Download The Eighteen-Day Running Mate: McGovern, Eagleton, and a Campaign in Crisis AudioBook Free
No skeletons were rattling in his wardrobe, Thomas Eagleton assured George McGovern's political director. But only eighteen days and nights later-after a series of damaging general public revelations and feverish behind-the-scenes maneuverings-McGovern rescinded his endorsement of his Democratic vice-presidential jogging mate, and Eagleton withdrew from the solution. This fascinating book is the first ever to uncover the entire history behind Eagleton's surge and precipitous fall as a countrywide candidate. Within days and nights of Eagleton's nomination, a pair of anonymous calls brought to light his history of hospitalizations for "nervous exhaustion and depressive disorder" and past treatment with electroshock therapy. The revelation rattled the campaign and placed McGovern's business under intense general public and advertising scrutiny. Joshua M.Glasser investigates a campaign in disarray and explores the perspectives of the campaign's key players, how decisions were made and who made them, how ethnic attitudes toward mental condition informed the problems, and how Eagleton's and McGovern's personal ambitions molded the course of events. Drawing on personal interviews with McGovern, campaign director Gary Hart, political director Frank Mankiewicz, and a large number of other participants inside and outside the McGovern and Eagleton camps-as well as comprehensive unpublished campaign records-Glasser catches the political and human crisis of Eagleton's quick candidacy. Glasser also offers sharp insights into the America of 1972-mired in conflict and stressed about the market, a time with dazzling similarities to your own.
