McCARTHY, Eugene Joseph

(b. 29 March 1916 in Watkins, Minnesota), U.S. senator and author who challenged President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 Democratic presidential primaries as an anti–Vietnam War candidate, winning fervent support from college students, liberal activists, and others before ultimately losing his party's nomination to Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

McCarthy was born and raised in a rural area of central Minnesota. One of two sons of Michael J. McCarthy, a farmer, and Anna (Baden) McCarthy, a homemaker, he showed both an intellectual streak and athletic prowess (in baseball and ice hockey) while growing up. He attended Saint John's Preparatory School and Saint John's University, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1935, followed by graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, where he received a master's degree in sociology in 1941. From 1936 to 1940 he taught social science in high school and then returned to Saint John's University as a professor of economics and education. A brief stint as a civilian technical assistant with army intelligence in 1942 interrupted his academic career. After flirting with the idea of taking monastic vows, he married a teacher, Abigail Quigley, in 1945 and became a sociology instructor at the College of Saint Thomas, in Saint Paul. He and his wife had four children and later divorced.

Becoming active in the Democratic Farmer–Labor Party in the Saint Paul area, he received its nomination for U.S. Congress in 1948. McCarthy was elected and went on to serve five terms; he was best known there as the leader of McCarthy's Marauders (a caucus of young midwestern liberals) and for debating the much feared Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1952. (Joseph McCarthy was best known for his heavy-handed and wide-ranging investigation of Communism in the U.S. government and in society at large.) In 1958 McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate. His national profile was raised when he nominated Adlai Stevenson for president at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Increasingly, he gained a reputation as a loner, although he generally voted with his party's liberal faction. Briefly considered as Lyndon Johnson's vice presidential running mate in 1964, he went on to win reelection to the Senate by a record-setting margin that year.

Over the next two years McCarthy emerged as a critic of Johnson's Vietnam War policies, voting in 1966 to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which effectively gave the president unlimited authorization to use American military forces in Southeast Asia. Beyond the war itself, McCarthy objected to the Johnson administration's disregard for the Senate's role in shaping foreign policy. He was likewise critical of the Central Intelligence Agency's influence in policy-making and sought to reduce U.S. arms sales abroad. In 1967 he detailed his views in The Limits of Power, a thoughtful, yet scathing book that condemned reckless American intervention in other nations' affairs.

For all his anger and frustration, McCarthy was slow to emerge as the leader of the "dump Johnson" movement. Initially, he considered Senator Robert F. Kennedy to be the strongest potential challenger. A deliberate, cerebral man with a penchant for writing poetry, McCarthy never saw himself at the head of a radical campaign to seize the Democratic Party. Thanks to the urgings of the liberal activist Allard K. Lowenstein and his own daughter Mary, he finally decided to accept the backing of antiwar activists and enter the 1968 presidential primaries. McCarthy explained his candidacy in clear-cut moral terms. In a December 1967 speech, he called the Vietnam War "central to all the problems of America … diplomatically indefensible" and the source of the country's growing disillusionment with government.

Although the experts dismissed his chances, McCarthy's campaign attracted impressive numbers of college students as volunteers. Young people were encouraged to get "Clean for Gene," that is, to spruce up and canvass door-to-door for votes. The efforts of this "Children's Crusade" proved decisive in the campaign's first primary, held in New Hampshire on 12 March. Winning a surprising 42 percent of the vote, McCarthy demonstrated that Johnson was vulnerable. The shock waves from New Hampshire led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race on 31 March. Two days later McCarthy decisively won the Wisconsin primary, only to face new opposition from Robert Kennedy (who had decided to enter the primaries) and Vice President Hubert Humphrey (who courted delegates outside the primary system). Running against these opponents proved more difficult than taking on the unpopular president. Losing his stride, McCarthy came in third in the Indiana primary on 7 May and was beaten by Kennedy in Nebraska a week later.

Lacking a stark contrast over issues, the Democratic primary race began to focus on more personal charges. The Kennedy forces portrayed McCarthy as an aloof intellectual; the McCarthy supporters painted Kennedy as a ruthless opportunist. Against his opponent's flash and charisma, McCarthy presented a subdued reasonableness that held considerable appeal in affluent suburban areas. It worked well for him in the Oregon primary—backed by a strong local volunteer organization, he scored an impressive victory there, becoming the first candidate ever to defeat a Kennedy brother in an election. This win set up the two men for a showdown in California on 4 June.

