Editing Joseph McCarthy (section)

===Senate campaign===
In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when [[Pearl Harbor]] was bombed. He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943 (equal to ${{Inflation|US|42000|1943|fmt=c}} today). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years.<ref>
{{cite book
  |last = Rovere
  |first = Richard H.
  |title = Senator Joe McCarthy
  |publisher = University of California Press
  |year=  1959
  |pages = 97, 102
  |isbn = 0-520-20472-7}}</ref>

According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May,<ref>McCarthy, The Man, the Senator, the Ism (Boston, Beacon Press, 1952) pp.&nbsp;101–105.</ref> McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of [[war profiteering]] was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe," using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner." Journalist [[Arnold Beichman]] later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled [[United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America|United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers]], [[Congress of Industrial Organizations|CIO]]", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette.<ref>
{{cite web
 |url=http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/2913871.html
 |title=The Politics of Personal Self-Destruction
 |access-date=February 25, 2008
|last=Beichman
 |first=Arnold
 |author-link=Arnold Beichman
 |date=February–March 2006
 |publisher=[[Policy Review]]
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080312214611/http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/2913871.html
 |archive-date=March 12, 2008
}}</ref>

In the general election against Democratic opponent [[Howard J. McMurray]], McCarthy won 61.2% to McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Alexander Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.

{{Election box begin no change
| title=[[1946 United States Senate election in Wisconsin|1946 Wisconsin U.S. Senate election]]}}
{{Election box winning candidate with party link no change
  |party      = Republican Party (United States)
  |candidate  = Joseph McCarthy
  |votes      = 620,430
  |percentage = 61.2
}}
{{Election box candidate with party link no change
  |party      = Democratic Party (United States)
  |candidate  = [[Howard J. McMurray|Howard McMurray]]
  |votes      = 378,772
  |percentage = 37.3
}}
{{Election box total no change
  | votes = 999,202
  | percentage = 98.5
}}
{{Election box hold with party link no change
 |winner = Republican Party (United States)
 |loser =
 |swing =
}}
{{Election box end}}