Potus Geeks Summer Reruns: Thomas Eagleton-The 18 Day Running Mate
The story of Thomas Eagleton isn't so much a scandal as it is a shameful example of how dirty politics can be sometimes. Eagleton was a Democratic Senator from Missouri and for 18 days he was a candidate for Vice-President of the United States. He was dumped from the ticket by Democratic Presidential Candidate George McGovern. Eagleton's sin? He had once sought treatment for a mental health problem and had hid the information from his running mate.
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Eagleton was born in St. Louis and had once served in the Navy for two years. He later graduated from Harvard Law School. Following his graduation in 1953, Eagleton practiced law at his father's law firm and later worked for Anheuser-Busch's legal department. He was elected circuit attorney of the City of St. Louis in 1956. He was elected Missouri Attorney General in 1960, at the age of 31, the youngest person in the state's history to be elected to that office. He was elected the 38th Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1964, and won a U.S. Senate seat in 1968 unseating incumbent Edward V. Long in the Democratic primary. At a time when people didn't like to discuss such things publicly, Eagleton suffered from depression. Between 1960 and 1966, Eagleton checked himself into the hospital three times for physical and nervous exhaustion, and on two occasions he received electroconvulsive (shock) therapy. He was layer diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar disorder. His hospitalizations were kept quiet, and in fact the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in 1972, just after his vice presidential nomination: "He had been troubled with gastric disturbances, which led to occasional hospitalizations." These reports of stomach troubles gave rise to rumors that Eagleton had a drinking problem. In 1972 George McGovern ended up winning the Democratic Party nomination, largely because of his success in the primaries. McGovern had led a commission to re-design the Democratic nomination system, a response to the troubling and divisive nomination struggle at the party's convention of 1968. The McGovern Commission had concluded that the Democratic primaries should determine the winner of the Democratic nomination. These new rules angered many prominent Democrats whose influence was marginalized. Many of those politicians refused to support McGovern's campaign and some even went so far as to support Richard Nixon instead. Clearly, McGovern was not the candidate of the establishment of his party, and in fact Eagleton himself had bad-mouthed his future running mate to journalist Robert Novak, who quoted the Missouri Senator as having said that "The people don't know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion, and legalization of pot. Once middle America - Catholic middle America, in particular - finds this out, he's dead." The conservative Novak spun the quote into calling McGovern the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid." Polls taken at the time of the convention showed that McGovern was running well behind incumbent President Richard Nixon, His poll numbers improved only when McGovern was paired on a ticket with Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. McGovern's campaign brass lobbied Kennedy to accept the bid to be McGovern's running mate, but Kennedy continually refused their offer. Offers were then made to Hubert Humphrey, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale. All three of them also turned down the job. Finally, the vice presidential slot was offered to Eagleton and he accepted the offer. There was no real vetting of the last minute selection of Eagleton. Eagleton made no mention of his earlier hospitalizations. He and his wife decided that it would best to keep that detail secret from McGovern. The battle for a running mate was far from over. Hundreds of delegates were unhappy with McGovern. The vote to ratify Eagleton's candidacy was contested, with at least three other candidates having their names put into nomination. Votes were scattered between over 70 different candidates. A grassroots movement tried to displace Eagleton in favor of Texas state representative Frances Farenthold and it had significant support, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. The vice-presidential balloting went on so long that McGovern and Eagleton were forced to begin making their acceptance speeches at around 2 am, local time. Shortly after the convention ended, the news broke that Eagleton had undergone psychiatric electroshock therapy for depression and had concealed this information from McGovern. Too many Missouri politicians and other locals knew about Eagleton's hospitalizations and word was bound to get out. An anonymous source told the Detroit Free Press about Eagleton's past and they broke the story. Word quickly spread, including a spate of stories that weren't true. Columnist Jack Anderson falsely reported that Eagleton had a half-dozen "arrests" for drunk driving and other traffic offenses. He based his story on an unverified tip from a questionable source. Anderson's breach of journalistic ethics in printing unproven gossip led to some sympathy for Eagleton. A Time magazine poll taken at the time found that 77 percent of the respondents said, "Eagleton's medical record would not affect their vote." But the press made frequent references to Eagleton's "shock therapy" and that quickly became the early campaign story. Eagleton told reporters, "On three occasions in my life, I have voluntarily gone into hospitals as a result of nervous exhaustion and fatigue. As a younger man, I must say that I drove myself too far, and I pushed myself terribly, terribly hard, long hours, day and night." At first, McGovern declared that he was "1,000 percent" behind his running mate, words he would come to regret. At one campaign stop he told a crowd, "It's hot here tonight, but I'll tell you one thing: I can take the heat and I'm going to stay in the kitchen." McGovern subsequently consulted confidentially with preeminent psychiatrists, including Eagleton's own doctors. He was advised that a recurrence of Eagleton's depression was possible and could be a huge problem if Eagleton ever become president. Three days after McGovern had claimed that he would back Eagleton "1000 percent", he asked Eagleton to withdraw from the campaign. Eagleton agreed to do so. On August 1, just 19 days after being nominated, Eagleton withdrew at McGovern's request. Eagleton made the annoucement in Washington to hold a press conference. He said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I will not divide the Democratic Party. Therefore, tomorrow morning I will write to the chairman of the Democratic Party withdrawing my candidacy." He was soon replaced on the ticket by Sargent Shriver, Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law.
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McGovern's failure to properly vet Eagleton and his subsequent handling of the controversy opened the door for the Republican campaign to raise serious questions about his judgment. In the general election, McGovern was trounced. The Democratic ticket won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. However years later, in 2006, said that he regretted his removal of Eagleton from the ticket. “If had it to do over again, I’d have kept him. I didn’t know anything about mental illness. Nobody did.” Despite the negative publicity, Eagleton was twice re-elected to to the Senate in 1974 and again in 1980. During the 1980 election, Eagleton's niece Elizabeth Eagleton Weigand and lawyer Stephen Poludniak were arrested for blackmail after they threatened to spread false accusations that Eagleton was bisexual. Poludniak and Weigand appealed the conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, but were unsuccessful. Eagleton did not seek a fourth term in 1986. Eagleton died in St. Louis on March 4, 2007, of heart and respiratory complications.