive-date=October 18, 2007}}</ref><ref name=PCOLColumbiatribune>{{cite news | url=http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2007/aug/20070819Feat004.asp | work=Columbia Tribune | title=A slice of history: Biographers of the late U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri will find some vivid anecdotes when they comb through his large collection of journals, letters and transcripts housed in Columbia | first1=Terry | last1=Ganey | date=August 19, 2007 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130607015253/http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2007/aug/20070819Feat004.asp | archive-date=June 7, 2013 }}</ref> Novak quoted the senator as saying: <blockquote>The people don't know McGovern is for amnesty for draft dodgers, abortion, and legalization of pot. Once middle America—Catholic middle America, in particular—finds this out, he's dead.<ref name="PCOLKansascitystar" /> </blockquote>Because of the column McGovern became known as the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid",<ref>{{cite news| url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dAQuAAAAIBAJ&pg=6956,894523&dq=amnesty+abortion+and+acid&hl=en |title= Coalition Breaking |first1= Victor |last1= Riesel |newspaper=Rome News-Tribune |location= Rome, Georgia| date=July 6, 1972}}</ref><ref name="PCOLMeetthepress">{{citation| url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19694666 |work=[[Meet the Press]] |date=July 15, 2007 |title=Interview with Robert Novak | publisher=NBC News}}</ref> even though he only supported the [[Decriminalization of non-medical cannabis in the United States|decriminalization of marijuana]] and maintained that legalized abortion fell under the purview of [[states' rights]].<ref>[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19694666 "Interview with Robert Novak"], ''Meet the Press'', NBC News, July 15, 2007. Retrieved January 21, 2011</ref><ref>Ganey, Terry (August 19, 2007), [https://web.archive.org/web/20130607015253/http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2007/aug/20070819Feat004.asp "A slice of history"], Columbia Tribune, archived from the original on June 7, 2013.</ref><ref>Boller, Paul F., ''Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush'', Oxford University Press, 2004, [https://books.google.com/books?id=fq8pY-vThDUC&pg=PA339 pp. 339]</ref>

On July 15, 2007, several months after Eagleton's death, Novak said on ''[[Meet the Press]]'' that the unnamed senator was Eagleton.<ref name=PCOLMeetthepress/> Novak was accused in 1972 of manufacturing the quote, but said that to rebut the criticism, he took Eagleton to lunch after the campaign and asked whether he could identify him as the source; Eagleton refused.<ref name= PCOLKansascitystar/> "Oh, he had to run for reelection", Novak said. "The McGovernites would kill him if they knew he had said that."<ref name=PCOLMeetthepress/> Political analyst [[Bob Shrum]] says that Eagleton never would have been selected as McGovern's running mate if it had been known at the time that Eagleton was the source of the quote.<ref name=PCOLMeetthepress/> "Boy, do I wish he would have let you publish his name. Then he never would have been picked as vice president," said Shrum.<ref name=PCOLMeetthepress/> "Because the two things, the two things that happened to George McGovern—two of the things that happened to him—were the label you put on him, number one, and number two, the Eagleton disaster. We had a messy convention, but he could have, I think in the end, carried eight or 10 states, remained politically viable. And Eagleton was one of the great train wrecks of all time."<ref name=PCOLMeetthepress/>