Former South Dakota US Senator George McGovern died early this morning in a Sioux Falls hospice at the age of 90 from a combination of medical conditions due to age.
McGovern, a war hero who served in the Senate from 1963 to 1981, ran for president as the Democrat nominee against the incumbent Richard Nixon in 1972 but lost in a landslide.
AP describes McGovern as “a proud liberal who had argued fervently against Vietnam War.”
As The Inquisitr has previously reported, McGovern’s legacy is more than his defeat by Nixon however, as the long-time Senator was a major advocate for humanitarian issues, including combating world hunger and AIDS. He was appointed by then-President Bill Clinton as a US ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in 2001 and later became the UN’s first global ambassador for world hunger.
McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign also established a principle that nominees need to thoroughly vett their vice presidential running mates as AP explains:
“McGovern could not escape the embarrassing missteps of his own campaign of 1972. The most torturous was the selection of Missouri Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton as the vice presidential nominee and, 18 days later, following the disclosure that Eagleton had undergone electroshock therapy for depression, the decision to drop him from the ticket despite having pledged to back him ‘1,000 percent.’ “
McGovern replaced Eagleton with Sargent Shriver, but the reconfigured Democrat ticket only managed to carry Massachusetts and DC.
The McGovern family indicated it will be announcing funeral details shortly.The family encouraged those wishing to offer remembrances of the former senator to donate to Feeding South Dakota in his honor.
