Word: eagleton
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...this is a partial answer to yet another puzzling question about the affair: Why did McGovern and his staff fail to check Eagleton's background more carefully? Both the candidate and his aides were busy with other things in the important period between McGovern's California primary victory and nomination night five weeks later: winning the California credentials challenge, defeating amendments to the party platform that could have proved politically embarrassing, polishing his acceptance summons to "Come Home, America." Campaign Manager Gary Hart admits: "There were no formal staff meetings, no requests to check people out. I take...
...Eagleton's name, says McGovern Executive Assistant Gordon Weil, had first come up speculatively about a month before. When his assets and liabilities were discussed at the last-minute staff meeting, several staff men mentioned rumors of a drinking problem; none, insists Frank Mankiewicz, concerned hospitalization. Weil and one or two other staffers made quick calls to Missouri political figures and to journalists. Says Hart: "There was no tangible evidence whatsoever. Nobody could verify." Despite firm, repeated words of discouragement from Edward Kennedy, however, McGovern stuck to the belief that Ted would run as No. 2. Myer Feldman...
...Plainly, McGovern was badly served by his staff-a staff of his choosing. He has had other problems with it, partly because he has confused the areas of authority. Gordon Weil, 35, is an abrasive Ph.D. Who joined two years ago as press secretary. He undertook to investigate the Eagleton rumors and he was the staff man principally responsible for the poorly worked-out welfare scheme that McGovern was forced to abandon during the primary campaign. After McGovern persuaded Larry O'Brien to sign on as national campaign director, Rival Gary Hart started putting out reports that...
...financial side of McGovern's operations is in no better shape. The big Democratic moneybags are hostile; even Los Angeles Millionaire Max Palevsky, who contributed some $350,000 to McGovern's primary campaigns, is disenchanted. Of the Eagleton affair, Palevsky says bitterly: "This is a perfect example of that staff. If there is a way to f- up something, they will find it." Henry Kimelman, another major McGovern moneyman (see BUSINESS), is also uneasy. Before the Eagleton matter blew up, he was unhappy at the speed with which the tacticians were spending money...
...politicians and editorial writers clamoring for Tom Eagleton's exit from the Democratic ticket do not appear to reflect the views of the public. According to a nationwide telephone sampling of 1,015 eligible voters conducted for TIME last week by Crossley Surveys Inc., the American people are more sympathetic to Eagleton than the headlines suggest. The questions...