The bitterness between the McCarthy and Kennedy campaigns reached new heights during the California contest. At a San Francisco appearance, McCarthy charged that Kennedy "played a prominent role in formulating policies which resulted in disastrous adventures," including the Vietnam War. He also criticized his opponent for relying too much on private enterprise to reduce poverty in America's inner cities, favoring a more activist government approach that included job-linked housing programs outside the ghetto. This latter issue became a point of contention during the two candidates' televised debate on 1 June. Kennedy accused his foe of proposing to "take 10,000 black people and move them into Orange County [a Los Angeles suburb]," a charge with decidedly racist overtones. McCarthy failed to respond to these and other jabs with much vigor, turning in a lackluster performance. Three days later Kennedy defeated McCarthy by five percentage points, only to be assassinated shortly after claiming victory. The tragedy effectively ended the McCarthy campaign as well, although McCarthy continued to search for delegates and engage in credentials challenges up until the Democratic convention.

After winning the New York primary on 18 June, McCarthy conducted what some supporters viewed as an erratic, indifferent campaign. He appeared downbeat and self-absorbed, uncertain of how to proceed against Humphrey, who was rolling up enough delegates to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite the fact that political polls indicated that McCarthy, rather than Humphrey, was the strongest candidate against the likely Republican nominee, Richard Nixon, old-guard Democratic professionals remained opposed to his candidacy. The late entrance of Senator George McGovern into the race as a second antiwar candidate complicated matters further. As the convention approached, McCarthy bristled at the notion that he had become a halfhearted, passive candidate who lacked compassion and feeling. At one delegate gathering, he noted, "A little passivity in that office [the presidency] is all right, a kind of balance.… I have never quite known what active compassion is.… Compassion, in my mind, is to suffer with someone, not in advance of him."

On the eve of August's Democratic convention in Chicago, McCarthy acknowledged that his chances were all but hopeless. Humphrey easily triumphed over McCarthy on the first ballot but never recovered from the ill-will between his party's factions. The violence committed by Chicago police against demonstrators outside the convention hall further soured McCarthy's supporters from casting their lot with Humphrey. Although he discouraged his supporters from launching an independent campaign on his behalf, McCarthy refused to endorse the Democratic ticket until Humphrey turned away from Johnson's war policies. He finally gave his support on 29 October, after the vice president announced his willingness to suspend bombing in North Vietnam. This last-minute gesture failed to save Humphrey from a narrow defeat by Nixon.

Before Election Day, McCarthy had announced his intention not to seek reelection to the U.S. Senate. Returning to the political wars in 1972, he ran a limited campaign for the Democratic nomination. Four years later he sought the presidency as an independent, polling less than 1 percent of the vote (although arguably drawing enough votes from the Democratic contender, Jimmy Carter, nearly to elect the Republican nominee, Gerald Ford). Further unsuccessful bids for office followed, including a run for the U.S. Senate in 1982 and a small-scale effort as the presidential nominee of the Consumers Party in 1988. He had trouble attracting notice for his third try for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. Ever the maverick, he opposed federal election reform and championed a shorter work week during this campaign, which garnered few votes. Besides seeking office, he spent his post-Senate years lecturing at universities and writing books. His published works have included everything from political studies to children's stories and collections of poetry.

An unusual mixture of freethinker and traditionalist, McCarthy spent much of his public career trying to reform existing American institutions. His 1968 campaign was an attempt to restore the balance of power between Congress and the presidency and to curb the excesses of the military. As an articulate spokesman for the antiwar forces, McCarthy made opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam seem reasonable and morally compelling. More conservative than many of his followers, he served to bring many young activists into the political system before embarking on his own idiosyncratic path in the 1970s.

Books by McCarthy relating to the events of 1968 include The Limits of Power (1967), The Year of the People (1969), and Up 'Til Now: A Memoir (1987). Valuable studies of the campaign by former McCarthy aides include Arthur Herzog, McCarthy for President (1969), and Jeremy Larner, Nobody Knows (1969). Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page, An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 (1969), provides an excellent overview of the politics of that year.

Barry Alfonso