McGovern

RIP McGovern

l3wis October 26, 2012 5Comments

George McGovern will continue to teach us far into the future with the moral discussions he always initiated

l3wis October 21, 2012 3Comments

My friend Bruce sent this to me today and asked I post it. Bruce first met McGovern as a pen pal when he was just a lad.

George McGovern died this morning.  I know this is not news to most.  It does give us a moment to pause to remember someone with who by getting into the arena changed the trajectory of a nation and by losing big competitions, taught us all how to rebuild, then move on to greater things.

I met McGovern as a child.  We exchanged many letters.  Mine were telling him of my dreams and him encouraging them.  When I wrote as a high school student of my plans to be involved in politics and history, he sent back a letter extolling the virtues of my dream.  We talked over the years at different events and he never failed to impress me with his idealism and vision.

In 1967, my father visited Senator McGovern in his Washington DC office to discuss an issue.  They had communicated previously through letters.  Upon meeting in person, George was reported to have said, “Danielson, Danielson, do you know a Bruce Danielson?”  To which my father, ego slightly deflated, began discussing his preteen son instead of the business at hand.  My involvement with George McGovern had become so well known in the small South Dakota town we had moved to, several old-time Republicans began calling McGovern whenever they saw me.  I always took it as a point of pride.

I never worked directly for McGovern but I always proudly supported him.  I did work for other politians but they all were held up to the idealism ingrained in me by the life lesson taught by George McGovern. I still believe people should be elected promising to make life better for society and not for their personal pocketbook.  By running for office with the strong moral compass based in a real belief system, McGovern was able to teach us until the day he died.  George McGovern will continue to teach us far into the future with the moral discussions he always initiated.

I also see that Mercer couldn’t resist to help nail the coffin shut. Written like a true Abdnor partisan.  He brought back the true hatred that permeated during the 1980 campaign.

Why I heart George McGovern

l3wis August 21, 2009 24Comments

Government is complicated? Right? George simplifies it;

If  former Sen. George McGovern were still in Congress and writing health reform legislation, it would be a one-page bill.

“I would have written a bill that said, ‘We hereby extend Medicare to all Americans.’ That would have been my solution. At least the public would understand it,” McGovern said this week.

He also pretty much sums up the f’ing idiocy surrounding the debate;

Universal health care for all Americans is long overdue, McGovern said. “We’re the only industrialized nation in the Western world that doesn’t have it.” Health reform, he predicts, will be the victim of “propaganda” that’s been thrown at it by the health insurance industry and President Obama’s opponents. “I can’t believe the trouble they’ve run into on that,” he said of the opposition that has developed to the proposed legislation.

Well said, George. I have to admit, I have had a man crush on Mr. McGovern for a long time, a true liberal senator. I saw him sitting in the bar at a table in Minerva’s one night by himself and could not work up the courage to talk to him, weird? Huh? All he was doing is writing in his day planner. I was not sure what I would say. I could asked about Hunter. No, that is weird. We could have discussed how he was a true war hero and his record makes McCain’s look like a boyscout who couldn’t start a fire with a lighter and a can of gasoline. I could have brought up his op-ed in Playboy about being a liberal. No, because then I would have to explain I read it for the articles.

Damn I suck.